Matt Kenseth won his third race of the season and…
Matt Kenseth Sends Ford To NASCAR Sprint Cup Series Victory Lane For Seventh Time in 2011
Ford Finishing Results:
1st – Matt Kenseth
3rd – Carl Edwards
5th – Marcos Ambrose
7th – AJ Allmendinger
11th – David Ragan
15th – Greg Biffle
22nd – J.J. Yeley
30th – Mike Bliss
31st – Trevor Bayne
33rd – Hermie Sadler
36th – David Gilliland
40th – Travis Kvapil
42nd – Andy Lally
·
Matt Kenseth took the checkered flag for the 21st time in his
NASCAR Sprint Cup Series career with tonight’s win and for
the second time at Charlotte Motor Speedway in a points
event.
·
Tonight’s win is the seventh of the season for Ford Racing,
equaling the total of the last two years combined.
·
The win was the 125th all-time NSCS win for Roush Fenway
Racing.
·
This marks the first NSCS win for Ford at Charlotte Motor Speedway
since 2002 when Mark Martin won the Coca-Cola 600.
MATT KENSETH – No. 17 Fluidmaster Ford Fusion
– PRESS CONFERENCE – “It was an awesome
win for us. We had a pretty decent car all night. I felt
like we had a car that probably the last 150 laps or so that if we
could get it to the front it would be hard to beat, but it was just
really hard to pass tonight, especially if you had about 20 laps on
your tires. You had to get it done right away and we got a little
behind that one time and got back to fifth or sixth and, honestly,
it took that last 150 laps or whatever to get back to the
lead. It was a good race. I had fun racing with Kyle
there. We had a pretty decent restart, the second-to-last one,
and got by Denny and Carl and ran Kyle down. It was tough to
get by him and I’m glad we could make it happen because it
was challenging.”
JACK ROUSH, Car Owner – “I’m really
proud of what Matt and Jimmy did tonight. Crew chiefs have a
really hard job. He’s out shuffling the car through the
tech line to make sure the height measurements are fair and
everything works out the way he thinks they
should. That’s the reason why he’s
not here right now, but with all the engineering and all the
technical support behind these teams, it comes down to decisions
– the last 20 percent of the decision for what the setup is
– that’s worked out between the driver and the crew
chief. Jimmy is a championship quality crew chief. He won
with Kurt Busch a few years ago and Matt won with Robbie, of
course, and Robbie is our general manager now. But we’ve
got a lot of depth in the organization. All of the Ford cars
ran well tonight. It was just a matter of time until Matt
broke loose from his obscurity in the back and middle of the pack
and worked his way to the front, but what happened to Jimmie
Johnson is a sobering lesson for everybody. You can’t
afford to break apart. You can’t afford to put a wheel
wrong. A loose lugnut on pit road with an extra pass at the
wrong time to serve a penalty could be a championship losing
event. There is just a lot that these guys have to do that has
to really be done correctly and Jimmy and Matt got it done tonight
and I’m sure they’re going to be a factor in this
championship going down the stretch.”
JIMMY FENNIG, Crew Chief – “It was pretty
good at the end there. We made another adjustment and it seemed
like the car came to life a little bit better. We still
didn’t get it totally fixed, but it was good enough to win
tonight.”
MATT KENSETH CONTINUED – HOW IMPORTANT IS YOUR
IMPROVED QUALIFYING EFFORT? “It makes a big
difference. It’s a lot different than it was five or six
years ago. I used to probably not stress out quite as much
about qualifying because if you started 25th and had one
of the best cars, it wasn’t a problem to pass 24 cars in four
hours. But everybody is a lot closer to the same speed, which
obviously makes it a little bit more difficult to pass and track
position is really important, so qualifying always helps. It
helps you with your pit stall, it helps you with your track
position. Hopefully, you can get out and get a bonus point and
lead a little bit, so it’s always
important.”
JIMMY FENNIG CONTINUED – “Qualifying is
real important. For one thing, if you don’t qualify good
you’re stuck back in the pack and you’ve got all that
dirty air and it makes your adjustments for us a little bit harder
racing against the dirty air and figuring out what to do, so
it’s pretty important to qualify good.”
