Ford Finishing Order:
3rd – Greg Biffle
6th – Matt Kenseth
7th – David Ragan
8th – Carl Edwards
21st – AJ Allmendinger
30th – Marcos Ambrose
31st – Mike Bliss
32nd – David Gilliland
34th – Andy Lally
39th – Josh Wise
41st – Scott Speed
43rd – Travis Kvapil
GREG BIFFLE – No. 16 Ford40mpg.com Ford Fusion – “I hate these fuel mileage races. We like to run hard and go. We had a really fast car that could have been second or third no matter what, but I just wish it didn’t come down to that. I would have liked to see how hard we could have run and see if we could have caught them.”
YOU WERE IN THE TOP 10 ALL DAY. “We were in the top 10 all day. I was a little tight on the one run when I lost a little track position, but we got adjusted on the car and got it back. I just had to save gas and when you have to save gas, you can’t go – you can’t use gas. I’m glad I had the Ford40mpg.com on the car because I think it helped me.”
HOW DID YOU GET UP THERE? “We ran there the whole day. We were never out of the top 10 and just had a really, really good car. The guys did a great job in the pits and I’m finally happy that we just finished a race where we had been running. We’ve run up front. At Chicago we had some sheetmetal break on the car and here nothing happened to the car. We finished where we were running. We ran out of gas. We were running second, but the 2 got by us, but it was still a great day for us. I’m excited we had Ford40mpg.com on the car. I think it might have helped us a little bit.”
MATT KENSETH – No. 17 Crown Royal Ford Fusion – “It was great, except for when we spun out because we lost some track position, but, overall, it was good. It was the best-driving car I’ve had at Loudon since they introduced the COT, so I thought it was a great day for us. If a couple of them could have run out maybe a lap later if we ran an extra lap that would have been okay, but that was still and okay finish for us.”
HOW DO YOU THINK THINGS ARE GOING TWO RACES INTO THE CHASE? “I was pretty discouraged after Chicago, although you’ve got to brush that off, but I’m pretty encouraged today because this is probably one of my worst tracks. I don’t feel like I do a good job at all driving on this track. We had a pretty fast car. We were able to get around here pretty good. We had good pit stops and good strategy and got a top 10 out of it, so I’m looking forward to Dover.”
YOU AND CARL WERE JOKING AROUND AFTER THE RACE. IS EVERYTHINK OKAY AFTER THAT CONTACT? “Oh yeah. I mean, gosh, when you race people all the time you’re gonna have accidents and bump into each other every once in a while. That was no big deal. I was having a little bit of brake fade and I backed up extra early, I just didn’t expect it or I probably could have saved it, but that was no big deal. Those things happen.”
CARL EDWARDS – No. 99 Scotts Ford Fusion – “It ended up working out good for him (Kenseth). We had a pretty good finish, but we didn’t have a very good day. We struggled. This is one tough race track, very, very tough. I’ve got to thank Scotts and Winterguard for being on board. We were trying to get them a good showing and at the end we got a couple guys because of fuel mileage and our car was as good as it had been, so we’ll take that eighth-place and go on, but I’m just glad to make it out of here with something better than the 15th or 20th we should have run.”
THIS WAS A BIG HURDLE FOR YOU WASN’T IT? “I’m glad we don’t have to run this one in the Chase again, that’s good. Dover is great for us. Kansas will be great. I feel pretty good after our test at Phoenix, so we’ll go and if Matt doesn’t retaliate, we’ll be really good (joking). I feel really dumb for running in to him, but I’m glad it worked out for both of us. It was a decent day for us. We’ll take it and move on.”
DAVID RAGAN – No. 6 UPS Ford Fusion – “We made some good calls and put ourselves in position to make it on fuel, so that was a good pit call by Drew and our team. We didn’t have the best of cars today, but we showed that with some hard work and good strategy we could overcome that. It feels good for the UPS team to get a top 10. We had a top five in sight, but we had to save enough fuel at the end. I didn’t want to run out, so it was a good job by everybody and now it’s on to Dover.”
