MATT KENSETH – No. 17 DeWalt Ford Fusion – THE LAST TIME YOU LEFT HERE YOU WERE PRETTY HAPPY. “The last time I was here, I wasn’t, because I got beat in the media go-kart race. But the last time I left this room – yeah, it’s cool to come back here. Obviously, winning the 500 was huge for us and really kicked the year off, and we were lucky enough to follow that up at California. Anyway, it’s been really up and down since then. We’ve had some good runs, some bad runs and some not very consistent finishes, so I’m glad to be back here and hopefully we can get our car to handle and be up front and have a shot at it again.”
WHAT HAS THE CHANGE BEEN SINCE THE START OF THE SEASON? WHAT IS THAT MISSING PIECE THAT YOUR TEAM IS LOOKING FOR? “For us as a group, I’m not sure. For us as an organization, I think we’ve been off on the short tracks and the flat tracks, places like last weekend, places like Richmond and Phoenix. Tracks like that I think we’ve been off at a little bit performance-wise. As far as us as the 17, if I just look at our team, we obviously started off real good, and after that it really hasn’t been one thing. We broke the first lap at Vegas; we broke a part, which is really strange. There’s been some races like Talladega where we were second with four laps to go, had ourselves in great position and then got a flat tire from a fender rub. Then we had a loose wheel at Charlotte. It hasn’t really been one thing. We’ve just had a lot of things keeping us from getting us our finishes. Now, we haven’t really been contenders to win races – there have been a couple of races where we ran pretty good – but we haven’t been contenders to win races. I think we’ve been a top-10 car more times than not, but it seems like we keep turning top-10 or top-12 runs into 20th- and 30th-place finishes, from having problems, all kinds of different problems.”
THE HALL OF FAME NOMINEES WILL BE ANNOUNCED TONIGHT. THE WHOLE LIST ISN’T KNOWN RIGHT NOW, BUT ARE THERE ANY RACERS THAT YOU EXPECT TO BE ON THAT LIST OF WHICH YOU HAVE A SPECIAL MEMORY? “I haven’t seen a list, but even though off of today’s standard – we have people like Joey [Logano] won a race now and Kyle [Busch] winning races – I’m probably middle-aged or a little older than those guys, but compared to some of the guys who on the first list of nominees, I’m probably fairly young to be familiar with their history or seeing them race or remembering watching one of those events. One of the first events I remember really watching was when Richard Petty got his 200th win – this was down here in July. That’s one of the first memories I have of live NASCAR racing, so the rest of that stuff is a little bit before me. I read up on some of it, the history and I know the names, but I probably don’t know great details about their careers.”
WHAT WAS THE TOUGHEST THING FOR YOU WHEN YOU MADE THE JUMP TO CUP RACING? AND WHAT IS TOUGH FOR YOU STILL? “It’s changed. The hardest few things for me, probably, when we first came in was the races were a lot longer, just getting used to the people that you were racing against. There wasn’t a whole bunch of people that went back and ran Nationwide Series, there were a few guys – Mark [Martin] and Jeff [Burton] that you knew, but then there was a whole other group of guys that were legends, Rusty [Wallace], [Dale] Earnhardt, Bill Elliott, Ricky Rudd, that whole group that didn’t come back and race Nationwide, but I wasn’t familiar with how they raced, and I hadn’t raced against those kinds of guys. So, just to learn the different people was the biggest challenge. I had a big advantage of being at Roush and working close with Roush and Jeff Burton and the guys who had all of their stuff running really good and would share set-ups and share advice with me. Today’s biggest challenge is all of the cars are so close to the same. You know, we’re pretty close to racing spec race cars – you can change the set-ups a little bit, but they’re pretty close to being the same, exactly, aero-wise, and construction-wise they’re pretty darn close to the same, too, so that’s the biggest challenge about today – it’s really hard to get an advantage, it’s really hard to do the little tweaks to the car to get it to drive the way you want it to drive. That’s, by far, the biggest challenge of today.”
REGARDING JEREMY MAYFIELD AND THE COURT INJUCTION FROM YESTERDAY; WHAT IS YOUR REACTION TO THAT NEWS, AND HOW COMFORTABLE TO YOU FEEL BEING ON THE SAME TRACK AS HIM? “I don’t know enough about it to really comment much on it, to be honest with you. I don’t really know. I just don’t know that much about it. I’m comfortable. I haven’t been uncomfortable with very many drivers – there’s a couple that aren’t in the sport anymore that you probably knew something was going on that you weren’t real comfortable with, but I don’t really have a problem with, however they work it out, I’m sure if he comes back, I’m comfortable with him coming back. I’m sure he’ll be tested all the time and do all that stuff. I don’t really know that much about it. You probably know way more about it than I do, to be honest with you.”