MATT KENSETH CONTINUED – HOW WERE YOUR RESTARTS
BETTER TONIGHT? “Restarts have obviously not been my
specialty lately. If you watch many races, especially when we
restart second on the bottom, and I’ve done an extremely poor
job of that. I was kicking myself on the third or fourth
restart from the end when I restarted alongside of Kyle and Carl
got around me and then the 11 got around me on the next
restart. I knew we had a shot to win the race if we could get
in front of Kyle. I ran him down the last long run we
had. I knew our car was a little bit superior to his and I was
gonna feel pretty bad if I was the weak link and cost these guys a
race again. Thankfully, on the second-to-last restart we were
fourth on the outside and I could get rolling with Kyle right away
and had a good couple sets of corners and got up to second, and
then I was able to race him one-on-one so that was a big
key.” CAN YOU TALK ABOUT THAT ONE RESTART WHERE YOU WENT
THREE-WIDE? “That particular restart I ran three-wide
through turn one and two, which isn’t really advisable, but
it’s difficult to pass and what happens is there’s a
lot of guys on two and you’ve got to take advantage of your
four tires. Tonight it was real weird because you could run
maybe 15-20 laps and you had an advantage, you can pass, and then
it was like you flipped a switch and everybody was the same speed
and you just couldn’t go forward anymore. We were real
aggressive there and made our way back up to fifth or sixth and
settled in right there. We had a good pit stop. Jimmy
pitted me a couple laps early and we passed a couple more of those
guys and got ourselves back up to third and that put us back up in
the mix again.”
JACK ROUSH CONTINUED -- WHAT IS THE SATISFACTION LEVEL
TO WIN? “I don’t know if you saw the same race
that I did, but we had seven of our cars tonight that ran in the
top 10 most of the night, except for problems we
had. We’re at the top of our game as far as our
mile-and-a-half program. There are other teams that have got
good programs, but nobody has a better mile-and-a-half program than
us. Including tonight, there were three mile-and-a-half races
left in the Chase, so I felt really good about that. Ford has
given us great support for our Fusions. We’ve got a good
aero package on them. Our kinematics work well based on the
lab testing we’ve done and engines make a lot of power, so
I’m not embarrassed that we haven’t won more
races. We’ve had a lot of races that we’ve missed
just because we made the wrong decision that worked out for two
tires, no tires. We’ve been challenged with judgments
about how much fuel was in the tank a couple of times, but
we’re in championship form. In my 24 years
I’ve never had better cars for the championship stretch than
we’ve got and we’re anxious to see how it’s gonna
work out. I don’t feel vindicated, I just think that the
hard work everybody has done is paying off and we’re getting
what we deserve.”
MATT KENSETH CONTINUED – “I’m happy
to have won, obviously. Like you said, it’s
been 20 races, which doesn’t really seem that long because I
don’t know how many it was before that, but I think it was
70-some before that. You’re always
thankful. I’m always thankful to get to victory
lane. You never know if you’re ever gonna win another
race or when your last win is, and I’m certainly thankful for
them all and I greatly appreciate being in a position to be able to
win races and these guys giving me the cars and the crew and the
opportunity to do that.”
JACK ROUSH CONTINUED – HOW MUCH DOES
JIMMIE’S ACCIDENT CHANGE THE CHASE FOR YOU
GUYS? “For anybody that hopes to win the
championship that has a wreck or breaks an engine or has a cut tire
at the wrong time, you can’t expect to get a
mulligan. You’ll be very lucky if somebody will give you
back a chance to make up a whole race. I thought that Jimmie
Johnson would be a factor in it and he’s definitely gonna
have to stand in line and wait for the other folks that are in the
top five to have problems for him to get back in it. He
won’t race his way back in it. He won’t finish
high enough above the top four or five cars to beat them on the
race track. He’ll have to wait for them to have trouble,
I think.”
WHAT DOES IT SAY ABOUT THIS SPORT WHEN A GUY WINS THE
RACE AND HIS FIRST WORDS ARE ABOUT NEEDING A SPONSOR FOR NEXT
YEAR? “We do need a sponsor for the 17 car. I
didn’t hear him say that, but that’s a fact. The
17 car is secure in Roush Fenway’s livery. We will run
it with or without a sponsor next year, but it would be a shame if
we’re not able to attract sponsorship. We’re
talking to people with some interest, but this is my
24th year of being in the business and this is the most
difficult time that I’ve had. We’ve gone through a
transition with our sponsors from a time when they wanted to
compete for top car to where now the best sponsors want just enough
of a car to be able to do their promotions and want to share the
bulk of the expense of it if they can. It’s a really strange
time. I’ve never seen anything like this. I’m
not sure what we’ll have coming out of it. It’ll
be different than it’s been in the past.”
