PAUL MENARD – No. 98 Menards Ford Fusion (Finished 9th) – “We were gonna run between fifth and ninth anyways, so we did a little tire conservation and tried to save a set to the end just to make it interesting and wound up ninth. That’s kind of where we were gonna run anyway, so we figured we would roll the dice and try a little something and wound up about the same spot. The car was pretty good all night. It had a hole in the nose right at the end and about the last 30 laps it got real tight, but that’s kind of where we ran all night.”
WITH SO MANY CAUTIONS WAS IT HARD TO FIND A RHYTHM TONIGHT?
“We definitely had a long-run car and not a short-run car for sure.
The cautions hurt us. It seemed like it took us five laps for the car to start turning and then once it would start turning the caution would come out and that hurt us. It just took us a while to get going.”
COLIN BRAUN – No. 16 Con-way Freight Ford Fusion (Finished 29th) – “I thought we had a decent run going there. We kind of got tricked with the way we had our pit strategy going. We ended up having to put the set of tires on that we made our qualifying run on and started the race on, and it just didn’t have the grip we thought it was going to, so I kind of got back there in traffic. We just got racing with people we probably shouldn’t have been racing with, but you’ve got to get after it and be aggressive. It’s disappointing, though, that somebody wouldn’t cut you a little bit of a break.”
RICKY STENHOUSE, JR. – No. 6 CitiFinancial Ford Fusion (Finished 4th)
— “It was awesome for CitiFinancial to back us like that, and it was pretty cool for Blackwell Angus Beef. It was special to win the Raybestos Rookie of the Year. It is a huge honor. We came back from adversity there early in the season. We came here wanting to win this race which is why we took tires at the end and we just didn’t get there quite enough.”
ARE YOU ONE OF THOSE GUYS THAT DOESN’T WANT TO SEE THE SEASON END? “10-4 on that. I wish we could have started the year where we are right now. This is good momentum going in the offseason for this whole team. Jack Roush has done an awesome job with this team. It has been a fun year and I learned a lot.”
CARL EDWARDS – No. 60 Copart Ford Fusion (Finished 6th) — “We had a really good car. We got t-boned there off of two where a guy lost it and hit us in the right rear. It is just the way it goes sometimes.
That car was super fast tonight though; it is a shame how fast it was for that to happen. It was an awesome night for Ricky (Stenhouse) and for us to finish fourth, fifth, sixth is not a bad night at all.”
TREVOR BAYNE – No. 17 Roush Fenway Ford Fusion (Finished 5th) — “That is an awesome way to come to the end of the season. I was thinking about that coming off the last corner, thinking about how we have three months to think about this last race. I am glad it was a good one for us. It could have been a really bad one because we got into the fence there running around 6th or 7th and we were really tight. I got out of the corner and cut down the tire, it took off and I got the wall. After that, the first caution after that we were terrible. We were really fighting it and I don’t know what was wrong with it. We came back in and they worked on it and God must have done some doctoring on it because it came to life again. We were able to drive to the front and stay there after everybody took tires. We were able to stay up front and bring this thing home fifth.”
YOU AND RICKY MAYBE SHOWED EVERYONE THE FUTURE OF ROUSH FENWAY RACING TONIGHT . “I sure hope so. If we can run like that every weekend it would be exciting. It was wild because I would look up and I would be fifth and he would be 10th and then we would flip spots and end up finishing fourth and fifth. I am really proud of him for winning Rookie of the Year. Carl finished right behind us which shows the consistency of the cars. I am really happy with everyone here at Roush Fenway to battle back like that and get us that type of run.”
