Ford Finishing Order:
3rd – Carl Edwards
5th – Matt Kenseth
7th – AJ Allmendinger
9th – Marcos Ambrose
21st – David Ragan
27th – Greg Biffle
28th – David Gilliland
33rd – Andy Lally
34th – J.J. Yeley
36th – Mike Bliss
37th – Josh Wise
42nd – Scott Speed
43rd – Travis Kvapil
MATT KENSETH – No. 17 Crown Royal Ford Fusion – “We got lucky. The last restart was good, but the one before that was no good. We got a little behind there, but it was okay. We got off the two run previous to that. We were really fast there that one time in the race, right around halfway, and we just got off a little. We needed four tires to get the adjustment in it, but with the way these conditions are when you come out back there you know you’re not gonna have a chance.”
A GOOD DAY, BUT GUYS YOU’RE RACING IN THE CHASE FINISHED AHEAD OF YOU.
“I can only drive this car. We can only work on this car and can’t control what anybody else does. We had a pretty solid day today. We were able to lead a little bit. There were times in the race when we were pretty dominant. We didn’t have our worst run at the end and were able to drive back to fifth. My guys did a good job on pit road, so we’ll just keep working on it.”
HOW IMPORTANT WAS IT TO GET A GOOD FINISH LIKE THIS? “I was hoping for a little better at times, but it’s important. As good as everybody is these days and as equal as everybody is, it’s important to get a good finish every week. Then you have some of these tracks that you feel are your best, you need to be in the top five to be able to stay in the hunt.”
WERE YOU HAPPY WITH THE WAY YOU RAN? “On one run we ran down the 48 and at that point we were good enough to win, but the rest of the runs we weren’t good enough to win. The 48 was just dominant and the 22 got real good there on short runs toward the end. They got their car better at the end. We got off about three runs from the end and never quite got it back to that for some reason.”
AJ ALLMENDINGER – No. 43 Best Buy Ford Fusion – “You just want to put yourself in that position, but we weren’t quite good enough to win. Depending on what call and where you restarted, I think we might have been top-five there at the end. A lot of guys took two tires. I didn’t as many guys would, so it’s one of those things where I felt we were a fourth to seventh-place car at worst and we finished seventh after being turned on lap four. As I was spinning I thought, ‘Okay, the day is over already,’ but it was a solid day. It was something we needed after the last two weeks. Obviously, we want to try to win, but at least we were there all day.”
THAT WAS QUITE A SAVE. “Denny had a nose right there, but it was lap four. Those guys would expect you to give them some room, but he just stuffed it down in there and jacked me sideways. It was no surprise, and as I started spinning toward the wall I just hammered the throttle. I didn’t think it was gonna hit the wall, but then I was afraid that everybody behind me would come piling in. I’d like to say it was all driver, but luckily I tapped the brake and kept it on the throttle it straightened back up to where I didn’t stop in front of anybody and, thank God, everybody behind us was alert and kind of got it slowed down. I’d say it was 60 percent driver and 40 percent luck. I’ll give myself a little bit of credit.”
MARCOS AMBROSE – No. 9 Stanley Ford Fusion – “We’ve been bashed up pretty good the last month, so it’s just good to come back with a solid day. We should have finished better than ninth, but we played it safe there and took four tires at the end. I’m proud of the team. They’ve stood by me after a tough month and I’m looking forward to getting to Kansas.”
YOU LIKE RUNNING HERE DON’T YOU? “We’ve just got a good setup, that’s all. We worked well here in the spring and we worked well here in the fall. I think when we hit on a setup we can come back to it and it feels right and I give good direction.”
CARL EDWARDS – No. 99 Aflac Ford Fusion – PRESS CONFERENCE – “It was a great day other than that feeling I had when I ruined it there on pit road. That’s about as small as you can feel in a race car. We talked about it before the race. We looked at the pit road speeding lines and that last line Bob and I actually discussed the last section – it’s 25-feet, 8-inches long – and we talked about that one and how I was not gonna speed through it and I just blasted right through it, so we were very, very fortunate. As frustrated as I am with myself for messing that up, I’m really, really grateful for the gift that was given to us with that caution and the ability to come back up there.