REGARDING THE HALL OF FAME NOMINEES: YOU FOLLOW OTHER SPORTS; DO YOU HAVE ANY THOUGHTS ON WHO SHOULD ON THAT LIST AND WHAT IT MEANS TO THIS SPORT? “I don’t know who should be in the first group. It’s not something I’ve thought about. Like I was just saying, I’m more up on history closer to when I watched it. When it started it was a little bit before my day. I think the Hall of Fame is really cool for the sport. When it first came out, I thought about it a little bit, and it really seemed like a big deal, and the more I thought about I think it’s pretty cool. I watch NFL a lot, so I watch those guys get inducted every year. I watched Michael Irvin cry that year and you would think that wouldn’t happen. The Hall of Fame’s a big deal. I think someday when your career is over that’ll be something that you’ll hope that you’ll be a part of where somebody can go and celebrate all of the different car owners and drivers, and, I’m sure, crew chiefs, everybody’s careers. It’ll be something that will be there forever. So, that’ll be pretty cool for the sport to have that in Charlotte.”
DO YOU FEEL THAT YESTERDAY’S RULING BY THE JUDGE DAMAGE THE CONTROL THAT NASAR HAS OR THE POWER OF THE DRUG TESTING PROGRAM? ARE THERE ANY CHANGES YOU WOULD LIKE TO SEE? “I’m not trying to be not controversial, but I just don’t all that much about it, to be honest with you. I really don’t. I’m sure that they’re going to figure out a way to make it so that whenever they make a ruling on something they’re 100-percent sure that’s the ruling, whether that’s to have a second agency look at something or whatever it is, I’m sure they’ll have a way to prevent this from ever happening again, when they get done with this, I’m sure they’ll learn about the policy. I just don’t know a lot about. I haven’t studied the policy that much, besides the piece of paper that they gave us. I’ve been fortunate, I guess. I’ve been pretty much healthy my whole life. I don’t have to take prescription medications. I don’t take over-the-counter medications. I just haven’t worried about it. I never had anything to worry about because I’ve never had anything to worry about, and if I did I think that I would make the phone call and make sure that they knew what I was taking and I would feel pretty comfortable that they’re test results would be right. I don’t know if they were or not. I don’t know. I would assume that they would be, but I don’t know.”
HOW DO YOU THINK THE OTHER DRIVERS WILL TREAT JEREMY MAYFIELD WHEN HE RETURNS? “I don’t know of any people, offhand, or many people that have ever had a problem with Jeremy. I don’t if we’ll ever know if there’s a way to find out or not if it’s right or wrong, certainly, for some reason, if it was wrong, you feel bad for the guy because he’s been kind of crucified already. If he was in the wrong, then we’ll all want to know that, too, and want it to get worked out right so there’s no question of the drug policy going forward.”
CAN YOU TALK ABOUT CREW CHIEF DREW BLICKENSDERFER? HOW HAS THAT RELATIONSHIP GONE THIS YEAR? “It’s gone really well – a little harder on Drew that last couple of months, probably. I guess some things have not gone right and he’s handled that well, so that’s good. But, seriously, it’s been really good. He’s done better, really, than I could’ve expected. The first two weeks, obviously, weren’t going to continue that pace all year. I knew sooner or later there things were going to settle down or the reality check. I think he’s done really good. I think he’s been learning a lot the last few months. When we first started, we just kind of took what we had and he took his time implementing certain things or getting used to the guys and doing all of that stuff. There’s a learning curve to all of that and I think he’s been doing really good. I think every week it’s been getting better.”
ANY NEWS ON THE BABY FRONT? “No, not yet. Just still waiting on when decides to show up, I guess. Hopefully, it’s on a Monday, Tuesday or Wednesday.”
YOU’VE TRADITIONALLY SAID THAT WINNING RACES IS THE WAY TO GAIN THE MOST POINTS, AS TIGHT AS IT IS NOW FROM POSITIONS 10-14, ARE YOU PAYING CLOSER ATTENTION TO THAT. WILL THAT HAVE AN EFFECT ON THE WAY YOU APPROACH A RACE? “I don’t really pay much attention to that. Yeah, I’m kind of aware of where we’re at. I look at the standings every few weeks or something, somebody will say where you’re at. But, if you run good and you finish good, you’ll get the points to make it to the Chase. Certainly, it’s a real big deal to make the Chase, and if you make it, you want to have a legitimate shot at a championship every year. We’ve been one of them the whole time. But, you want to get in, and we used to be really good at taking cars that didn’t run that good and get better finishes than what we ran, and lately we’ve been doing the opposite of that for a long time, for the last couple of months, and that needs to stop and we need at least to get back to finishing where we run, and if we don’t do that, we won’t make it. I think we all realize that. We’ve got to get running better to start with, but we’ve certainly got to get finishing better. Like, last wee we ran 12th all week, which was nothing to be too excited about, and finished 22nd. We’ve been doing that a lot. Pocono, in third all day and finished 18th or something. We’ve got to figure out how to get that to stop. There’s no way we’re going to make it doing that.”
