FORD RACING NOTES AND QUOTES Budweiser Shootout, Page 1
February 12, 2011 Daytona International Speedway
CARL EDWARDS – No. 99 Scotts EZ Seed Ford Fusion (Finished 21st) – “We were three or four-wide back there and I was going between the 88 and the 78 and I don’t think the 78 knew I was in there. He kept coming down and I just had enough of my car in there. I laid up against the 88 and then the 78 got me in the right-front, but that’s just everybody going to try and get the best position they can so we can go out there and race. That’s what this race is for is to learn, but I hate that we tore up all those good cars. We’ll have to loan them some EZ seed to take care of some of that damage on the backstraight.”
WHAT WAS IT LIKE OUT THERE? “It was pretty wild. I’ll be tuned in watching the rest of it, that’s for sure. I just wish we could have raced a little longer. I appreciate all the fans coming out here. I think this race and next week’s race is gonna be wild. I think the fans are gonna get what they pay for.” WHAT HAPPENED? “We were all just battling for position. We were at least three-wide and I had my car up against Dale Jr.’s as best I could and the 78 was on the outside. I was in the middle and I don’t think he knew my nose was in there. I was probably hidden by the 88 and he just kept coming down.
I was like, ‘No, no, no, no,’ and then he got me across the right-front. I probably could have stabbed the brake and backed out of there, but I didn’t know exactly what was going on behind me.”
WHAT ABOUT THE RACING AND THE NEW ASPHALT? “It’s just gonna be two cars teamed up. It’s really difficult. You have to really trust the guy that is pushing you. We had our wreck right there in their normal pack, but once you get groups of cars running that last lap, it’s just all about trust.”
ARE THE RPM’S A LOT HIGHER THAN THEY WERE BEFORE?
“The cars are going so fast that the RPMs are really high. It’ll be interesting to see if NASCAR lets us race like this or if they change something. Either way, it’ll be fine. It’s actually, I think, safer for us to be out there racing two cars away from each other, rather than that pack, but it’s insane. It’s wild.”
WHAT IS THE CLOSING RATE LIKE? IT SEEMS WILD. “The problem is if you’re the guy pushing you can’t tell what’s going on in front, so you almost need to be on the same radio channel as the guy in front and that’s really hard to do.”
GREG BIFFLE – No. 16 3M Ford Fusion (Finished 5th) – “It’s really hard to see when you’re doing that two-car push what’s in front of you.
Jimmie made a move to the bottom down here and I wasn’t expecting him to do that and it kind of screwed our momentum up and probably cost us there at the end to get back to the front. It’s kind of different.
We’ve never done this before, pushing like this, so it’s just something new.” IT’S NEW, BUT DO YOU LIKE IT? “Well, I think it would be more fun if it was a bigger pack. I really think we’d have more fun if there was 20-25 of us together, but it’s more fun when the pack is bigger than just pushing two cars around the whole time, but the 500 is gonna be different. There will be a lot more cars out there, so we’ll just have to wait and see.”
MATT KENSETH – No. 17 Crown Royal Black Ford Fusion (Finished 13th) – “It’s not really that great having a whole bunch of groups of two and when you can’t do anything without that it isn’t really that much fun.
If you’re the pusher, you can’t see a thing and with going 207 miles an hour and pushing someone when you can’t see, it’s not a lot of fun.
At the end there I was the odd man out because I couldn’t get with a group of two. Everybody was grouped up in twos and if you can’t get with one other car in a group, you’re pretty much done and you’re just gonna fall back. It may be a little different next Sunday with more cars, but I don’t know.”
