Edwards and Allmendinger Grab Top Five Finishes at Watkins Glen
Edwards and Allmendinger Grab Top Five Finishes at Watkins Glen
Ford Racing Finishing Order:
4th – AJ Allmendinger, Richard Petty Motorsports
5th – Carl Edwards, Roush Fenway Racing
13th – Matt Kenseth, Roush Fenway Racing
16th – Paul Menard, Richard Petty Motorsports
17th - Kasey Kahne, Richard Petty Motorsports
21st – Patrick Carpentier, Latitude 43 Motorsports
24th – Greg Biffle, Roush Fenway Racing
25th – David Ragan, Roush Fenway Racing
27th – David Gilliland, Front Row Motorsports
29th – Elliott Sadler, Richard Petty Motorsports
30th – Travis Kvapil, Front Row Motorsports
31st – Kevin Conway, Front Row Motorsports
CARL EDWARDS – No. 99 Aflac Ford Fusion (Finished 5th) – “My day was pretty good. I was really proud of my Aflac crew for putting us on the pole. That is the best lap I have ever run at a road course. We fought hard today and we are building momentum. I think everyone out there today was racing with cautious aggression, us included. We needed to get the points and need to be in the Chase. It was just a good solid day for the Aflac team.”
GREG BIFFLE – No. 16 3M Ford Fusion (Finished 24th) – “It sucks when you have to drive with people with their heads in the wrong place. He did the same thing every restart. The guy is hanging on to the top-10 barely and races this race once a year or whatever. He bonsai’s the corner three-wide in turn one because that is the only place he could make a pass on the restart. Anyone can do that. He just jammed it in there three wide and Kevin was already turning in, I was already turning in. There was no place for it.”
IF THAT DOESN’T HAPPEN, DO YOU FEEL LIKE YOU WOULD HAVE CONTENDED FOR THIS THING? “Yeah, it looked that way to me.”
PATRICK CARPENTIER – No. 26 Air National Guard Ford Fusion (Finished 21st) “It was a lot of fun. I thought we fought hard out there and I want to thank the No. 26 Air National Guard team for all their hard work today. It was a crazy ride out there, but a lot of fun. I felt like we held our own pretty well.”
DOES IT MAKE YOU HUNGRY TO DO MORE NASCAR RACES? “I always like it. I always want to race and do more. It comes down to sponsorship. I will just go back home with my kids now and then I will do Montreal and see what happens.”
MATT KENSETH – No. 17 Crown Royal Ford Fusion (Finished 13th) - “It was a struggle out there. Our car was way better today. We weren’t good at all this weekend. They made a lot of changes and the car actually drove well today. We just never really had great track position. Jimmy did a good job of keeping the track position that we had and gaining us some. Overall we ran way better than I expected, so I guess overall I am happy with it.”
AJ ALLMENDINGER – No. 43 Best Buy Ford Fusion (Finished 4th) - “I am proud of everybody with the Insignia Best Buy Ford. The car was really strong all day. We didn’t have anything for the 42, he was on another planet. It felt like if we got around the 2 on the restart and the 47 was fading at the end, I am not sure what was happening there, I felt like maybe we had something for them. It was a solid day. It was a good day in the pits. We need to build on this. It is really cool to sign a multi-year deal and have a great weekend.
YOU WERE BATTLING A LOT WITH CARL TODAY, WHAT WAS THAT LIKE? “He is tough. He is great on these road courses and doesn’t make a lot of mistakes. If I hit a perfect lap I could stretch him and then I may just give a little bit and he would close so much. It was tough because we were all sliding around there at the end. I am proud of everyone at Richard Petty Motorsports and at Ford. It was a great week last week getting a win and this week a lot of us were strong. I am looking forward to the rest of the season.
DAVID RAGAN – No. 6 UPS Ford Fusion (Finished 25th) - “I felt like our UPS Ford was actually a little better than that. I made a mistake with about 10 laps to go and wheel hopped getting into turn six and let three or four guys pass me. If it wasn’t for that mistake, we probably could have finished 20th or so. The good news is we stayed on the track and I don’t think we lost many points. The other good news is that we head to Michigan next week.”
TRAVIS KVAPIL - No. 37 Long John Silver’s Ford (Finished 30th) - "The car was OK, kind of what we expected. More than anything, I kind of struggle at these places. I don’t have a lot of laps, a lot of experience. We made some changes on the car and got it a little better. But our number-one goal was to ride it out, take care of our equipment and be there at the end and take what we could get, and that’s exactly what we did. I would like to do better, but the cars in one piece and we’ll go on to Michigan."
DAVID GILLILAND - No. 38 Taco Bell Ford (Fnished 27th) - "The Taco Bell Ford wasn’t bad. We started out a little free, and then Randy and the guys made some good changes and we got a lot better in the areas where we needed help. Starting in the back, we knew we had our work cut out for us. But we basically just raced our own race. We wanted to get as good a finish as we could but we were careful not to put ourselves in any bad situations. The team worked really hard to get us into the race and did a good job making changes to help us climb up as many positions as we could."
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