MATT KENSETH CONTINUED – DOES IT BOTHER YOU THAT
YOU KIND OF GET LOST IN THE SHUFFLE OF CHASE
CONTENDERS? “It doesn’t really matter to me that
much what everybody things. We’re in it or out of it or
whatever. What’s important to me is trying to win races
and trying to be competitive and go do the best job we can do every
week. I don’t really care about Wii dance offs or how
much coverage you get for doing certain things. If somebody
wants to say I’m boring or whatever, I was hired to try to go
win races and try to run good and that’s what I try to do
every week. I take my job real serious when I’m at the
race track. Jimmy and I and all the guys work as hard as we
can on the common goal of trying to be the best and trying to win
and trying to run for a championship and that’s who we are at
the race track.”
IS THERE A SENSE OF URGENCY AS FAR AS
SPONSORSHIP? “I’m not gonna get stressed out about
it, especially right now in the Chase and with all the things
we’ve got going on. I don’t know really what else
we can be doing, except for trying to be competitive and run
good. Those guys in the marketing and sales department need to
figure that out and need to figure out how to get that
done. Jimmy and I will keep working on the jobs that we were
hired for and I’m sure it’s all gonna work
out. I’ve been really fortunate through my
career. We had DeWalt for over a decade. Crown Royal was
involved at Roush for over eight years and have been great
supporters of the organization and really thankful for all the time
that they have been there and how much they have helped the
whole organization – not just me, but a few different drivers
there – so I’m certainly thankful for that and look
forward to whatever is next.”
WHAT DO YOU THINK ABOUT JOHNSON’S ISSUE
TONIGHT? “I have to be honest, I don’t know where
anybody is at in the points, really. All we have any control
over, and we always can’t control the whole outcome of that,
but all we have any control over is our own car and ourselves and
what we do, so I honestly don’t spend a lot of time to see
where anybody else finishes or what they have going. We go out
every week and try to beat the other 42 cars and finish as high as
can and that’s how you get the most points and not really
worry about what everybody else does. I think Jimmie, I
don’t know what happened to him tonight or where he finished
or anything, but a few weeks ago everybody thought he was out of it
and he finished first and second and he got right back in
it. I don’t know the whole points thing, where anybody
is at, but certainly anything can happen at Talladega and I think
Phoenix is gonna be quite interesting as well. There’s a
lot of racing to do. We’re halfway through it, but five
races is a lot of races.”
WOULD WINNING A CHASE CHAMPIONSHIP HOLD ANY SPECIAL MEANING
FOR YOU? “If we could actually do it I could probably
answer the question better afterwards, but certainly no matter what
format they come up with or what point system they come up with or
how they do it your goal every year is to try to win a championship
and your goal every week is to try to show up and win. That
never really changes. Yeah, you’d love to be able to win
another one, but, I tell you what, they’re hard to win and
you’ve got to have everything go right and you’ve got
to have a lot of nights like we’ve had here the last two or
three weeks, and the next five I think you’re gonna have to
run in the top five every week to have a shot at
it. That’s just the way I feel with the way those guys
are running, so we’ll just keep taking it one week at a time.
If that happened, that would obviously be great. The same guy
has won it for five years straight, so I think anybody that could
beat him, I think, would feel pretty good about it no matter what
system or how they count the points or how they do that. I
think it would feel good.”
