Ford Racing NSCS Notes & Quotes:
Hollywood Casino 400 Advance (Kansas Speedway)
Thursday, October 3, 2013
Carl Edwards, driver of the No. 99 Fastenal Ford Fusion, is looking to bounce back from last weekend’s 35th-place finish at Dover with his first NASCAR Sprint Cup Series victory at his home track – Kansas Speedway. Edwards participated in a Q&A session this afternoon following a test session and discussed a variety of topics.
CARL EDWARDS – No. 99 Fastenal Ford Fusion – HOW DID YOUR DAY GO TODAY? “The day went really well. We were extremely fast, so that was good. The tire seems to drive really well. The track changed a lot throughout the session, so I think we’re gonna see changing track conditions throughout the whole race. It took a lot of rubber and, really, I thought got a lot slicker, so I think it’s gonna be a two or three-groove race track, which is great for all of us.”
IT’S GOING TO BE 30 DEGREES COLDER ON SUNDAY SO DOES TODAY HELP MUCH FOR SUNDAY? “We didn’t spend any time in qualifying trim, and the conditions changed throughout the whole test session, so, like I said, beating Matt Kenseth here is probably the biggest thing I could have done. I think the temperature is gonna be a big factor and it’s also supposed to possibly rain on Friday night, so we might see the same problem Saturday trying to get the cars tuned in with the changing track.”
HOW BIG OF A CHANGE IS THE TIRE? “It’s hard to tell. The neatest thing I saw was that sheet they gave us that showed the part that is interesting to me is how they map the race track and how much different the surfaces are. It’s pretty neat for Goodyear to be able to understand all of that and work towards the best tire they can. That’s good for everybody.”
DID YOU TEST THE CAR YOU’RE GOING TO RACE? “I almost had to go to a back-up (laughing). No, we’re gonna race this car.”
HOW HARD IS IT TO COMPETE AGAINST A TEAMMATE IN THE CHASE BUT STILL BE A GOOD TEAMMATE AND SHARE INFORMATION? “You want to compete with each other just hard enough to raise everyone’s game within your camp. That’s how you want to do it and the other thing is it’s really nice to be able to lean on your teammates and, like Matt said, the things that they’ve worked on – not just that week or that year – but the things they’ve built over the years. Even now, Greg and Ricky and I benefit from the things that Mark Martin and Jeff Burton and Kurt Busch and Matt Kenseth – everybody – has done before us, so you’ve got to realize that in real time. It took me a long time to really understand the value of all that work that your teammates put in.”
IS IT TOUGH IF YOU FIGURE SOMETHING OUT TO SHARE THAT WITH A TEAMMATE? “It’s like having a sibling. You love them, but you want to beat them. That’s the whole point, so, I think at the end of the day you compete to the point that it stops raising both of your levels of performance, and it’s also in flux. If the points continue the way they are in our camp, then definitely there’s nothing I should hide from Greg Biffle because he’s got a better shot at winning a championship for our whole team.”
WHAT HAPPENED TO YOUR CAR AT DOVER? “I have not heard the very final ruling of exactly what happened, but, basically, we had a wheel that came loose and was loose enough that it broke the studs off of the left-rear, so when I pulled in the first time we only had two studs on there. We kind of got everything tightened up as best we could and just tried to roll around, but it wasn’t gonna work. So the guys changed a hub in 13 laps under green, which was pretty good, but we still don’t know if it was a manufacturing problem. I don’t think it was my tire changer. He does a great job and all the data showed that he had it tight, so it’s just one of those things in racing that can happen. It’s very, very frustrating.”
DO YOU FEEL YOU CAN MAKE SOME OF THAT UP TO GET BACK IN IT? “Yeah. There’s a lot of racing left. If we can go out and if our speed today is any indication, if we can go out and possibly win this race and win a couple races, and if these guys (the 20) had some trouble, it could happen. Anything can happen, so the biggest thing is when I got back to the shop Jimmy Fennig looked me straight in the eye and said, ‘Look, I don’t quit. We’re going here to win this thing and that’s it. Until we can’t, we will.’ So that’s all you can do.”
IS THERE A LOT OF DROP-OFF WITH THE TIRE FROM THE START OF A RUN? “I think the tire is good. I’ll tell you what happened, at the beginning of the day the tire had a ton more grip, I thought, and as it rubbered up the track got a little slicker and my car was a little bit loose into three, so I’d kind of back it down in there and you could actually drive it. It’s not knife-edge, hard-to-drive. I believe you’ll see two and three-lane racing. It appears that way, so I think it’s good. I can’t tell how much fall-off there is because I only made about a five or six-lap run.”
DOES IT MEAN ANYTHING THAT JIMMIE RUNS 20TH OR 21ST ALL DAY AND THEN AT THE LAST MINUTE GOES TO THE TOP OF THE BOARD? “I think that was a qualifying run, wasn’t it? We didn’t (make a qualifying run).”
WHAT MAKES KANSAS SO DIFFERENT FROM ANY OTHER MILE-AND-A-HALF TRACK? “For me, it’s an important race track because it’s what I consider my home track, so it feels a lot different to me. But on the racing surface, it’s a lot like some of the other tracks, but, at the end of the day, it seems like everything is so precise now that there are small things that make a huge difference. The way the transitions are into the corner. You look at a map and Texas, Charlotte, Kansas and Atlanta and all those tracks look the same, but they drive a lot differently, especially with the different tires that we have to bring, different weather conditions, different banking, the way the rubber lays into each of the tracks. They’re all very different, in my opinion.”