The other thing that was really important to me was my guys sticking behind me because they had every right to be really, really upset with me, so it ended up to be a good finish. I had a good time racing there with Jimmie the last couple of laps. That was fun.”
HOW DO YOU GET OVER A MISTAKE LIKE THAT? “It is tough. It’s frustrating. If I were Jimmie I would be so frustrated I gave up that win, I mean he otherwise had a perfect day. It would probably bother me all week if I were Jimmie (joking). I go shooting, that helps (joking). It is tough. I think someone wrote a long time ago, I don’t remember which book it was, but my buddy Carl Fredrickson had this book at his house and it said that you don’t succeed by being the guy that does everything perfect, you succeed by being the guy that minimizes the mistakes because everyone is going to make mistakes. They are very difficult to get over. Today, I think both of us were fortunate. We finished up front. We didn’t cost ourselves a ton of points, but we’re race car drivers. We’re gonna think about what we did wrong and try not to do it again, but it seems like as soon as you’ve got everything figured out, you start forgetting things you remembered a long time ago and start making the same mistakes over again. It’s very difficult.”
WITHOUT THAT MISTAKE DO YOU WIN THIS RACE GOING AWAY? “It’s real easy to say if we didn’t make that mistake we would have won. I definitely took myself out of a position to fight for the win by doing that, so that’s something that’s painful. I’m gonna think about it. I’m gonna think about it all the way home. I’ll lay in bed and my wife is gonna yell at me and tell me to get over it and that’s just how it goes. That’s how racing is, but, to me, the neatest part is that Bob and my guys made sure and told me they were behind me and were excited to go to Kansas. That really felt good, but you do feel kind of like you’re on an island sometimes when you make those kind of mistakes. You just feel like I’ve got all these people behind me and all these folks working so hard and that’s a tough thing to swallow, but that’s part of this sport.”
IS THAT THE FIRST TIME YOU HAVE BEEN CAUGHT SPEEDING ON PIT ROAD? “That’s the first time I’ve been caught speeding on pit road all year, but I’ve done it like 15 times in the Nationwide Series. That’s a tough one.”
WERE YOU GLAD IT WASN’T A FUEL MILEAGE RACE? “We get pretty good fuel mileage with our Ford and we worked on it hard, so, to me, the fuel mileage races I look at as an opportunity. I’m sure as soon as I say that I’ll get bit by one and it’ll get me, but I was glad we raced to the finish today. I thought that was a lot of fun.”
DAVID RAGAN – No. 6 UPS Ford Fusion – “We fought all race and our team never gave up. At times, our UPS team had speed, but we got a lap down and then with the way the cautions came out and pit sequences fell, we just couldn’t get on a roll. Drew [Blickensderfer] made some great calls in the pits and we adjusted all day and were able to take the wave around to get back up on the lead lap. We had a pretty good car all day; not the best car, but we were able to get back up and gain some spots in the end. We’ll learn from this and move on to Kansas.”
DAVID GILLILAND – No. 34 Front Row Motorsports Ford Fusion – “It wasn’t as good of a finish as we wanted, but the guys did a good job over the course of the race making the car better. We ended the race the best we were all day, and that’s what we really need to focus on.
That’s just going to help us the next time we return to a track.”
J.J. YELEY – No. 38 “Drive Sober, Arrive Alive” Ford Fusion – “You know the saying, ‘If it weren’t for bad luck, I wouldn’t have any luck at all?’ Unfortunately, that’s the kind of day we had in our No. 38 ‘Drive Sober’ Ford Fusion today. It started with a loose plug wire and then we had a setback with a penalty for a pit road violation and then we blew a tire and got into the wall. Not the day we were hoping for with the ‘Drive Sober’ campaign. Our Ford Fusion actually was pretty good. We just had all these other things trip us up.”
