CARL EDWARDS – No. 99 Aflac Ford Fusion – “Last weekend was good, we got our first win in the Nationwide Series, and then we come back to a track that’s just like Milwaukee in a lot of ways, so that will be good there, and then on the Cup side, just try to earn more points and cushion that lead over 13th place. That’s the mission right now, just march forward. Hopefully, we can do that this weekend.”
ON NOT YET WINNING IN 2008. “I feel like we could’ve won, maybe should’ve won at Texas, and we had a little trouble at Talledega, we were a couple of hundred yards from winning. Martinsville, had an extremely fast car. So, I’m not too worried about that fact that we haven’t won, because I feel like we’ve performed well enough to have won two or three different races. The real reason that we probably haven’t run is just what you’re saying, we’re were just so good at a lot tracks last year, you kind of sit and you wait to see what kind of happens, and then people get ahead of you and then you work a little harder and it seems like lately the 16 has been a lot faster – he’s been real fast at a lot of the tracks. I think we could’ve won Pocono, we just had to be extra-cautious. Michigan was really good for the Roush cars. If we were running 20th, it would hurt real bad, but right now I feel like we’re right there doing what we need to do, and the wins will come. I’ve been through this deal where you can’t screw it up and it just seems like it’s easy to win, they just fall in your lap. And I’ve been through it where you have the fastest car and you just can’t get a win, but you just have to keep going and it all balances out. So, no, it doesn’t hurt, but I can’t wait. It’s going to feel good when we win.”
HOW DID IT FEEL TO GET THAT BACKFLIP IN LAST WEEK? “It was good. The greatest part about last week in the Nationwide Series was just being able to drive by Kyle, because they’ve been so good, just being able to pass him on the race track, win the race, because we were fastest car. That was good. I’m glad we won it that way.”
HOW HAVE YOU LEARNED TO DEAL WITH HEIGHTENED EXPECTATIONS? “What happened in ’06, with huge expectations after ’05, and we just didn’t have a stellar year at all in ’06, and I learned right there that hey, this is a tough sport. You can’t rest on anything you’ve done. You have to keep going and working. Last year, at the beginning of the year, we set out to win 10 races and the championship. That was our goal amongst myself and my crew chief. We won nine and finished second, so we were close. This year, the goal is simply to win the championship. So, whatever happens, happens. I guess expectation is what it is. Nobody has higher expectations than I do, on myself. That’s how it’s always been.”
HOW CONCERNED ARE YOU WITH WHAT’S GOING ON WITH CHEVROLET AND DODGE, IN REGARDS TO FUNDING? AND, WHAT ABOUT FORD’S FUTURE? DO YOU SEE FORD STAYING INVOLVED IN TRUCKS AND NATIONWIDE NEXT YEAR? “That’s a really good question. I don’t understand, exactly, how all the money works with Ford, but I’ll go out on a limb here and take a guess: I think Ford has structured their program so that they can be better prepared to support NASCAR in the long run. The way I see it, they structured their whole business so that they would be in better shape than they could be, and it’s turned out really well. So, right now, I’m very, very proud to be driving a Ford. They’ve done the best job for not only their customers, but our country as a whole. I guess it can’t be good for the sport anytime any money is leaving, so that’s not good, and I hope that whatever happens with those GM teams and those Dodge teams, that they’re able to stay healthy and keep the people employed that they have employed and be here at the race track and be competitive. But, man, I don’t know how it’s going to work. I don’t know if one manufacturer pulls out, I don’t know how the marketing structure changes to where if it makes it better or worse for other manufacturers to be in. I just don’t know.”
CAN YOU PUT INTO PERSPECTIVE HOW TOUGH AND CLOSE THE COMPETITION IS RIGHT NOW? “I was reading the local paper this morning, I was looking at the schedule, and it’s like, ‘Okay, we’re going to real good here, that one’s a crapshoot, be good here.’ Everybody’s going down the list and saying, ‘What can we do over these next 10 races to be in the Chase?’ The simple fact is anything can happen in that Chase, and you have to be in it, and that’s the race right now, that’s all that matters. So, ultra-competitive. It couldn’t be more competitive, which makes it really fun, but you’ve just got to dig deep and work hard.”
