MATT KENSETH – No. 17 DeWalt Ford Fusion – CAN YOU TALK ABOUT DEWALT LEAVING AT THE END OF THE YEAR? “They’ve been around for 11 or 12 seasons, I guess, including the Nationwide Series car. They started with the Reiser’s in ’99, so, yeah, we’ve been racing together for a long time. I’ve got a lot of great friends at the company. I’ll continue to have a lot of great friends at the company, but certainly it’s disappointing we couldn’t figure out how to make all of that work and keep it all together somehow. But I guess it’s a little bit of the sign of the times. The tool business obviously is very weak. When construction is that weak, the tool business is gonna be weak and we just couldn’t make it all happen.” 

 

GEOFF SMITH SAID IT WASN’T MUCH OF A SURPRISE. IS THAT YOUR VIEW? “Yes and now. I guess I somewhat tried to keep up with how they were doing, going back and forth. Two or three months ago I was pretty encouraged. It sounded like it was maybe gonna happen and then the last month or I kind of had the feeling they maybe weren’t gonna be able to come to terms. It’s not a huge surprise, but I guess still a surprise because we’ve been together so long. I think hopefully when fans think of me they think of DeWalt and vice versa, so we’ve been together for a long time and it’s gonna be weird to not be in a yellow and black car with DeWalt on the side.” 

 

DOES THIS PUT MORE PRESSURE ON YOU NOW TO ATTRACT A NEW SPONSOR? “I can’t say, honestly, that I’ve ever tried not as hard for any certain event. We try as hard as we can try every week and we bring our best stuff every week. Pressure isn’t the right word, but there’s added concern. When the whole economy is like this and you see a lot of different sponsors, at least from what I’ve seen, not be in the sport anymore and not be around, so whenever you lose a sponsor from the sport – from what I hear they’re not going to a different team or something like that – that always concerns me, whether that’s on our team or somebody else’s team. But you’re only as good as your last race and we sucked our last race, so we’ve got to go here and try to get a good finish and try to run good and perform at the level we know we’re capable of doing.” 

 

WHERE DOES WINNING A FIFTH SLINGER NATIONALS STACK UP? “In the big scheme of things it’s probably not that big of a deal. It is to me personally because there’s a sense of pride to be able to win at Slinger. It’s a huge short track race and all that stuff, but compared to what we’re trying to accomplish over here, it’s probably not a big deal in the big scheme of things. But it was a lot of fun. Probably more fun than winning was watching Ross win his limited late model race. That was only his third time there and he had quite the education the first two weeks when he went there, so to be able to come back from that and be able to win was pretty cool to watch. I got to hang out with him for the week and work with him back and forth through the practices. I had a lot of fun doing that and it was a nice break on Tuesday and Wednesday. I had a lot of fun and I kind of needed that.” 

 

HOW MANY TIRE TESTS WERE YOU HERE FOR? “All of them, except for one, I believe.” 

 

ARE YOU CONFIDENT ABOUT HOW IT WILL BE? “I can’t really answer that. I guess we’ll all find out here in another day, but I don’t know. It was really strange when I came back the last time the track was so rubbered up I’ve never seen anything like that, even when we flew over it. And when I flew over it this morning it didn’t look like that, so if the track does indeed take the rubber like it did the last test and it turns black like it did the last test, I don’t foresee any kind of problems at all. But if for some odd reason the track doesn’t rubber up, kind of like the issue we had at Daytona where we could only run 20 laps on tires and we had to have a caution. If they wear all the way to the cords and it doesn’t rubber the track up, then I’m concerned, but I think they seem pretty confident they’ve got it figured out where it’s gonna rubber it up, which was the one test I wasn’t at. Everybody seemed pretty confident and I hope that’s the case.” 

 

WHAT ABOUT DOUBLE-FILE RESTARTS HERE? “I think it’ll be a disaster for everybody on the outside. If you’re on the inside and you get lucky, I think it’ll be OK. We were just talking about Slinger and I know it’s a little short track, but it’s kind of like that there. I was racing in the front with a guy and happened to be running sixth instead of fifth and 10 laps later he was five spots ahead of me and that’s the same thing you’re gonna have here. So I think it’s gonna kind be unfair for the guys on the outside and a little bit too big of an advantage for the guys on the inside, but that’s just part of it. That’s just what we’re trying to do to get the things mixed up, so, hopefully, we end up on the inside closer to the end of the race.” 

