Kenseth's Fifth-Place Run Tops Ford Drivers In Brickyard 400
Ford Finishing Results:
5th – Matt Kenseth
7th – Greg Biffle
14th – Carl Edwards
22nd – AJ Allmendinger
23rd – David Ragan
26th – Andy Lally
30th – Trevor Bayne
32nd – Mike Bliss
33rd – David Gilliland
34th – Marcos Ambrose
39th – Scott Speed
41st – Terry Labonte
MATT KENSETH – No. 17 Crown Royal Ford Fusion – IT WAS A GOOD RUN. “Yeah, we ran really good. We were probably the second-best car most of the day. I think the 24 had the field covered, so I’m happy for Paul Menard being a first-time winner. It’s kind of a shame that Jeff didn’t win. I thought we had the fastest two cars and I was hoping we were gonna be able to duke it out on performance to the end and try to race for that thing, but that’s just the way the racing is these days. We’ll still keep trying to bring fast Crown Royal Fords to the race track and hopefully we’ll have some more chances this year.”
WHAT ABOUT PAUL MENARD WINNING? “It is a huge win for him. I’m happy for Paul, although I was irritated after the race since he ran me off the race track on that restart, but I’m happy he got the win. I wish it wouldn’t have come down to fuel mileage, but I’m glad that he got the win. He’s been running awfully good this year and he deserves a good win.”
YOU WORKED THROUGH SOME THINGS TO STAY IN CONTENTION. “We didn’t really have a lot of setbacks today. We did a good job on pit road and everything went good, except for the 31 was on pit road there and I didn’t know it. That cost us a few seconds which cost me position with the 24, but, other than that, we had a pretty good day. Our car was pretty strong all day.” WHAT ABOUT THE HEAT? “I just drank more Gatorade.”
ARE YOU SURPISED AT HOW THE STRATEGY PLAYED OUT? “Well, no I’m not surprised the race went down to fuel mileage. That’s all we’ve been talking about for three months. It happens so much this year, especially, so I’m not surprised with that. I was a little surprised they ran that many laps, but Paul had a pretty fast car, too. He had a top 10 car probably, so he could still run fast and save gas. Some of the guys that were saving gas were so slow you were gonna beat them anyway, but Paul had a reasonably fast car and, of course, he had fuel mileage.”
YOU HAD A STRONG DAY TODAY. “We had a great car. Jimmy and the guys did a great job on the Crown Royal Ford Fusion. I thought it was us and the 24 probably had the two best cars overall through the day, so it’s a shame one of us didn’t get the win, but we ran really good. Hopefully, we’ll keep putting ourselves in position like this and there will be more races that come down to performance at the end of the race and we can be in the mix of things and have a shot at some wins.”
YOU HAD A PASS ON PAUL ON THE INSIDE AND THEN YOU WERE FOUR-WIDE AT ONE POINT. “On Paul we took the restart and the inside groove is so much superior that I expected to get some room starting on the outside and I went into one and he ran me right off the race track. He ran me right up in the marbles and slammed my door and I lost a couple spots there. When I got to him I wanted to pass him, but I never hit him down there. I got a run off of three and he blocked me, which I kind of expected especially being for the lead and just with the air of the car kind of got him sideways and I just had to stay in there and get to him fast because I knew he wasn’t gonna give me any extra room, which you shouldn’t because he’s the leader trying to stay out front.”
FOUR WIDE. “The four-wide thing Jimmie and I raced really good early today and I pushed him by a couple of guys, instead of putting him three and four-wide, so, to be honest, I got a run under Jimmie and almost had him cleared and I expected him to get behind me and push me by those guys, and then I saw him go outside the 51 three-wide and, as you can see when it gets singled out, you don’t have time to waste, so I just hung a left and went four-wide by those guys and had enough momentum and a lot of power to get in that spot.”
SO THE GUYS WHO PITTED EARLY DIDN’T EXPECT THOSE GUYS TO MAKE IT? “I’ve got to honest with you, I’d have to watch it and tell you. I don’t know. We had four tires on and had five or six laps on tires, but we were like eight laps short to the end if we would have pitted then, so we knew we needed about 15 laps of fuel. Everybody must have pitted on one to go or something and that would have put us four or five laps short and Jimmy didn’t think we could make that without slowing way up, so we just ran fast and hoped to have a shot.”
HOW WAS YOUR RUN? “We had a great ride. Our Crown Royal Ford was really fast. I thought between us and the 24, on average, it seemed like we had the best cars. I’m really disappointed to be fifth. I thought me and the 24 were gonna have a shot at racing for the win, but I’m happy for Paul. He’s been running really good all year. You didn’t know who was gonna win the race until the checkered flag fell, so it was real exciting to the end. It’s good to see all the fans out here today and I look forward to trying again next year.”
THIS SEEMS LIKE A POPULAR WIN IN THE GARAGE AREA. “Yeah, it’s not like Paul runs around 25th every week and lucked into the race. Paul’s been running good all year. They’ve been really strong and you knew it was a matter of time before they got a win, so it was pretty cool for him to be able to win the Brickyard.”
GREG BIFFLE – No. 16 3M Ford Fusion – “The fuel mileage kind of worked out for us today. We got in that wreck and then kind of had to come down and pit and that set us up for making it to the end, but we were off just a little bit. I don’t think we were off that much. We just couldn’t get any track position. We had a pretty good car, but I was just stuck back there.
TREVOR BAYNE – No. 21 Motorcraft/Quick Lane Ford Fusion – HOW HARD WAS IT TO COME DOWN PIT ROAD WITH 4 TO GO AND GIVE UP 4TH PLACE? “That was awful. I wish we would have just pitted five laps into the run with everybody else so I didn’t feel so sick to my stomach having to pit there. We had a few times where we had to pit when we didn’t want to with grass getting kicked up into our grille a few times. When you get back in the pack like that those things are gonna happen. We were just unfortunate to have it happen to us three times and have to pit so many times. It was a hard-fought day for a 30th-place finish. It doesn’t feel like that, but we learned a lot. I was glad to be here, but I definitely want to be running better than that.”
CARL EDWARDS – No. 99 Scotts Ortho Ford Fusion – “I thought I had engine issues, but if I did they went away. The thing ran great. It would run out of power a couple times and I think in the end it was the wind. I think I was feeling the wind buffet the car a little bit and I was thinking it was the engine. I think the engine was fine.” YOU PLAYED THE FUEL MILEAGE GAME DOWN THE STRETCH. HOW DID IT GO? “We got forced into that by me wrecking the front end of the car and it ended up working out better than it would have otherwise, so it was alright.”
ANDY LALLY – No. 71 Interstate Moving Services Ford Fusion – “It was unbelievable how long we went with that Ford engine and made all that mileage. It was a great day. We bumped ourselves back into the top 35 in points and that’s been the mission from the beginning of the year is to get ourselves in the top 35 and we did it today with a huge points swing. We can go into Pocono now real comfortable and work on race setup for once, instead of doing a couple qualifying runs here and there. That’s good because we struggled with our race setup a little bit at Pocono, but I’ve got to thank these guys today at TRG Motorsports. They made the right call. Doug Richert on the box and our new engineer, Mark, Kevin – everybody working together – and it was absolutely great. We had a bunch of people from Interstate Moving Services on board with us at the track here today and on pit lane. Running up front as high as we were near the end was pretty neat. I knew we were gonna go backwards there a tick, but this Ford ran great all day.”