HOW HARD? “It’s very hard. Kasey Kahne won that race last week, Clint Bowyer’s running well, Juan Montoya, David Reutimann – there’s a lot of guys that are just close that could rally – like Matt Kenseth did last year – just rally. For every one of those guys that gets in the top 12, somebody has to leave. It could be because you run poorly. It could be because you get wrecked or have a flat tire or any of these things. You have to be the ultimate points racer, I think right, unless you’re up there where Tony’s at. You’ve got to really be smart.”
YOU’RE TOO YOUNG TO REMEMBER THE PONY CAR ERA, BUT THERE’S SOME TALK NATIONWIDE CARS SWITCHING TO THOSE TYPES. SPEAKING FOR YOUR GENERATION, TO SEE CAMAROS AND MUSTANGS AND CHALLENGERS RACE, DO YOU THINK THAT MIGHT A LITTLE EXTRA EXCITEMENT TO THAT SERIES? “I have a Ford Mustang, I had a Ford Mustang that I bought all torn up and put a clutch in it and painted it. I love the Mustang brand, and I used to love racing some Camaros on the street – you know, I wasn’t supposed to – we had a good time with that, and I think there’s a lot of the car guys and girls out there that would like that. The more important thing is to, I think, is make this sport relevant to the average person out there who wants a quality vehicle and they want good fuel mileage, and I think that’s where Ford’s at right now, I don’t know about the other manufacturers, but the message that I try to deliver to the fans is that This is a Ford Fusion – everybody knows that it’s a different car, but the Ford Fusion drives great and gets great fuel mileage. And I think if they do that with the Mustang or a Fusion – it doesn’t really matter to me. I don’t know. I don’t know what they’re marketing plans are other than that.”
WITH ONLY 10 MORE CHANCES TO GET BONUS POINTS, IS IT COMFORTING, IN A WAY, THAT THE LEADERS IN WINS ONLY HAS THREE. OR, IS IT WORRISOME THAT YOU’RE 30 POINTS BEHIND AND YOU ONLY HAVE 10 MORE OPPORTUNITIES? “ That’s a good question. If I knew that I was in the Chase and if I was leading the points right now, I’d be worried about that, but those 30 points, that’s the furthest thing from mind right now. I mean, we could out and win a couple and even that up and get it real close, but the key right now is not losing those 100 points you can lose in a wreck or having some sort of trouble. But, that’ll come into play. Last year, it could’ve made a difference.”
ON THE RACES LEADING UP TO THE CHASE. “In 2005, that last race at Richmond took a year off of my life. That was stressful. And then in 2007, I think, we were close to making it. We gathered enough points and then we blew the engine at Richmond and if we hadn’t gathered all those points leading up to that, we’d have been in trouble. But, it worked out still. It is part of it. You’ve got to go out there and get all the points you can. It’s a little bit different way to race.”
WHAT DO LIKE MOST ABOUT RACING IN THE NORTHEAST? “This place is fun. The neatest thing around here I like, I’ve got this little Polaris Razor and they’ve got snowmobile trails round, so – this is my second one, we tore the first one up terribly here, then we had a blast. It’s a beautiful place to come, and it seems like the people here are cool. Live Free or Die is pretty cool to see on a license plate. So, I enjoy this place, I enjoy the folks, and it’s real cool to be up the road from Fenway Park. We get to go there quite a bit, so that’s pretty neat.”
THIS TRACK HAS PRODUCED EIGHT DIFFERENT WINNERS IN THE LAST EIGHT RACES. “Because this track is straightforward – it’s very smooth, it’s a perfect oval, it’s a very, very technical race track – so, I’ve come here and had the fastest car, we had that Red Sox car that one year and it was just outstanding, I’ve come here and couldn’t run 20th to save my life, so it’s based how well your crew chief gets that car perfect and how precise you can be as a driver. I think one of the reasons you see all the different winners is because it’s almost a strategy race. It’s a tough track to pass on. If a guy gets out front you can go a little faster than if you’re fifth or sixth. So, yeah, we come into this one – if we unload and my car’s fast right off that bat, it’s going to be great. If it’s not, we’ve got a lot of work ahead of us. It’s a very technical race track.”
GREG BIFFLE – No. 16 3M Ford Fusion – THERE HAVE BEEN EIGHT DIFFERENT WINNERS HERE IN THE LAST EIGHT RACES. IS THERE ANYTHING TO WHICH YOU CAN POINT AS TO WHY NO ONE HAS REPEATED IN A WHILE? “Certainly, this race track is one of the harder flat tracks that we go to. It’s really, really flat, and I think that it changes a lot, and the guy that hits it just right that weekend is why you see different winners all the time with no repeat winners. Hopefully, we’ll break that trend this weekend. We’ll just have to wait and see.”