 

GEOFF SAID OTHER SPONSORS WERE INTERESTED. WILL THOSE BE FROM INSIDE THE TEAM NOW OR OUTSIDE? “I honestly don’t have much of an idea. I’ve heard of some people they’ve been talking to, but I think they’ve been trying to talk to sponsors for quite some time. DeWalt was looking to sell some of the races this year on a part-time basis and knew they needed help next year. Even if they came back we knew it wasn’t gonna be a full season and that they were gonna need help and probably need help for half a season or something like that until, hopefully, the business turned back around and that type of thing, so I know we’ve been looking for some time and they’ve been talking to a lot of different companies, but I really don’t know where they’re at with any of it.” 

 

SO YOU WOULD EXPECT MORE THAN ONE SPONSOR NEXT YEAR? “I would expect that, but I don’t know that for sure. It’s not really my department. I drive the car, but if you look at it I don’t know that there’s a car in the series, besides Kurt Busch is the only one I can think of off hand that runs the same sponsor all year. Even Jeff Gordon with DuPont doesn’t run just that scheme anymore. They all have help to make it happen and I think that’s sort of the sign of the times. I would be surprised if there was a company that did every race and didn’t have some help or split it up, but I don’t know I’m just guessing.” 

 

ARE YOU INTERESTED IN WHAT YOUR CAR WILL LOOK LIKE AND THAT SORT OF THING? “Yeah, of course. If you had a lot of choice, I don’t know that you’ll have a lot of choice or not. Right now, it doesn’t seem like there are an overabundance of choices out there, but, yeah, of course I would like to be involved in what the car looks like and who the company is that you’re working with and that type of thing. A lot of times you don’t necessarily have that choice. I don’t think there’s that many people out there with that much money they’re probably looking to spend, but, on the other hand, I’m confident that Geoff Smith and the marketing department will figure it all out and will get it all put together.” 

 

SO YOU DON’T WORRY ABOUT THAT KIND OF THING? “I’d be lying if I told you I didn’t spend a little time worrying about it and thinking about it, but I don’t have hardly anything to do with it. The only thing I can really do is try to be the best spokesperson I can be for DeWalt and the companies we work with right now and try to run the best we can run. That’s really kind of my part and lately that’s been more than I can handle it seems like because we haven’t been running that great, so I’m just really trying to concentrate on performance and keeping our stuff running.” 

 

WHAT ROLE DOES MOMENTUM PLAY IN THIS SPORT? “There have been times where I’ve really believed in momentum and then other times I really haven’t. We’ve had times, I can’t remember the year – I think it was ’04 – where we won two races right before the chase – Michigan and Bristol, I think – and then I think we went to Richmond afterwards. We won a couple of races and then when we started the chase it just went terrible. I thought we had all the momentum that year. We were rolling off a couple wins. Everything was going good and it just turned around and went the other way on us and we couldn’t get it back, so I don’t know. I think that each week is a new week. It seems like you go through periods for some reason where it’s hard to do things wrong. Even when things go wrong it ends up going right for you, and then there are times you go through the other way around. Even when you’re running good, you don’t get the finish or something else happens, which seems to me that’s kind of the phase we’re in right now. But I don’t know if you can ever put your finger on it or really feel the momentum or feel the shift or that type of thing.”

 

ALL OF ROUSH FENWAY HAS BEEN STRUGGLING. IS THERE A WAY TO CATCH UP WHEN YOU CAN’T TEST LIKE BEFORE? “Everybody finds a way to work on it, whether it’s computers or seven-post machines or tracks that we still can go to or whatever, but we just haven’t done as good of a job this year. Last year, we had a couple of things that seemed like they were an advantage right away until other people caught onto it. Carl won a bunch of races right away with the rear-end housing and other stuff, until everybody caught onto that. It’s just harder to find that advantage these days and you just have to have every single thing right and it seems like we’ve got ourselves a little bit behind, but I know they’re working hard on the stuff trying to figure it out and hopefully we’ll get it better.” 