GREG BIFFLE PRESS CONFERENCE – “It was a great day for us. We’ve had a lot of good days this season, just not a lot of good finishes, so it felt good to finish where we had run all day. I think the worst we had been on the race track was seventh or eighth. I think maybe sixth was probably the worst I was ever lined up. We ran from second to sixth all day and just stayed there. I wish it wasn’t a fuel mileage race. I think we had a fast enough car to catch the 33 and 14 possibly and race with them, but I’m really excited about a top-three finish.”
DO YOU THINK THE 24 WAS THE DOMINANT CAR? “I really don’t know because we were catching the 24 about a tenth-and-a-half a lap for that last green run – two-tenths a lap – and I don’t think he was saving fuel at that point. I don’t know. The 33 and the 14 were out there, so we were running them down. I got within probably 15 car lengths of him and then he just like plug-checked it and put it in neutral and moved over and just started saving gas all of a sudden. It was pretty apparent when he did, so he did have a good car. I don’t know if the 33 and the 14 could have ran with him, but I think all of us, in the right position – talking about the top three or four of us – were probably pretty dang equal. But I’d say the 24 was fast at the beginning and middle part of the race, but I don’t know about the end. Like I said, that last run I was catching him and then he just pulled over and started saving a massive amount of gas.”
WHAT KIND OF MOMENTUM IS IT TO WIN THE FIRST TWO CHASE RACES? “It’s certainly a hell of a momentum builder to win the first two races of the Chase. Like you said, we were able to do it a few years back and it just means so much to your team and gives you so much confidence going into all of the next races. It was great for us and I’m sure that it’s good for that team and they’ll continue to probably put down some good races.”
EVERYBODY WORKED ON FUEL MILEAGE YESTERDAY. HAS THIS EVOLVED INTO SOMETHING THAT IS TOO PROMINENT? “Yeah, it’s funny how every race kind of comes down to it, but if you just take a little snapshot of our season, people think that a fuel mileage race is the last run of the day – your gonna be three laps short or four laps short – but, for us, we have the new engine and we’ve struggled a little bit with fuel mileage as a group this year. What happens to us is on that green run, anytime you have a green flag pit stop cycle – no matter what race track you’re at – that turns into a fuel mileage run because we have to stop three or four laps short of the field and then the caution comes out and you’re a lap down. That’s happened to us I don’t know how many times this year. We were running second at Michigan, pit, came out and were a lap down and took the wave-around with 35 laps to go or something and that just killed us. We had to start 25th and got back to like 15th, so fuel mileage for us has been a big hurdle this year. We’ve gotten really good here at the end of the season, but, really, truly every race is a fuel mileage race if it has a green flag pit stop in it because who can go the furthest, and if the caution comes out at that particular moment, it can trap certain guys. I look at the scoreboard and David Ragan was second. It just shuffles the deck when that happens.”
GREG BIFFLE CONTINUED — YOU HAVE WON FUEL MILEAGE RACES. DO YOU TREAT THOSE WINS ANY LESS THAN THE OTHERS? “Sometimes you can chalk it up to a fuel mileage win and sometimes you’re leading and it comes to stretching it and you just make it – sort of like what the 14 did today. Now there has been true fuel mileage races where a guy is running at the back of the pack, ducks in the pits with one to go, fills it up and that guy wins. That’s a fuel mileage win, when you’re a 20th-place car and you win. But when you’re a top three car or top four car and you win, it really isn’t any different. Like I won at Daytona, which could have been a fuel mileage run, but it really wasn’t because there were about 15 cars on the same pit cycle we were, so we were set up. At Kansas I was leading the thing. I don’t know how big of a lead I had – a 10-second lead or something like that – when the caution came out and it was too dark to go back green again. It all just depends on where you’re running.”
HOW DO YOU VIEW YOUR ROLE AS A NON-CHASE DRIVER AND CAN YOU TALK ABOUT HOW YOUR RELATIONSHIP WITH MATT PUCCIA HAS EVOLVED? “My role being a non-Chase guy is to try and win in the last eight that are left. As far as Matt and I, Matt and I are getting along really, really well. I think he does a great job getting the cars prepared. He makes really, really smart calls. He’s calm. He knows what he wants to do. He’s got a decision made when the time comes. He’s gonna be a really good crew chief and we’re gonna win a lot of races together. I’m pretty confident.”