HEADING INTO THIS RACE LAST FALL, YOU HAD MADE THE CHASE BUT HADN’T YET WON A RACE. DO YOU FEEL YOUR TEAM IS JUST AS CAPABLE RIGHT NOW AS IT WAS THEN? “I really do, yeah. We’re running really well and I feel like we’re just as capable. What’s really funny is we ran very good, and then went to the new car and didn’t run worth a dang, and then came back and won in the fall. So, we took a couple of years just trying to figure this place out with the new car. Hopefully, we’re past that now and we run well this weekend and are a threat to win again. But, we’ll see. We’ve had our opportunities to win again this year, but have just missed.”
HAVE THE LAST FEW WEEKS BEEN ENCOURAGING, EVEN THOUGH YOU HAVEN’T WON? “Yeah, absolutely. We ran good at Sonoma, and had bad pit strategy, and we ran really good at Michigan and just ended up a little short.”
HOW MUCH HAS THE NEW CAR CHANGED SINCE YOU WON HERE? WILL IT BE THE SAME SETUP? “Well, we’re going to start with the exact same setup that we won here with – but, to be determined. It’s a lot hotter, it seems like, now compared to what it’s normally like in the spring. It’s normally fairly cool here – I remember, both races – and now it’s pretty hot, so we’ll have to wait and see.”
YOU’VE WON A NUMBER OF RACES IN THIS SERIES. DOES EACH WIN HAVE A SPECIFIC CHARACTERISTIC, AND, IF SO, WHAT DO YOU REMEMBER MOST FROM LAST YEAR’S WIN HERE? “What I remember the most from last fall – and each race is kind of specific – I remember working on that car and working on that car and just getting it better and better and better, and figuring where I could beat him at. The 48 was leading, and I found a spot that he wasn’t quite as good at and just capitalized on that. And, I kept working on my car and we had good pit stops, kept me up front, but I remember the pass like it was last night.”
ON THOSE WEEKENDS THAT YOU DO WIN, AT WHAT POINT IN THE WEEKEND DO YOU KNOW YOU HAVE A CAR THAT CAN WIN? “About four hours from now, after the first practice gets done. We were pretty confident in the car, and then Saturday’s practice went very well. You’ll know when you unload here. It’s kind of like restrictor-plate racing; you can improve a lot, but you’re not going to normally go from one extreme to the other with the limited amount of practice.”
MANY PEOPLE LOOK AT VICTORIES AS THE BEST INDICATOR OF A TEAM’S SUCCESS. ROUSH FENWAY HAS TWO WINS THIS YEAR. HOW WOULD YOU CHARACTERIZE YOUR SEASON? “If you look across our organization, our season has been a tick better than all the other guys, compared to last year – Carl winning, you know, a lot of races, and whatnot, and us kind of coming on late in the season. Up to this point, we’ve run about like we did last year and close to how we ran in the Chase, with almost a few wins. So, we feel good about that. We feel like we can still win, but as an organization, we’re off a little bit. But, we’re working hard to catch these guys. We don’t know what it is, but we’ll just keep working until we find something.”
THAT AREA THAT YOU TALKED ABOUT, ABOUT TRYING TO FIND SOMETHING NEW, IS THAT THE AREA MOST AFFECTED THESE DAYS BY NO TESTING? “Yes and no. If you remember last year, we learned more almost at the shop and figuring things out, working on bump stops, than we did at the race track, because it’s a controlled environment. I wouldn’t say it’s not from a lack of testing, I’d say it’s more from just the other guys are figuring out a little better mousetrap right now.”
MATT KENSETH – No. 17 DeWalt Ford Fusion – WHAT ARE WE GOING SEE THIS WEEKEND? THERE HAVE BEEN EIGHT DIFFERENT WINNERS IN THE LAST EIGHT RACES HERE. “Last spring’s race was unique, obviously, with the rain situation, so some of the guys gambled on being out front and pulling a win off like that, so that was interesting. But, I think track position is important here, obviously, it’s better to pass than it used to be a long time ago. But, just like everywhere we go, track position is important. And you try to get your car to turn really good and then try to have track position at the end.”
