Ford Texas Truck Race

FORD RACING NOTES AND QUOTES

Silverado 350 (Truck)
November 3, 2006
Texas Motor Speedway

TERRY COOK-10-Ford Power Stroke Diesel by Int'l F-150 (Finished 8th) - "I thought we had a truck that could run up there with them, but we just lost a bunch of track position on that last pit stop. We made an adjustment and it just took us some extra time. Once you lose the track position - we weren't very good in traffic. When we were out running with the top three or four and we separated ourselves, and we were just as good as anybody, but when we get mixed up in a back - whether it's double-file on restarts - we were just terrible. I don't understand what the problem was with the truck, if the nose was up a little too high or what, but we could not get through turns one and two on the outside. Actually, we couldn't run on the outside anywhere all night long. We slid all the way back to 11th and a couple of competitors took us three wide off of turn two and got us up in the wall and wrinkled up the left-front fender and lost a ton of downforce there. We battled back from 11th to eighth. Three weeks ago we would have been tickled to death with a top-10 effort, but knowing that we had this strong of a race truck and ran some of the fastest laps of the race, if not the fastest lap of the race, that's pretty hard to swallow to only come out of here with an eighth-place finish."

DAVID RAGAN-6-Scotts Ford F-150 (Finished 6th) - YOUR TRUCK SEEMED TO COME TO LIFE AT THE END OF THE RACE. "That's the story of our year. We just need some more laps or one less caution. Mike Beam and everybody on the Scotts Ford F-150 did an amazing job of getting this thing ready. They have a lot to do this weekend along with the Busch car. A good, solid run for us. I need to win one of these things, and I know we were in position and just need to finish things up a bit. A good run, though." AFTER FAILING TO QUALIFY FOR THE CUP RACE THIS AFTERNOON, DID YOU FEEL YOU NEEDED TO PROVE YOURSELF TONIGHT? "A little. It's very disappointing not making the Cup show. I feel like we weren't on our game. It just seemed like we were an adjustment or two behind all day on the Cup, and that car was capable of making the show and I was capable of making the show, but we just didn't have it right. It was probably a little motivation throughout the race to keep working hard and keep digging. All in all, this is what we need to come out and do - just make laps and get better. I'm sure if we had it to do it all over again there'd be a few things that we would change."

MARCOS AMBROSE-20-Team Australia/Aussie Vineyards Ford F-150 (Finished 10th) - "We just fought all day. We got a new crew chief (Michael Cooper) the last couple of races and it's exciting to have someone so new, and it's the first time that he's been in this position. We're just learning each other and working stuff out. We just kept hustling all day and fought as hard as we could. We wanted to make it better, but we kind of ran out laps there and just kept picking away at it and just jumped a couple on the last green-white-checkered there and got a top-10 out of it." YOU MENTION PICKING OFF A FEW SPOTS ON THE FINAL RESTARTS. DO YOU FEEL THAT YOU'RE STARTING TO GET A FEEL FOR INTRICACIES OF TRUCK RACING? "It is great. We've done our fair share of going backwards on those deals. I'm learning all the time and gradually getting better at it. At the same time I really wanted to finish that race with this truck. It's going to make our Homestead race a lot easier to take that truck. We know it well and I'm sure we're going to get it better than that at Homestead."

RICK CRAWFORD-14-Circle Bar Truck Corral Ford F-150 (Finished 33rd) - IT LOOKED LIKE YOU TOOK A HARD HIT INTO THE SAFER BARRIER. WHAT HAPPENED? "It was a very hard lick. I don't know. We've had three or four right-front tire failures cost this Circle Bar Truck Corral Ford this year. If that hadn't had happened, we'd probably be leading the points by now. But, Kevin Starland (crew chief), Tom Mitchell (owner) and everybody at Circle Bar Truck Corral gives me a great truck to drive, and I was having fun tonight and just didn't make it to the end."