JIMMY FENNIG CONTINUED – DO YOU LIKE HAVING THAT
FIRST PIT STALL WHERE YOU CAN DICTATE STRATEGY
POSSIBLY? “Picking back down there, I like dictating
what people do. If we can control the race, then they’re
at our mercy you could say, but I don’t really pay attention
to what they’re doing because I’ve got that pit stall,
I just kind of worry about what we’re doing.” MATT
INTERJECTS: “He picks 43 so I won’t get
lost.” (laughter)
MATT KENSETH CONTINUED -- WHAT ARE THE CHALLENGES THESE
NEXT THREE TRACKS PRESENT FOR YOU? “Out of the first
five, Loudon I feel is one of my worst tracks and Jimmy got the car
rolling there good, and we finished sixth. That was one of our
worst tracks and I felt like we did okay. I guess moving
forward, I don’t know what’s gonna happen at
Talladega. Certainly in July at Daytona David and I had a plan
and stuck to it the whole weekend and it worked out great. We
finished first and second. I think it would be expecting a lot
to expect it to go that smooth again and for that to all work out,
but the way that kind of tandem racing is there, hopefully, him and
I will be able to finish and stay together and make something
happen there again. I don’t think anybody has an
advantage or disadvantage at Phoenix. Who knows what’s
gonna happen at that one, and Martinsville we’ve gotten
better at lately. I feel it’s one of my worst tracks, but the
last few times we’ve actually run pretty competitively there,
so I don’t feel our cars are limited to only being fast at
the mile-and-a-half tracks. Certainly, the tracks with more
speed and more banking seems to fit not so much our cars or style
or whatever, but it seems a little easier for us maybe than some of
those other tracks, but I think we’ve been pretty competitive
at most of the tracks this season most times.”
HOW DO YOU NOT LET CHICAGO HANG OVER YOU OR THE
TEAM? “It’s gone and the only thing you can do
from that is learn from it. I know Doug and everybody has been
working really hard at trying to keep power, but also get us fuel
mileage and tonight I think we were closer to where we needed to be
if we would have been like that at Chicago. I don’t feel
like, as a team, what we do on the 17, we could have done a thing
about Chicago. I don’t think we could have executed the
race any better. We were on the pole. We led quite a few
laps. We were leading on the last restart. He put me in
position to win. There’s just nothing else we could have
done. I would have had to go so slow that we would have
finished where we finished anyway and probably went two laps down,
so we just didn’t have control over that. That’s
just when the caution fell and we were getting a few tenths worse
mileage than most of the field and couldn’t do anything about
that. All you can do from those things, I think, is hopefully
learn from it, work on it and try to be hopefully closer or better
if the caution flag falls at that point again.”
WHAT WAS IT LIKE THOSE YEARS WHEN IT WAS AN UPHILL
BATTLE? “I probably meant more you’d kill for a
couple wins. I think we’ve contended for some wins, even
toward the end of last year it seemed like as an organization all
of our cars started running better and by the end of last year I
think Jimmy and I, we’ve always understood each other, but I
think after you get to work together for awhile you kind of work
better together and know more of what each other is saying. I
felt good about things when we finished the year off last
year. We had some really good runs. We were in contention a
few times. Our finishes didn’t show, I don’t
think, how good we ran, so I felt like the potential was
there. You have to learn to enjoy these. Like I said
before, you don’t know if you’re ever gonna get another
win or if it’s your last win or not and I’ve certainly
gone a long time before in my career without having a win at all
and the longer you go without one, the more it weighs on your mind
about if you’re ever gonna win another one or not. As
you get older and you do this longer, I think you realize how hard
it really is and I think you appreciate the wins and the success
probably more so than when you first start.”
HOW IS THAT APPRECIATION IN THIS CHAMPIONSHIP RUN? CAN
YOU APPRECIATE THIS? “Yeah, we’re gonna appreciate
it. I might even talk Jimmy into having a drink tonight maybe
after he gets through tech. I think this is the first time
we’ve ever won a race in the Chase actually. It seems
like for some reason through the years we’ve been better in
the beginning of the year than the end of the year, so certainly
you appreciate running that good. I know you guys probably
don’t believe me, but I honestly don’t look at the
points that much. If you go out and do the best job you can do
every week and you leave the track knowing that everybody did their
best, you executed as good as you could, you did what you could do
on the track, any points you’ve gained or lost you’re
not gonna give them back and you’re not gonna get them back
– the ones you lost – so I don’t really look at
it much. If we can keep running like this every week, I think
we’ll be in the mix toward the end, so I really just take it
one race at a time. I’m happy about this. I’m
already thinking about Talladega and how that is all gonna go and
when we get there, we’ll have a plan and be able in this new
kind of racing there get that all figured out where we have a plan
and a backup plan and be there at the end.”
WHAT DO YOU APPRECIATE? “Just
winning. It’s hard to say exactly what you appreciate
about it. I appreciate being with a winning organization, with
a winning team, with Jimmy on top of the box calling the races and
working so hard bringing me fast race cars every week.