 

WHAT ARE THE BIGGEST ISSUES RIGHT NOW? “I don’t know. It’s basically set-up stuff. It’s basically that. I guess you could have some structural differences in a car a little bit, but the aero on the cars are almost all identical with this car and there aren’t as many variables as there was with the other car. All of the bodies are basically the same. All the engine stuff is close enough where that’s not gonna be the difference, really, in my opinion, between running first or second or eighth and 10^th. So it’s mostly set-up stuff – bump stops and springs and maybe front geometry and maybe some structural stuff with the front snout that you can still work on, but, other than that, there’s not as many variables as there used to be. You’ve got those five or six areas and that’s what you’ve got to work on.” 

 

DOES THAT MAKE IT HARDER TO CATCH UP? “It just seems like they are a lot more technical than they used to be. You used to be able to make bigger changes to your car and try stuff, whereas this stuff just seems like it’s a lot more technical. To me, it seems like it’s really hard to get it just right and it’s really easy to get it off. For us, anyway, when we get it off, it’s really hard to fix it. When we’re really close, we can make small adjustments and we can feel it and we can make the stuff run a little better or a little worse, but when we’re a big chunk off – for us anyway – it’s just really, really hard to find it. We unloaded the first lap at Chicago really far off and we put it back in the trailer driving just as bad as it did when we unloaded it and we threw everything we could think of at it, so I don’t know why that is but it seems to be that way.” 

 

GREG BIFFLE – No. 16 3M Ford Fusion – DO YOU LIKE RACING HERE? “Oh yeah.  I think like anything it’s kind of a change of pace for us. We go from road racing, short track to mile-and-a-half and then an event like this. It’s different. A big race track and lots of press and media around it. It’s like the Daytona 500 all over.” 

 

WHAT’S IT LIKE COMING OFF TURN FOUR HERE WITH ALL THE FANS ON THE FRONTSTRETCH? “I think you notice it all the time just because the straightaways are longer than anywhere we go. Now I don’t know about Pocono, how long there, but here they seem like they’re an eternity. It’s like forever to get to the other end, so you actually have a little bit of time to use your peripheral vision and see a little bit of the stuff going on around you in the middle part of the straightaway.   So, yeah, you see all that stuff and it’s pretty impressive.” 

 

WHAT DO YOU LIKE ABOUT THIS TRACK? “I want to kiss the bricks, I know that much. That’s one thing I’ve learned about this place is that or drink a little milk, instead of Coke. I know that’s a different race, but it’s just neat with all the things that are different about this. You think about all the things that have gone on for the Daytona 500 forever and that’s kind of the same but different here. There’s a lot of history here. We’ve kind of come in mid-term, so to speak, and we’re getting to learn a lot about it.” 

 

HOW WOULD THESE CARS HANDLE ON THE ORIGINAL BRICKS? “I don’t think they’d handle very good.” CAN YOU TALK ABOUT YOUR POSITION IN POINTS? “It’s unfortunate where we’re at in points. It’s obvious that we’re out of the chase a little bit right now and our last three weeks haven’t been very good. We’re just gonna have to be better. We know we are. We’re nervous about getting in and anything can happen here. We’ve got another race track we didn’t run good at at the beginning of the year that’s a good track for us – Atlanta – and Pocono we’ve run hit and miss. We’ve been really good there or really bad there, so there are some races we’re concerned about leading up to the cutoff and we know we’re on the bubble, so it’s important to have good finishes right now.” 

 

DO YOU LOOK AT POINTS AND STUDY IT OR IS IT MORE IMPORTANT TO JUST GO OUT AND RUN WELL? “It’s more important to just go out and run well. We know where we’re at. We know we’re 10 points out and we know we need 60-80 points to be safe and that’s just the way it is. We know we’ve given up a couple hundred in the last three races and that’s pretty amazing if you could think about that. I think we’ve given up more than anybody has in probably 10 races in three, so it’s unfortunate, but that’s where we’re at.” 

 

DOES IT MAKE YOU MADE, FRUSTRATED? “Both. I’m as mad as can be and I’m sick to my stomach that we’ve put ourselves in this position, but these are the cards we’re dealt and now we’ve got to work our way back forward. That’s all we can do. We can’t whine and cry about it, we’ve got to run well and that’s it. We’ve got to run well.” 

