Ford Racing NSCS Notes & Quotes:
Coke Zero 400 (Daytona International Speedway)
Saturday, July 7, 2012
Ford Finishing Order:
3rd – Matt Kenseth
6th – Carl Edwards
18th – Casey Mears
19th – Aric Almirola
20th – Terry Labonte
21st – Greg Biffle
26th – David Ragan
27th – Trevor Bayne
30th – Marcos Ambrose
31st – David Gilliland
38th – Josh Wise
43rd – Michael McDowell
GREG BIFFLE – No. 16 3M Ford Fusion – “I just turned down in front of the 29. He got a hell of a shove off the front of Junior, I just watched the replay, and just shoved him in that hole. I’m like, ‘It’s impossible that somebody could get into that hole that quick,’ but he got squirted off the bumper of the 88 and shot in there. It was my fault. We had a good car. What happened was the 17 caught the 14 and moved up and there was somebody outside of me and I couldn’t move up. That’s the way it goes.”
YOU AND MATT WORKED WELL ALL NIGHT. THAT WAS THE PLAN ALL NIGHT? “Yeah, that’s what we were gonna try to do is win the thing and be there at the end. We were right there.”
MATT KENSETH – No. 17 Zest Ford Fusion – “I’m really disappointed. We thought we had one of the best cars. I was hoping it was gonna be me or the 16 in victory lane. I don’t know, it’s hard to figure out. The 500 went one way and then we lost Talladega because I didn’t keep Greg with me good enough. And then this race Tony got separated and I got separated from Greg because they pulled him off me. I should have just stayed on his door and stayed with him and let the chips fall where they may, but I didn’t know what else was coming so I slowed up to try to bring Greg with me because he had been so good all night and I was hoping to get a run. Before I got a run Tony got outside of him and then I don’t know what happened because everybody started wrecking.” IT’S ALWAYS SOMETHING. “Yeah, it’s fun racing when you’ve got cars as fast as I’ve been driving and I’m really thankful to be driving them, but it’s also a frustrating type of race because you can’t really do anything talent-wise to make your car go faster. You’ve got to make the right moves and you’ve got to go slower to make sure you keep a guy with you. It’s just a different kind of racing.”
CARL EDWARDS – No. 99 Subway Ford Fusion – “We had a great car and that wreck coming onto pit road, where we had to drive through and start at the back, I just didn’t get back to the front again on that run so that’s what set us back. But we’re very, very fortunate to end up where we did. We dodged the wrecks and made it out unharmed, so we’ll go to the next one. I think the finishing position will be seventh or better and I would have taken that this morning if somebody would have offered it.” YOU WERE ON THE OUTSIDE A COUPLE OF TIMES AND IT JUST DIDN’T SEEM TO MOVE. HOW FRUSTRATING IS THAT? “Frustrating describes this whole type of event. It’s very difficult. It’s great when you’re out front, but any other spot you’re just really trying hard not to wreck and not to try too hard and ruin your day or other people’s day, so it’s a tough race but I’m glad we finished OK.”
ARIC ALMIROLA – No. 43 U.S. Air Force Ford Fusion – “I was on the bottom and the 16 came across the race track. It’s the last lap at Daytona. We probably would have ended up sixth or seventh because I was behind the 20 car, so that stinks. I thought we were gonna have a good run. We had a good car most of the night. The 51 got us a little bit put behind when he tried to go three-wide, but, other than that, our car was pretty decent all night. I was just trying to be smart and not do anything stupid and got tore up there at the end.”
DAVID GILLILAND – No. 38 Glory Foods Ford Fusion – “It looked like the 11 got turned and I was on the brakes. I felt like I made it 95 percent through and then a car clipped me right at the end from the outside. Our car was really good. We had a fast car and feel like we had a good shot at the end. I felt like we put ourselves in good position, but it’s just one of those Daytona deals.”
MATT KENSETH PRESS CONFERENCE
MATT KENSETH – No. 17 Zest Ford Fusion – “You’re always, I guess you need to be happy when you finish that good, but also when you have restrictor plate cars that fast it doesn’t happen very often and you sure want to figure out how to win with them, so the last two I feel like you always second-guess your moves, but I feel like we had one of the fastest cars here all three races this year, so I’m happy to get third, but yet on the other hand I’m incredibly disappointed because I feel like my team kind of deserved to be down there holding the hardware and I kind of let them down. But, overall, we had a really fast car. We had a pretty good race and made our way back to the front after the pit road thing and we were in contention, we just didn’t get it done that last lap.”
IS THERE ANYTHING YOU CAN DO? “Every situation is different and the tough part is to manage your speed. Racing your whole life you go as fast as you can every lap and that’s what you do and you hope you can outrun the competition, and this is just different. Daytona worked really well for us in the spring, we had that kind of somewhat figured out, I guess, and at Talladega we didn’t. At Talladega I did the same things I did at Daytona and we got beat because I didn’t do a good enough job of dragging the brake and keeping my teammate with me, and we got beat by a tandem there. This time I was gonna make sure I kept Greg with me and did a really good job of that for a lap-and-a-quarter. We were locked on there and then somehow Greg got off me just a little bit, but Tony, I think, was separated as well and I don’t think he was gonna clear me and get in front of me and I decided – because of the Talladega experience – to drag the brake and get back to Greg to try and get hooked up and then make a run on Tony. If he was by himself, I knew we would pass him as long as me and Greg could get rolling again. I knew we would pass him somewhere over by turn four, hopefully, so I got him, made a run and tried to go outside of Tony and he made a block real high and I still kind of had position and then from there I’m not really sure what happened. They just started wrecking behind us.”
IN HINDSIGHT YOU WISH YOU WOULD HAVE JUST GONE? “Yeah, hindsight is easy. I guess if I would have not waited for Greg after we got off of two, us and the 14 would have been side-by-side going into turn three, but that’s not to say if there wasn’t a wreck that I don’t know what was going on behind that, I don’t know if the 88 or the 5 or somebody could have got teamed up and went right around both of us because two cars without being pushed side-by-side aren’t very fast.”
DID YOU CONSIDER IT YOUR RACE TO LOSE WITHOUT ALL THE VARIABLES THAT COME INTO PLAY? “Well, it seems like that but yet on the other hand if the one run where the 16 got us off pit road, I don’t think I could have gone around him easily either, but it seems like we always end these things on green-white-checkers and whenever you do, really, anything or anybody in the front, if you tandem, has a shot to win that thing. It’s just so unpredictable when you do things those last two laps that you’d never do the rest of the race. It’s really hard to figure. You can sit out there and ride around and be leading the whole race and then come down to one of those green-white-checkers and just really have no idea where you’re gonna finish. But I thought overall, at least from the cars I ran around, us, the 16, the 24 and the 14 all seemed like they were pretty stout.”
THOUGHTS ON ALMOST SWEEPING HERE? “Daytona has been wonderful to us this year, well, really starting last July when we were able to push David to his win there and finish second. Obviously, we had a really good Speedweeks and then to come down here and sit on the pole and be able to lead – I think we probably led the most laps I would think – so we were up front most of the night and had one of the fastest cars. We didn’t get caught up in a wreck and still got a good finish, so it’s hard to be disappointed with that, but the racer in you, when you have a car like that, you certainly want to figure out how to try to win with it.”