You just appreciate being in the situation. Never when I
started racing did I dream I would ever be able to race at this
level, much less be pretty competitive and be able to win a few
races along the way and a championship. I just appreciate
being able to drive that car.”
WHAT TRACKS ARE YOU LOOKING FORWARD TO? “If I had
to look at the final five, I probably look forward to Texas and
Homestead the most. It’s weird going to Homestead
because it’s the last race of the year and a really different
layout and you only race there one time a year, so you almost get
there and it feels like a new track everytime you go there, but
they did a really nice job with that track with the configuration
and everything. It’s a racy track and a difficult track
because you’ve got to run so close to the wall for most of
the race, so those are probably the two I look forward to the most,
but I’m really looking forward to the challenge of all of
them and looking forward to hopefully staying on this run that
we’re on.” IF YOU WIN THE TITLE DO YOU THINK
NASCAR WILL CHANGE THE POINT
SYSTEM? LAUGHTER. “Jimmie had to win five of them
before they changed it.”
MARCOS AMBROSE – No. 9 Stanley Ford Fusion
– “I’ve just got to thank Bostitch for coming on
board as a primary and Stanley and DeWalt and Ford and everybody
else on this program. I just really appreciate that
opportunity. I ran great. I just want to be so
careful. I bumped Carl Edwards down pit lane and damaged his
right-rear fender a little bit. I don’t want to mess
with the championship fight, but at the same time you’ve got
to try and win these races. I’m just really excited
about our opportunities, so I thank Ford and everyone very
much.” HOW WAS YOUR NIGHT? “This tire
wasn’t that hard in the spring, but it got really hard
tonight. The bottom seemed to be the place to go and you just
couldn’t get guys out of the way. It was a tough
night. We were around the 29 a lot and around the 11 a lot,
around Carl a lot and around the 18 and 17 as well, so we were up
with the Chase guys. Next year, we want to be one of those
guys that gets looked after.”
CARL EDWARDS – No. 99 Aflac Ford Fusion –
“It was a solid night for us and congrats to Matt. This is a
big night for Ford. We have five times the points lead we had
coming in. We went from one point to five points, so
that’s something. We didn’t know what to expect
coming in here, but our Aflac Fusion was fast. My pit crew did
a good job. Bob made the right calls on the box and it ended
up being a good night. I’m just glad we didn’t
tear anything up. We dodged a bullet here. This has
been a tough track for us. I’m excited, well, I’m
stretching the truth there, I’m not too excited to go to
Talladega because you never know what’s gonna happen there,
but it will be fun one way or another.” WHAT DOES A
FIVE-POINT LEAD MEAN? “That’s five more
spots. If we can slowly build a little bit of a lead,
that’s the best thing we can do. It’s so
competitive right now. Everybody is so fast that you just take
everything you can get. I’m happy with this
run. I’ll go to bed tonight and sleep well and I’m
just glad we didn’t make any big mistakes. This is a
really treacherous place.”
TREVOR BAYNE – No. 21 Motorcraft Ford Fusion
– “That’s a bad feeling to run out of gas,
especially when you’re not expecting it. We
weren’t even pushing it. It wasn’t time for that
yet and I think that 21 was just fast. It must have been
sucking up more fuel than we thought being that fast, but I think
something just had to be funky in the fuel cell or something messed
up on the can because it just wasn’t taking all the fuel we
needed it to. We had an easy top five car tonight. I feel
like this would have been another shot to win a race. That
thing was just so fast. It was that way all weekend. On
the long runs it was that good and the whole race we didn’t
adjust one thing and we were really competitive. There aren’t
many nights when you get to do that and be that fast. We
didn’t get the finish we deserved, but it’s definitely
a confidence-builder for the whole team to run that good all
night. We want results, but they’ll come if we keep
running that good.” YOUR BEST RACE SINCE
DAYTONA? “This is probably our most competitive night
we’ve had. I’d definitely say that for
sure. At Vegas early in the year we were this
competitive. I was running eighth and I sped coming to pit
road, so mistakes have taken us out of it. But the Fords are
just so fast on these high-banked mile-and-a-halfs. At one
point I looked up and I think all but one car in the top seven were
Fords and that was just really cool to see them that dominant at a
track. It’s cool that they got the win, but I wish it
was the 21 Motorcraft/Quick Lane Fusion in victory lane
instead.”