 

DO YOU TRY NOT TO CARRYOVER BAD RUNS? “I think you’ve got to drop it. You can’t think about all the problems you had at Chicago, you have to think about how good you can run at Indy. We tested here and our car was pretty decent, so we look forward to getting back on track and just run in the top five like we know we can do and move on.” 

 

HOW DO YOU GET BACK ON TRACK? “We just got done testing together yesterday at New Smyrna. I think that’s helped us – that helped kind of bring us together away from the race track, not under the pressure, and worked together a little bit. We all know where we’re at. We all know we need to run well here and everybody knows they have to do their job. I think everybody is in good spirits.” 

 

YOU’VE LED A LOT OF LAPS THIS YEAR BUT YOU’RE NOT IN THE TOP 12. DO YOU CHANGE ANYTHING? “No, I think we’ve got to continue to do what we’ve done. That’s why we’ve run so well and had good finishes. We need to continue to do that and just run as good as we can. I think we’re totally capable of finishing in the top 10 here. I really feel like we can finish in the top five. Like I said, when we tested here we were pretty happy with the car and we’ve got a good group of guys. We know we can do it, we just have to put it to work.” 

 

DOES MOMENTUM PLAY A ROLE? “Momentum plays a lot and when you have three races that are not very good, that’s dragging you down versus the other guys we’re racing to get in the chase – they’ve had six good weeks in a row or four good weeks in a row. That plays a little bit of a factor – knowing you’re gonna come in and run good. Me as a driver, I have to put those three races behind me and look at this one and look at the next one as our opportunity to gain those 50 or 70 points back, and that’s what I use for motivation.” 

 

IF YOU COULD BUILD A TRACK ANYWHERE, WOULD INDY BE A MODEL? “That’s a hard question because there are probably better race tracks that our type of car would put on a more competitive side-by-side race that the fans have really voiced their opinion that they really want to see – like Bristol and places like that. No if it’s a multi-use facility where they’re gonna run other divisions, then maybe there’s some sort of compromise, but if you’re asking me, ‘what’s the best possible track for these cars to race on?’ I would say more of a conventional oval. This race track puts on a good race. I think the fans love to come here and watch the race because of the history of it, but I would think if you were gonna go build something completely detached, this wouldn’t be your first choice I wouldn’t think.” 

 

IS IT WORTHWHILE TO RACE HERE? “Oh yeah, absolutely. It’s definitely worth coming here and racing. I think it’s a great place to come and race, but these days – this era – to go build a facility like this for NASCAR wouldn’t be what you would do, but to come here and race, certainly, you wouldn’t pass it up. It would be crazy not to come here. It’s a great place to come and I think it’s neat.” 

 

IS THERE ANYTHING THAT’S COME OUT IN THE LAST TWO MONTHS IN THE MAYFIELD CASE THAT GIVES YOU ANY DOUBTS ABOUT NASCAR’S RANDOM TESTING POLICY? “No, I don’t think so. I’ve been tested once this season randomly and I feel like the test policy was a good test policy to have to where it made it more fair to just pull a guy out of the crowd randomly, instead of suspicion. For the test to be altered or not come back correctly or any of that, I don’t really feel like that’s possible. And I’m pretty confident that NASCAR has really done their due diligence. They’ve already told us clearly that if we have a prescription or we have whatever, that we need to disclose that and if there are any issues, they’re gonna work through those issues whatever they might be. So I think it’s pretty cut-and-dry at that point with how it works.” 

 

THERE ISN’T MUCH OF AN APPEALS PROCESS. WOULD YOU LIKE TO SEE MORE OF SOMETHING LIKE THAT IN CASE YOU HAVE TO GO THROUGH THIS? “That is a difficult question and that should be something that is really looked at because, for instance, something came back inaccurate or whatever, how do they verify a new test or a B sample or do they take the guy off the track immediately. So that is something that they’ve thought through and I don’t know exactly the procedure, but I would only say that would be if there was a false test come back or something – that you would need some sort of way because, let’s face it, we need to err on the side of safety. If somebody has tested positive with both the A and B sample, well then clearly there is some form of – whether it’s an illegal substance or not – you kind of need to err on the side of safety. Even if it’s a prescription drug, you can’t compete on the race track with that in your system. Even if it’s a prescription. We probably all flew here this weekend. Do you want him flying the plane if he comes back with something in his system with whatever it might be? That his decisions might be a little cloudy, or are we just gonna weigh on the side of safety and say, ‘You know what, I’ll take the next flight. You go ahead with that one,’ just because I’m gonna err on the side of safety. I don’t know all the answers, but I would have to say that if two tests come back positive, yes, there needs to be an appeals process to verify whatever there is, but there’s also a safety issue involved whether it’s prescription or not.” 

