CARL EDWARDS – No. 99 Aflac Ford Fusion (finished 4th) – “It’s not out of fuel, but it’s really close. Aflac’s motto is, ‘We’ve got you under our wing,’ and Bob [Osborne, crew chief] definitely had me under his wing today. He really talked me into slowing down and saving all that fuel. Congrats to Brian. He’s worked really hard to get that win. That’s pretty cool.”
HOW IMPORTANT IS ANOTHER TOP FINISH FOR YOU AND THIS TEAM HEADING CLOSER TO THE CHASE? “It’s very important. We talked about it on the radio. It’s not that much to race like that – you want to race for the win and go out there and go for it, but we couldn’t run out of fuel. This Ford Fusion gets great fuel mileage – I’m just proud of that, because a couple of those guys ran out, and that’s excruciating. That would be terrible.”
IS THIS A CASE OF RACING HARD AND KEEPING AT IT ALL DAY AND THEN GOOD THINGS HAPPENING AT THE END? “Yeah, that’s it. It was a hard-fought day. Obviously, we were here to win the race, but that’s a great points day, and that’s what’s important right now.”
IT APPEARED THAT ALL FIVE ROUSH FENWAY TEAMS AT ONE TIME OR ANOTHER WERE RUNNING WELL. IS THAT AN ENCOURAGING SIGN? “Yeah, everyone ran well. That’s the best we’ve run in a while. We made some changes throughout the race. I learned some things. We made the car really fast. I felt like we had a top-three or -four car, and that’s pretty cool. It’s been a little while since I’ve really felt that comfortable with my car.”
MATT KENSETH – No. 17 DeWalt Ford Fusion (finished 14th) – “At the end of the run, we had to save fuel because everybody was short, so we knew we had to slow down, but we weren’t as good. About the second or third run we actually got it pretty darn competitive, compared to what we’ve been – we were probably the most competitive Ford, at least – I thought we could’ve run fifth or sixth, fourth maybe, if everything lined up perfect. And from then on as the race kept going, it just kept getting looser and we couldn’t get any of our adjustments to work, and just kept getting farther off. So, the end was the worst we were, but it was still kid of a step in the right direction.”
BILL ELLIOTT – No. 21 Quick Lane Tire & Auto Ford Fusion (finished 16th) – “That was a hard-fought race right there. I’m proud of the guys. That thing was ill-handling in the beginning and those guys never gave up. We got better, and that’s all we’ve got to keep doing.”
DAVID RAGAN – No. 6 UPS Ford Fusion (finished 30th) – “Well, we had a little bit of a racing incident coming off of turn two. I think I was already a little loose and then I checked up just a bit and the No. 2 was right there. We got our tires messed up a bit, but the car still had some good speed. When we got back out on the track in the back, it was just real tough to pass cars. We were extremely loose on that last run. But, I’m proud of our UPS team. We showed some promised today and we were pretty solid early in the race. We’ve just got to look at this run today and try to get better.”
BOBBY LABONTE – No. 96 DLP Ford Fusion (finished 43rd) – ARE YOU DONE FOR THE DAY? “Yes. Something broke in the valve train area. It didn’t sound good to start with, so something happened to it. It’s getting worse, so there’s no sense in messing it up.”