GREG BIFFLE – No. 16 3M Ford Fusion – WHAT
HAPPENED IN THE WRECK WITH TONY? “I’d have to
watch the replay, but it sure seemed to me that he ran me into the
fence.” IT LOOKED LIKE AFTER YOU HIT THE FENCE THE FIRST
TIME YOU CAME DOWN ON HIM TO MAYBE RETALIATE, BUT WE COULDN’T
TELL IF THAT WAS MOMENTUM OR ON PURPOSE AND HE WASN’T SURE
EITHER. “I hit the fence and I came down and hit him in
the left rear and then we were hooked together, but I
wouldn’t have hit the fence if I had enough room. He ran
me out of room. I had a run coming and there was nowhere for
me to go. I either hook him in the right-rear and wreck him or
I hit the fence, so I hit the fence. I could have just turned
him into the fence the wrong way, which, in hindsight maybe
that’s what I should have done, but I know he’s a Chase
car and I’m trying to be a little courteous out
there. He just didn’t quite leave me enough
room. I’ll have to watch the replay before I really get
the whole deal, but I was coming with a run on the top, which I had
done on all restarts. I was killing them down there and he
came up off the corner and the hole wasn’t big enough, so I
stayed off of him but I hit the fence. There wasn’t
anything there, but I’ll go back and watch it and see what it
looks like.” YOU HAD ONE OF THE BEST CARS AND IT MUST
HAVE FELT LIKE YOU COULD PUT IT WHERE YOU WANTED. “Oh,
you can. I could drive anywhere, but he didn’t expect me
to be coming on the top, I’m sure. He felt like he drove
by me. I’m sure he did. I’m sure he never
planned on me to be there because the top was so effective for me
down here. It’s funny, I could pass on new tires on the
top down there, but not on old tires. New tires it would just
stick and go around the corner like crazy. It just
wasn’t enough room, but that’s racing with 40 or 30 to
go. And then that momentum carried me down into him and we
were kind of hooked together. I was turning to the right and I
don’t know if my splitter was hooked in his quarterpanel or
what. I don’t know what happened. I kept turning to
the right and finally came off of him, and then when we went down
into the corner the left-front was flat.”
AJ ALLMENDINGER – No. 43 Best Buy Ford Fusion
– “It’s not what I wanted, but the end result is
good. I’m happy there were so many Fords in the top
10. I’m just a little confused on what we need from
practice to the race because we’ve had a few races where
we’re really quick in practice, but I was complaining running
inside the top 10, so it’s getting better than
usual. I’m just a little disappointed that we
weren’t quite there. I’m not sure where
we’re missing it from practice to the race. I
don’t know if it’s me and what I need to feel
better. The car was decent all night. We’ve got to
work on our pit stops on these track position gains. You
can’t lose that much time, but the guys fought
hard. Greg made a good call at the end for four tires. It
was a good result. I’m happy for Ford. There were a
ton of Fords in the top 10. I’m not sure we were the
seventh-best car, we might have been the ninth or 10th,
but we’d get to about seventh or eighth and be really tight
– the back end would be wiggling a little bit. It just
wasn’t quite what I was hoping for. The result was
good. It was a good night for points. To win these things
we’ve just got to be a little bit better.”
CARL EDWARDS PRESS CONFERENCE – “It’s
huge for us. We’ve had this one circled on our schedule
as one that our whole Aflac team was nervous about. We
qualified well. We weren’t that fast at the beginning of
the race and Bob did a really good job dialing it in. The car
and the track kind of came to us, so, overall, it was a really good
night for Roush Fenway. It’s great to see Matt get a
win. Those guys, I guess it’s great as teammate,
it’s not great because now he’s only seven points
behind us in the Chase, but it was just a good
race. It’s a lot better finish than I thought we were
gonna have, so I’m happy with it.”
SHOULDN’T THE GUYS RACING FOR SECOND AND THIRD BE RACING
HARD? “Yeah, we should definitely be racing each other
hard, it’s just that there’s a difference between
racing hard and just cutting across the guy’s nose. What
I told Kyle is I just wondered why coming off of turn two, when I
got underneath him, he drove down instead of going up to the wall
like we’d normally do. I just let him know that the next
time that happens, I’ll just stay where I’m at and he
can drive across my hood and wreck himself. It just surprised
me. He told me that he didn’t mean to do it, so
I’ve got to believe that, but I don’t know what else
there is to say about it. It’s just racing and we
didn’t wreck. We’re gonna race hard like that and
that’s just how I saw it.”