 

FROM A DRIVER’S STANDPOINT, IF IT GETS OUT THAT SOMEBODY FAILED A TEST AND THAT THERE’S AN INACCURACY, EVEN IF YOUR NAME IS CLEARED THERE’S A PERCEPTION – ESPECIALLY IN THIS SPORT WHERE SPONSORSHIP MEANS A LOT. “Yes. There’s clearly a line there, absolutely.” MORE SO THAN FOOTBALL OR BASEBALL? “I would think so because you work for a team in that aspect. You’re just a player. That’s why sponsors are so important, and image and all those things. I think that’s why you see a lot of the drivers act the way they do – in a manner that’s responsible and as a role model.” 

 

CARL EDWARDS – No. 99 Aflac Ford Fusion – WHY DOES THE WINNER OF THIS RACE SEEM TO YIELD THE EVENTUAL CHAMPION? “That’s a really good question. What is it, something like seven of the last 11? This track is very unique. It’s different than any track we race at and it truly takes a strong team in every aspect to win here. Pit road is very important. Qualifying is important. Horsepower. Downforce. The driver’s skill. It’s just a track that takes really everything, so maybe that’s why it seems to forecast the champion with its winners, but it’s just a statistic at the end. That’s the only thing. You never know, it could go the next 10 years and not go that way, but I would say that this track tests your team in every way.”

 

IS THIS TRACK DIFFICULT FROM A TECHNICAL STANDPOINT? “Yes, it’s a very difficult track technically. I’ve come here and thought, ‘Boy, this is easy.’ The car drives great. We’ve led laps and I’ve been really competitive, and I’ve come here and had cars that were just really difficult for me to run well. The engineers have a huge say in how the performance is on the race track, and then from a driver’s perspective, even when things are good it’s still a very technical race track.” 

 

IS IT JUST HOW THE CORNERS ARE SET UP? “Right. As a driver, assuming your car is great and that’s not an issue, you’re still driving in these corners over 200 miles per hour and they look really sharp. It does not look like it’s gonna work out when you enter and you have to hit your marks perfectly here to put a good lap in. They talk about turn two at Pocono, the tunnel turn, well we’ve got four of those here and they’re all tough.” 

 

WILL YOU KNOW BY THE END OF THE DAY ABOUT WHAT THE TIRE WILL GIVE YOU IN RACE CONDITION? “Yeah, I think by the end of the day we’ll know how much Goodyear’s work has paid off, and I think it’s gonna be good. It will definitely be better than we had last year and that’s good. I was amazed when I came out here with the resources they put into this and I think they should be commended for that.” 

 

YOU WERE SECOND LAST YEAR. HOW MUCH CONFIDENCE DOES THAT GIVE YOU THIS YEAR? “Last year we were good. I felt like it just came down to Jimmie and I and whichever one of us got in front was gonna be the winner and he got me. Somehow he got in front of me. I don’t remember how he did it, but that was, to be completely candid, that was at a time when I felt like we were overall more competitive as a team. Now we’ve been working up towards that some. I’m really hopeful that we’re that competitive here again, and I’ll be really pleased if we are, but right now we’re in a stage where we’re kind of building back that momentum to try to be as fast as those Hendrick cars are right now. It gave me a glimpse of what it would be like. I was like 30 or 40 feet from winning the Brickyard 400. I’m definitely ready to start that race again this year.” 

 

WHAT WOULD IT MEAN TO WIN HERE? “My wife and I when we landed we were just talking about how similar this area is to Missouri and Columbia where I grew up, but just being a Midwestern guy – this is it. This area is the historic beginning of auto racing in America – open-wheel, NASCAR, stock cars, dirt racing – they have everything here and this is the premier race track, so it would be huge to win here. But I don’t think it really matters if you’re from Missouri or Bogota, Columbia, it just doesn’t matter. I think this is a special place.” 