WILL DOUBLE-FILE RE-STARTS BE AN ISSUE HERE? “I don’t think they’ll be too bad here. It’s widened out more than it used to be. The middle groove is probably the best, it seems like, it’s where most people choose. You should be able to go a little lower than that, a little higher than that and not really have an issue, if everybody gives each other some room. So, I don’t see this as being on the tracks that it’s going to be an huge deal at.”
YOU’VE HAD YOUR FAIR SHARE OF TOP-10S AT THIS TRACK. ONE THOSE DAYS, WHAT CHARACTERISTICS DID YOUR CAR HAVE? “We’ve only had really good cars here a couple of times. One time, we had a really good car here – you’ve got to be able to turn in the middle without it being too terrible loose in and off, and we’ve had a hard time hitting that combination for several years. A couple of years when we got good finishes, we had been really loose and then got lucky and got extremely long runs where we could work the car up there in the long run. That’s the hard part, is to get it to roll through the middle real fast without being loose on entry and loose on exit.”
ARE THOSE CHARACTERISTICS OF ALL FLAT TRACKS, OR IS THIS TRACK DIFFERENT FROM, SAY, PHOENIX IN THAT WAY? “It’s different. Every track is a little bit different, really. It’s a lot different than, like, Phoenix, or any other flat track, I think.”
AS A TEAMMATE, HOW IMPORTANT IS IT FOR CARL EDWARDS TO REGAIN HIS WINNING FORM OF 2008? “Ah, man, I’ve got my own problems to worry about. That’s on the bottom of my list of things to worry about. He won nine races last year, the 17 has won two in about the last two and a half years, so we’ve got our own things to worry about. We all work together real well during the week, really well during practice, share all of our information, all crew chiefs and engineers are working together great, but when we’re on the race track racing on Sunday, we’re racing for wins ourself.”
GOLFERS SAY THAT, TOO; THAT THEY NEVER LOOK AT THE LEADERBOARD. DO YOU EVER LOOK AROUND AT WHAT’S GOING ON AROUND YOU TO SEE WHAT YOU NEED TO DO OR WHAT NEEDS TO HAPPEN? “Yes and no. Usually, I kind of just glance at it. But the points you’re going to earn over the year, it’s pretty easy; the better you run, the more points you get, the better the finish the more points you get, so if you can be consistent top-10 runner and hopefully get top-fives more than half of them, you know you’ll be in good shape in the points, and if you can contend with the leaders all of the time, but if you’re back there, like we’ve done more times than not this year, struggling for top-20s, then you’re prospects in the points aren’t very good, and you’re going to be right on the edge. So, we realize that we need to do better and need to do better every week, and try to get into winning form, is what the goal is really every week.”
HAVE YOU EVER FOUND YOURSELF PRESSING? “Yeah. Every week, in a way. This car is a lot different than the old car. It’s easy to over-drive this car, and sometimes the harder you try the slower you go with these things. You have to remind yourself to slow down and be smooth, especially at some of these race tracks. But, you just try to get all the car will give you every lap – it’s really that competitive where you have to do that.”
CONSIDERING WHERE YOU ARE IN THE POINTS, WOULD YOU RATHER NOT GET THE NEW FORD ENGINE RIGHT OFF THE BAT AND RATHER HAVE SOMEONE ELSE RUN IT FOR A FEW RACES? “I’m under the understanding that we’re probably not going to have it, really, this year for a full-time thing. I’m really not sure, but it doesn’t matter to me. I have a ton of confidence in Doug Yates and the guys at the engine shop and whatever they think is best and whatever they decide to do, then I’m good with that.”
ONE WEEK REMOVED FROM SONOMA, WOULD YOU BE OPPOSED TO SEEING A ROAD COURSE IN THE CHASE? “Yeah, I would be opposed to that, but it doesn’t matter what I’m opposed to. It’s just that we do it two times a year and we race ovals 34 times a year; I don’t think road-course racing, in my opinion, is really what Sprint Cup racing is about. It’s kind of unique and something different, so I’m going to go do it a couple of times of year and if everybody watches it a couple of times a year, but I don’t think that describes at all what we do each and every week or that should really determine a championship, in my opinion.”
WOULD YOU LIKE TO SEE THAM OUT OF THE SCHEDULE ALTOGETHER? “It doesn’t matter to me. It’s okay to go there once in a while. It’s no big deal. Whatever people like to see is all right with me. Obviously, oval-track racing is what we usually do, and I would rather be on an oval track racing, probably, than a road course, but then it’s kind of fun to change it up a couple of times a year.”