AUTISM SPEAKS 400 QUALIFYING
GREG BIFFLE – No. 16 Nexcare/3M Ford Fusion (Qualified 5th) – “I think the track just lost a little bit of grip. The sun has come out and you had a full Nationwide practice with the rubber on the track. It’s not really tight or loose, it’s just overall grip is down because of the heat in the race track. I probably drove into turn three a little bit too hard and slid up the race track, but, other than that, just a pretty good lap for the Nexcare 3M Ford Fusion. These guys are doing a great job with this car and I’m glad to be here. This is a good race track for us.” HOW DO YOU ATTACK THIS TRACK ON SUNDAY? “You just have to know how your car is gonna react and that’s the main thing. Like you said, it’s about the exact same as we practiced. Normally in qualifying you pick up and there just isn’t any to pick up right now.”
DAVID RAGAN – No. 6 UPS Ford Fusion (Qualified 26th) – “I think we’ve got a good race car for the race, we just didn’t get the lap in qualifying that I thought we would get. I missed some marks by a little bit and a qualifying lap here at Dover goes by pretty quick, but when we unloaded I felt like our UPS Ford was as fast as it’s been in the recent weeks right off the truck, so we really haven’t had to adjust a lot on it. We just didn’t get a great qualifying lap, but I’m still pretty happy with our car for the race on Sunday. I’m looking forward to getting some practice on Saturday.”
CARL EDWARDS – No. 99 Aflac Ford Fusion (Qualified 13th) – “It got a little sunny as we started going. Everybody was losing about a tenth and we lost a tenth. Bob did a good job with the adjustments, but everybody is so close that the little bit of temperature change, I think, cost all of us and everybody is kind of slowing down with the weather here. But that’s a good lap. I think that will be 15th. That’s my prediction – 15th or 16th. We’ve got a good race car and I think it’s gonna be good.”
MATT KENSETH – No. 17 DeWalt Ford Fusion (Qualified 14th) – “We were up in the top five in practice and didn’t really get the best draw here with the sun, but, really, we just kind of missed it in qualifying. The track changed or something and we didn’t change with it and were just off.” ARE YOU HAPPY WITH THE CAR FOR SUNDAY? “So far I’ve been happy with the car, but I was happy with it in qualifying trim, too, and it didn’t qualify good, but, so far, it’s been OK.”
Greg Biffle, driver of the No. 16 3M Ford Fusion, found himself in Victory Lane the last time he visited Dover International Raceway. Biffle, who is looking for his first win of the 2009 season, spoke about this weekend’s race during his weekly press conference.
GREG BIFFLE – No. 16 3M Ford Fusion – “First of all, I came in the room when Jeff (Burton) was finishing up and I’d like to follow up exactly on what he said about the job Goodyear has done with these tires. They’ve done a tremendous job this year. They’ve come a long ways and I’m excited about the competition this weekend. Dover always puts on a great race. It’s a place where we have a good tire and a lot of grip and we can really race here, so I’m looking forward to an exciting race this weekend for sure.”
YOU HAD A SITUATION LIKE JUNIOR DOES NOW WITH A NEW CREW CHIEF IN THE MIDDLE OF THE YEAR. WHAT IS THE ATMOSPHERE LIKE WHEN THAT HAPPENS? “I think you’re in the best-case scenario when somebody steps in like (Greg) Erwin or somebody for Junior because really the only way to go is up. That’s a good thing. When you take the reins of something the graph is gonna be naturally up, so that’s a good thing. The other thing is it gets the whole team excited and it gets the driver excited. It’s like you see somebody qualify on the pole and then they run good. It’s momentum and that’s what a new crew chief does – it’s instant momentum, whether there is any or isn’t any, it’s started that wheel at 100 miles an hour because of the camaraderie around a new crew chief and a new program and all that. A lot of times you see a bump in performance, even when we swap crew chiefs and teams it’s that energy level that always gives a team a little bump, so I think you’ll see him pick up a little bit. The whole team is gonna be working hard to come up with results and I think you’ll see a little bump in performance.”