 

LOOP DATA HAS YOU IN THE TOP 5 AT THIS TRACK. WHAT’S THE KEY? “We definitely need to work on our qualifying here. I was looking at the weather today and there’s a 50 percent chance of rain tomorrow, so what do you do? Do you work on your race package for the next two hours and sacrifice qualifying? Or do you work on qualifying? I don’t know what we’re gonna do yet, but we’ve historically worked harder on our race package and towards the end of the race here, the qualifying hasn’t really been a detriment to us, other than our pit stall selection. If we work on race trim, I hope it rains tomorrow, but you just never know.” 

 

HOW WILL DOUBLE-FILE RESTARTS WORK HERE? “There’s no telling what’s gonna happen with that. I hadn’t thought about that today until you asked. That’s gonna be crazy. With everything that’s on the line right now – with everyone positioned in or out of the chase or hanging on, and with everything that comes with a good finish in the Brickyard 400, if we have 20 to go and a double-file restart, it’s gonna be insane. The fans will get their money’s worth, but it will be stressful for us.” 

 

IS IT POSSIBLE FOR ANYONE TO HAVE A GUT FEELING ABOUT THIS PLACE LIKE TONY DOES? “I can’t speak for Tony, but, for me, I think the places that are truly special in that respect are Kansas and Gateway, just because in the same fashion you mentioned about Tony, I used to drive my little clunkers back and forth by those places doing other business and just kind of glance over and think, ‘Man, that would be cool.’ So I would have to say that it’s probably more special for him than anyone else. Things like that stick with you from when you’re a child.” 

 

DO YOU FEEL THERE’S SOMETHING TO PROVE THIS YEAR WITH WHAT HAPPENED A YEAR AGO? “Last year, I thought once I realized what was going on with the tires and how the race was gonna play out, I felt like we definitely owed the fans – and I think everyone agrees with that – and the effort that’s been put forth this year is really that’s what it’s based on. We want to put on a good show for the fans, so, hopefully, this year makes up for it. Hopefully, the tires hold up and we have exciting racing because that’s what it’s about is giving those fans what they pay for.” 

 

DOES NASCAR NEED TO RACE HERE? “Personally, I think it’s important to race here. This is one of the race tracks in the world. I watched the Indy 500 and it wasn’t closer racing than we have anywhere else. It wasn’t more spectacular in any fashion, other than it is the Indianapolis 500. That’s what makes it what it is, so, to me, racing is what racing is. Sometimes you’re gonna have races that come down to the wire and sometimes you’re not. This place is two-and-a-half miles and it’s tough to keep everybody in a bunch, but I think the racing here is as good in stock cars as it is anything else and I’m personally glad we race here.” 

 

WHAT IS YOUR STRATEGY FOR THE NEXT 7 RACES? “My strategy for the next seven races going into the chase is to get as many points as we can. We’ve got to be able to afford a disaster at Richmond. We’ve got to have enough points to blow up the engine on lap one of that race and still make the chase because that’s what can happen. A couple of years ago we had that leading the race and blew the engine, so I’m getting all the points I can.” 

 

ARE BONUS POINTS IMPORTANT – FOR WINNING? “Yeah. We’re race car drivers. If I can win, you saw at Talladega, we race hard if it looks like we can win, but I definitely don’t want to wreck the car or cost myself a bunch of points doing something silly or too risky. Not right now.” 

 

HOW WOULD YOU RATE YOUR SEASON? “I’m definitely a little frustrated with the way we’ve run this season and the results we’ve had, but it’s tough. If you look at some of the teams that are struggling and the peaks and valleys of how this sport goes, I feel like we’re beyond the worst part of our performance. I feel like 10 or 12 races ago we were going, ‘Wait, what happened?’ I feel like we’re on an upswing. My pit crew has been improving hugely, which was much needed, but my plan is – best-case scenario – is that we can run really well here the next seven races and peak and be real competitive with 10 to go. I think we’re on that track. We’ll find out, but even our worst day as a group at Chicago, there was a point in that race where I felt like our 99 team might have a car to win. I felt like we were OK, so if we get better, we’ll be real good.” 