WHAT WAS YOUR REACTION WHEN YOU HEARD JIMMIE WRECKED AND WHAT
DOES THAT MEAN? “It can happen to any of
us. Obviously, the more points we can get on the guys in the
Chase the better, but it’s obvious that could happen to
anyone. He could go on a tear and be leading the points in
three or four weeks, so that could happen too, so I will never
count him out.”
MATT SEEMS TO BE OVERLOOKED FOR THE TITLE. IS HE A
THREAT? “He’s the only one of the three of us with
a championship. He’s doing really well and tonight that
car was really fast and he drove it really well. I spent a
little time behind him and he was wheeling it, so I don’t
think you can count him out at all.”
WAS THERE ANY KEY ADJUSTMENT YOU MADE TO THE CAR AND HOW WAS
IT THIS WEEK? “The car was a lot better this week than
it was last week, but we were still off a little bit. We
weren’t as fast as Kyle or Matt. We’ve got to go
back and look at it. Greg was really fast and Trevor was
screaming fast at one point in the race. He was really
good. I don’t know what happened to him, but I
thought he was gonna be the guy to beat, so we’ll just go
back and look at it and figure out what we’re
missing. It might be something I’m doing driving
that’s not correct here and there might be some setup stuff,
but we’re slowly working on it. I feel better after this
run. The All-Star Race, Coke 600 and this race were all decent
for us, so that’s three in a row and that’s the best
we’ve ever been here.”
HOW DO YOU LOOK AT THE CHASE AFTER FIVE RACES WITH ONLY ONE
WIN THIS YEAR? “The wins matter,
obviously. It’s great to win, but our goal is to win the
championship. We’ve won nine races in a season and not
won the championship and I’d definitely trade that for a zero
or one-win season with a championship. Our goal is to win this
championship. We’re leading the points now, which really
doesn’t amount to much with five races left, but we’re
on track. We’re doing well. There are some tough
races coming up for us. Talladega is not my best
track. Martinsville is not my best track, but after those I
feel pretty good.”
THIS IS THE LATEST YOU’VE BEEN THE POINTS
LEADER. WILL THAT CHANGE YOUR STYLE AT ALL? “I
don’t know. I think right now you still have to get
everything you can. I raced really hard tonight, not quite as
hard as you. I’m racing as hard as I can trying to get
every point I can. That’s how we’ve raced all
season. It hasn’t worked out for some wins, but
that’s mostly been strategy and stuff like
that. I’ve found a balance where I’ve wrecked
enough and made enough stupid decisions early on that I’m
trying to be better at not giving them away. We’ll just
keep doing what we’ve been doing and if it works out, it
works out. But the season isn’t like others. I
think it’s gonna literally come down to the last few laps at
Homestead. If you watched what happened tonight, anything can
happen and it can turn quickly.”
IT’S SO HARD TO PASS. SHOULD THEY MAKE SOME
CHANGES? “It would be fine with me if they took the
spoilers off and the splitters off and we didn’t have any
downforce. The cars are so close that the difference between
them is smaller than the difference when you’re following
somebody. NASCAR has done a really, really good job of making
sure that the rules are close and we’re all about the same
speed, but then when you’re going that fast and relying on
downforce, it makes it really tough. This track is probably
one of the toughest ones to pass on, but it’s overall tough
almost everywhere we go.”
DAVID GILLILAND – No. 34 Taco Bell Ford Fusion
– "It's obviously disappointing that we didn't really get to
race after we suffered the damage on that restart. The 5 car
checked up and everyone behind him just wound up in a
pile-up. There was nothing we could do. We were just
starting to get the Tastykake Ford where we needed it, and then
that happened. Peter (crew chief Peter Sospenzo) and the guys
did a good job making our car better all weekend. It's too bad
we didn't have the chance to do more with it."
J.J. YELEY – No. 38 Long John Silver’s Ford
Fusion – "It was a pretty good night for the Long John
Silver's Ford team. We had a lot of things go right for us
with some cautions coming at the right times and a Lucky Dog, and
we had a chance to lead some laps. I just wish we had a little
bit more for them at the end. Jay Guy and the team did a good
job adjusting as the track conditions changed, and the guys did a
great job in the pits, too. It was a good points day for us,
which is what this 38 team is really working for right now. "