WHAT’S YOUR TAKE ON THE DRIVE-ABILITY OF THE CURRENT NATIONWIDE CAR AND THE HORSEPOWER COMPARISON BETWEEN FORD, GM AND TOYOTA? “It’s easy for us to say that the cars that are beating us – the Toyota car and Gibbs cars in general – have more power than we do. That’s easy to say, but if you look at the stats, there are other Toyota cars on the race track in the Nationwide Series that aren’t beating our pants off every week, so that tends to tell me that, A, either Gibbs’ engine program is extraordinarily better than everybody else with the Toyota engine, or they’re cars are handling better and they’re able to keep the throttle down more than we are, and I’m probably the latter of the two. They probably have their cars handling better and not very many times an oval track or NASCAR race is won by power. A lot of times it’s won by drive-ability of the car and I’ve seen cars on the chassis dyno that make 10, 12, 15 more horsepower than the car that won a lot of times and it doesn’t matter because if you can’t put the gas down, you can have all the power in the world. Our straightaways are so short that it’s hard for that power to make that big of a difference, but when you start adding a good handling car with a car that has really good power, or maybe a little bit more than everybody else, that becomes an obstacle that’s nearly too tall to overcome – when you have all those things added together.”
WHAT ABOUT THE DIFFERENCES IN THE CUP AND NATIONWIDE CAR? “They’re definitely different, there’s no doubt about that. The cars are extremely different. One thing that you notice right when you get in this car (Cup car) – probably the most noticeable – is the size of it and the room inside, and then the center of gravity. The car is tall and the car wants to roll more and it’s harder on the right side tires.”
I MEAN THE NATIONWIDE CAR AND THE RACING THERE? “To be perfectly honest with you, I think the racing is not nearly as good as it was without the tapered spacers. And the reason why I say that is because you have to lift on the throttle with a regular engine, and it puts drive-ability back in the car. You’re approaching the corner faster, you’ve got slow down, you’ve got to work at getting back to the gas because you’re gonna spin the tires – they don’t have enough power to do that – so you drive way down in the corner and it’s the first guy that can get the gas down. But, on the other hand, NASCAR is trying to make this series affordable and by making it affordable meant cutting the power to the engine and using that engine for four weeks. That’s a huge savings in money. The unfortunate result of that is the competition side is changed a little bit because the thing doesn’t have the power it used to. I think we all have driven the Nationwide car and understand that cutting the power is not a way to make – for the future, or if you think about the Cup side, it’s not something we want to do. We want to leave the power like it is, but on the Nationwide side it’s a double-edged sword. We understand that they’re trying to save money on the engines and we can appreciate that, but if we had our way competition-wise, we’d say, ‘Hey, take the plate off it and let the racing be like it was.’”
WHAT ARE YOU EXPECTING OUT OF THE INDY TIRE TEST NEXT WEEK? “Goodyear has put a tremendous amount into this tire test to make sure that these tires run well, and they’re against a big obstacle. One is a car that’s hard on right-side tires and a race track that’s like no other we go to, and then a lot of speed, so they’re trying to balance all of those issues. What we’re looking for in the tire test is we’re looking to help Goodyear make a whole fuel run or close to that on a fairly green race track, and we’re certainly looking for a little track time ourselves to make sure we have some kind of platform we can go back and start with. One, help Goodyear get a tire that will last and all the competitors can race on, and get a little track time.”
WHAT IS YOUR IMPRESSION ABOUT THE PIT ROAD CHANGES HERE? “Certainly anytime you make pit road wide, it’ll be better, safer for all the competitors and easier to get up and down. Obviously in competition will really tell the tale. Once we get into competition and we’re racing off pit road, then we’re really gonna see the difference of what it’s like. That’s really about it. It looks like they did a nice job, so we’ll just have to wait and see how it races.”
WHAT ARE THE RECOLLECTIONS OF YOUR FIRST WIN? “My first win came at Daytona in July. It was really exciting for me in 2003. I got the Grainger car in Victory Lane, but it’s exciting no matter how it comes. Mine was sort of a fuel mileage win as well. We had track position and fuel mileage as well and won that race. David’s circumstances were certainly something to that nature, but I’m just really proud of those guys. They’ve won good enough to win races this season and have been there, and I know what it’s like. That was a big win. That was a big race for our series and that’ll be a big win for him. I’m pretty happy for those guys.”
Carl Edwards, driver of the No. 99 Aflac Ford Fusion, moved up one spot to 11th in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series point standings after a fourth-place finish in Monday’s Coca-Cola 600. Edwards talked about a variety of issues at his team hauler before practice.