 

WHAT DO YOU LEARN ABOUT YOURSELF IN SEASONS THAT ARE FRUSTRATING? “I think all of us learn all of the time, at least we’re doing ourselves a favor if we do, and I think the time when I learned the most about expectation and disappointment and how to deal with those things was the 2006 season. We’d won, I think, four races in 2005 and went into 2006 with high, high hopes and in the back of my mind I thought, ‘Maybe I’m being a little unrealistic,’ but I really set myself up like we were gonna dominate and we didn’t win a race. We didn’t make the chase, and then we came back in 2007 and ran really well and then 2008 was obviously great, and I realized, ‘Wow, there are going to be times where you struggle,’ and I realized I can’t let happiness be dictated by the results. I just have to perform the best I can and really and truly learn the meaning of, ‘If you try your hardest and you do your best, you can’t lose,’ and that’s tough because so much of this is based on the result. Everything is always forward and upward, and so you have a time when things are not going forward or going backwards, I personally have to stop myself from thinking, ‘OK, this is terrible. I’m panicking.’ I have to just focus on doing the best that I can and when I do that, all of a sudden, look at 2008. I wasn’t doing anything different in 2008 than I’m doing now, we were just winning races it seemed like every other week, so you just have to hang on and ride the wave while you can.” 

 

WHAT MAKES THIS TRACK HARD? “A couple of things make racing at Indy difficult. Number one, the groove where you want to race is very narrow. You get this short, punctuating corners. There isn’t a lot of time to be in a corner working on somebody. The speeds are so high that if you do get close enough to someone in this first corner and you can’t complete a pass, you’re kind of in their wake and their turbulence and you can’t complete it in the next corner, so you really have to time where you’re gonna make your move so you can commit fully and get a pass made. A lot of times at this track you’ll catch a guy and you’ll initiate a pass or some way to overtake him and then you can’t get it done and you have to fall back and think about it and do it again. It’s a real technical race track in that way and that’s what makes it tough.” 

 

PRACTICE QUOTES

 

NOTE: Greg Biffle posted the fastest speed in the first practice session on Friday.

 

GREG BIFFLE – No. 16 3M Ford Fusion – HOW IS THE RACE TRACK? “The track is good.” DO YOU FEEL GOOD ABOUT SAYING THERE WILL BE NO TIRE ISSUES ON SUNDAY? “I think so. I think it’s good. All of that historical stuff is gone. It was basically an isolated incident. A big deal was made about it and it’s gone now. We’ve got a good tire. The track has grip and I think it’s gonna race good.” YOU WERE PRETTY GOOD TODAY. “Yeah, we’re decent here. I think we were in the mid-twenties (23^rd in second practice) and I think we might be able to get a little more out of it.”

 

 

NOTE: Bill Elliott was third in the first practice session on Friday.

 

BILL ELLIOTT – No. 21 Motorcraft Ford Fusion – DO YOU FEEL GOOD ABOUT TODAY? “I’m not gonna say anything until I get through tomorrow.” HOW IS THE TRACK? “When we came up here and ran the other day I felt pretty good about it, but I just didn’t want to go out and screw up or any of that stuff. I feel like we’ve got a pretty good race car, but I just want to get through tonight and worry about tomorrow.” WHAT ARE YOUR THOUGHTS ON THE TIRE? “Just judging on what we saw here during the test I think the tires will be fine.”

 

 

NOTE: Bobby Labonte was sixth in the first practice session on Friday.

 

BOBBY LABONTE – No. 96 Ask.com Ford Fusion – HOW WERE YOU TODAY? “I think we missed about two or three tenths there in that second practice, which would put us about 20^th. We didn’t get the best draw for tomorrow, but if it’s cloudy and overcast who knows, it might OK. The first practice a lot of guys didn’t do qualifying runs probably and that’s why we were up there because we were still four-tenths off of the pole, and that was Biffle and Biffle is still better than us as Ford, but he’s not very much in front of us. Obviously, those guys got faster, but, overall, between the first practice and the second practice with a little bit of race runs, we’re definitely way better than we tested. I feel better inside here because it’s like we got a little bit closer to the hunt as far as a few things go.” WHAT DO YOU THINK ABOUT THE TIRES? “We didn’t run enough and we always had new tires on it. They feel OK. We didn’t run enough laps, but from the test here I felt fine, so I don’t think this should be a surprise. I think we should be OK. Obviously, if it rains tomorrow that might be a different story, but it’s rained I’m sure since the last time we tested and it looks like rubber is on the track, so it looks like it’s rubbered up.”