CARL EDWARDS – No. 99 Aflac Ford Fusion – HOW MUCH DOES A DRIVER’S PERFORMANCE WEIGH ON THE CREW CHIEF? “I’ve had a lot of different crew chiefs and when things aren’t working, sometimes simply making a change makes the difference. The crew chief, the driver, the engineer, everybody is just as important. This sport is a true team sport, it’s not just one person, and it’s not always people’s performance – sometimes it’s just the way they work together – so sometimes these changes are good.”
CAN YOU TALK ABOUT RACING DOVER? “As long as you’re not the part that’s self-cleaning, it’s great. But this track is one of the most fun race tracks we go to. It’s got the highest sensation of speed for me, so that’s fun. That’s why we all started racing – we like to drive fast. It’s a mile. It’s high-banked. It’s fast-paced, and late in the race you can run two or three-wide, which is really fun. And, yeah, the wrecks here are crazy. It’s like driving 100 miles an hour down the hallway in your house. There’s not a lot of room.”
IT’S ABOUT TIME TO SEE A CARL EDWARDS WIN. “Yeah. You’re telling me it’s about time. It feels like years since we won a race and it’s only been 12 races, but we’re doing the best we can, just like everybody out here. Right now, these cars are so competitive that all of a sudden you’ve got guys like myself and other guys that haven’t won in a little while and you think, ‘Man, this is tough.’ You realize when the wins are coming easy it seems so simple and when they don’t, it seems really tough, so I’m hoping we can kind of get back on that winning track this weekend.”
WHAT DOES A DRIVER GO THROUGH WITH A CREW CHIEF CHANGE? “As a driver, you do everything the best you can. You deliver your information the best you can all the time. With the crew chief changes that I’ve had, there’s really not a set thing you have to learn about somebody – it either works or it doesn’t. You either run better or you don’t, and there’s no way to really tell how that’s gonna happen. Last season in the Nationwide Series we made a change and we went and won seven races, so I’m glad we made that change. I don’t know exactly what was different, but sometimes that chemistry just works.”
WILL THE PIT ROAD IMPROVEMENTS HERE MAKE IT EASIER? “Anywhere they can put up SAFER barriers, all of us drivers appreciate that and we know that’s a big expense. These walls hurt, and then making pit road longer here will be good because this is such a tight pit road. It’s so difficult to get in and off, so that will be good. I think that will make the competition on the track better.”
THE PITS ARE USUALLY PRETTY CRAZY HERE. “The pits are always crazy. On television it looks so easy – you’ve got this nice, big pit stall. When you’re coming down pit lane you see 42 other teams and all these people standing out there and your pit stall looks like it’s about eight to 10 inches long. It’s really tough, so anytime they can make that are bigger makes it easier on us drivers.”
CAN YOU TAKE ANYTHING FROM THIS RACE INTO THE CHASE WHEN YOU COME BACK IN THE FALL? “We’ve run really well here and I love this place. Everytime we come we try to learn little things that we can apply the next time. The surface stays the same because it’s concrete, so you don’t have to change a lot – at least that’s what I’m banking on here. Hopefully, we have a good run and then come back and, number one, be in the chase and, two, run well like we have before in the chase here.”
WHAT ARE YOUR THOUGHTS ABOUT LAST YEAR’S RACE HERE? “That was cool. I felt like the fans all got their money’s worth in that race. I was in the car smiling and racing hard. That was fun. Just to be able to see Matt and Greg race that hard and bumping into each other. I was trying to hold them off for awhile, but then I thought, ‘Well, I’m out of this one.’ They got by me, and then I saw them running into each other and I thought, ‘Man, I’m gonna win. They’re gonna wreck.’ That was one of the coolest races I’ve been a part of.”
WHAT ABOUT NATIONWIDE THIS WEEKEND? “The points are still really close between Kyle and myself in the Nationwide Series. We couldn’t come to a better a race track. I love this place. We’ve had a lot of success here. We’ve got a really cool Ortho car over there and we need to get it back to Victory Lane and I don’t think there’s a better place we could come. That series at this track is a lot of fun to drive. I like it.”
WHAT WERE YOUR THOUGHTS ON THE NASCAR TOWN HALL MEETING? “I think it was a great thing for NASCAR to do to kind of have an open forum. Really, what I took out of it – the questions there were, ‘What can we do to make sure that in this time, when all sports and all industry and the whole economy is down just a little bit, what can we do to deliver the best product to the fans and make sure the fans are getting the best racing and the sponsors are getting the best value for the money?’ And I can’t say enough about NASCAR for having that meeting and allowing us to all just kind of talk about everything.”
DID YOU HAVE ANY PARTICULAR ISSUE YOU WANTED TO ADDRESS? “No, I look at this racing that we have and I think Mark Martin is the one that put it in the best perspective in that meeting. He said in 1981 he went to Martinsville and finished third and was either two or four laps down. He said, ‘Man, the racing is so much better now than it’s ever been.’ So, from my perspective, I think the things we need to work on, like I said, is making sure the fans get the best value for their money and the sponsors get the best value for their money. On the race track, I think that with a new car and all-new style of aerodynamics and all that, we’re as good right now as we could possibly be and, in the future, they’re open to changing little things if that will make the racing better, but it ain’t that bad. It’s pretty good.”
SOME DRIVERS, LIKE KURT BUSCH, SPECIFICALLY SAID HE WISHED THE TIRES WERE BIGGER OR WIDER. WHAT DO YOU THINK? “That’s a good idea, but the only thing I thought about as far as things to make the racing better is you’ve got to be careful changing stuff. If a tire would fall off more through a run, that might be a way to promote more comers and goers – more passing. You would stop and get tires and you could blast through the field, and what Kurt said may be right – maybe a wider, bigger tire could be a softer compound and not blister. I’m not a tire engineer, but the great thing is NASCAR is open to stuff. I mean, for them to have that meeting and be open to any suggestions, that’s pretty big. But, on the other hand, you’ve got to take what Mark Martin said into account and not go changing something that’s really not that bad. There’s also the idea that the expectation is the thing that’s screwed up out there – that people expect to see this certain dramatic, crazy finish every week. I watched the Indy 500 and that’s a race that is half as exciting as the ones we run, I think, in the way that they race on the race track, and there’s nothing wrong with it. But people need to understand racing is racing – you can’t fabricate a drama, you’ve got to just have a race.”
Matt Kenseth, driver of the No. 17 DeWalt Ford Fusion, is the highest-ranking Ford driver in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series point standings, sitting ninth going into this weekend’s race. He came into the infield media center to discuss this weekend’s race.
MATT KENSETH – No. 17 DeWalt Ford Fusion – “I always look forward to coming to Dover. It’s kind of always been my favorite track, so it’s always a real challenge. It’s a very unique track. There’s not another track even remotely close to it on the circuit anymore, so I always look forward to coming here. The car has been all right so far today, so I’m looking forward to qualifying and the rest of the weekend.”
WHY DO THE ROUSH CARS SEEM TO DO SO WELL HERE? “I don’t know, to be honest with you. Mark has always ran really well here ever since I came to Roush Racing. I always remember how good Mark’s ran here, and he’s helped teach me, I think, a lot about the track and how to get around here and set your car up and that kind of thing. You can’t run good without fast cars and it seems like the last few years here, especially, our cars have been pretty fast when we show up here.”
WHAT ARE YOUR THOUGHTS ON THE MOMENTUM OF THIS SEASON. WE’VE HAD A LOT OF RAIN AND WEATHER ISSUES. HOW HAS THAT HAD AN EFFECT ON THINGS? “Weather is just part of it. It seems like every year when we race and we’re at the race track as often as we are in all the different parts of the country you’re gonna have weather issues and there’s obviously nothing us or NASCAR or anybody can do about the weather. I think they’ve always done a good job of trying to get as much racing in as practical and as possible and, hopefully, get the whole event in. If we all had it our way, obviously, we’d run the event on time and run the whole event every week, but you can’t always do that. I think that’s just part of it. I think we’ve seen some really good racing this year, especially as of late. I think the last three or four weeks the racing has improved a lot. We’ve seen a lot of two and three-wide racing and everything, so I think there have been good shows, but, yeah, you’d always want to run the whole thing and finish it.”
DID WINNING THE DAYTONA 500 CHANGE YOUR LIFE MUCH? “It’s the biggest race of the year. No, it didn’t change my life, but it’s the biggest race of the year, so that’s cool. You get to celebrate it for a week and, obviously, it’s a cool thing to be able to win that race, but it’s certainly not really an indication of how the rest of the year is gonna go. There’s a lot more racing to do than just that – another 35 races or whatever – so it was a really cool week, but, to be honest with you, by the time we got to California we were thinking about California and the next race and so on and so forth. So it was a great week. It’s something I’ll never forget and something I’ll always look back on, but, certainly, we realized after that week was over we had a lot of work to do the rest of the season to try to hopefully contend for a championship.”