ABOUT RESTRICTOR-PLATE RACING: AFTER TALLADEGA, CARL EDWARDS SAID SOMETHING ABOUT THE RACES BEING LIKE THAT UNTIL SOMETHING CHANGES. DO YOU FEEL THAT SOMETHING SHOULD CHANGE WITH THE RULES PACKAGE? “To what? That’s the question. Everybody’s like, ‘The rules have got to change.’ They’ll say, ‘Okay, what do you guys want to change it to?’ Everybody’s like, ‘ I don’t know.’ How are you going to fix it? Certainly the wreck that he had and even me being upside down on Saturday at Talladega, those are the guys that are probably going to make the comments. ‘Man, we’ve got to change something because that’s the guy who almost flipped into the grandstands.’ I don’t know. I don’t know what you do. I just don’t know what you do. When you’ve got tracks as big as this place and Talladega, you have to do something to slow them down or they’ll really be flying up in the grandstands and they’ll be upside down. You have to do something to do that for the safety of the drivers, the fans, the crews, everybody. Everybody at the race track, really. So, how else are you going to do it? I don’t know what the answer. I think that when they designed this car, I think the best two things for this car was road courses and speedways. I think that got everybody on a more even playing field, and I think this car is really good for these tracks and for the road courses, especially. I just don’t know what to do. They’ve tried different rules packages and the racing seems to be fairly exciting at the speedways with these cars. And you’re going to have wrecks, no matter what the package was. They want to make it to where you can pass, and to make it pass you’ve got to make ’em to where they can suck up to the next guy, and if you get sucked up to the next guy and you’re going to pass and the guy cuts you off and spins him out, whether you’re going 190 or 195 or 185 I think the results are all going to be close to the same.”
CARL EDWARDS – No. 99 Subway Ford Fusion – “We had a great race here a year ago. It was very close. Kyle and I finished 1-2, closer than these two chairs up here are sitting together. It was close. Hopefully, we can run that well again. It would be nice if we could have a Ford in Victory Lane at both Daytona races, and it would be really good to win one in that Subway Ford. That would be really fun. I think that it will be all right.”
WHO WOULD YOU LIKE TO SEE NOMINATED FOR THE HALL OF FAME? “Obviously, it would be a huge honor to be a part of something like that. I’m relatively new guy in the sport, but it seems like all the time I meet people, and just the other day I was talking to Andy Petree, there’s a guy who has done everything in the sport, and I get the chance to talk with Darrell Waltrip a lot and I know Bobby Allison, he’s a great guy. Who votes on who gets in? How does that work?
A COMMITTEE. “They have a committee? So, I’m sure they’ll get it right and I’m sure it’ll be a big honor for those guys. I can’t imagine someday maybe being retired, and being honored in that way would be very cool.”
WHAT ABOUT A GUY LIKE DAVID PEARSON? “David Pearson is cool. I’d vote for him for just about anything. He’s a pretty fun guy. I like him a lot. Hopefully, they’ll get the right group. I’m sure they will.”
WHAT WILL IT TAKE FOR YOU TO CATCH KYLE BUSCH IN THE NATIONWIDE STANDINGS? AND, WHAT’S YOUR OPINION ON THE DOUBLE-FILE RE-STARTS STARTING IN NATIONWIDE HERE TOMORROW NIGHT? “The last couple of weeks, I think we’re run just a little bit better than that 18 team and Kyle in the Nationwide series. We did really well at Milwaukee. We were really fast at New Hampshire, we just had a bad pit stop. We just have to run like that every week. If you look at how Kyle has run, he probably should’ve won eight or 10 races – I don’t know how many he’s won, but not that many – that’s how you have to run to win ’em. To win three races, you have to dominate eight or nine of them. So, we just have to keep running the way we’re running, to keep working on these engines and make sure we’re fast at these bigger tracks, and make sure we have a little luck. Those guys are good. As far as the double-file re-starts, there’s probably no better place to start them then here and see how it goes. It’ll shake things up a little more in the Nationwide series than the Cup series at the bigger tracks because there’s less horsepower. You’re more reliant on the sideforce and downforce, so when you start cars side-by-side like that, there will be a lane that has a bigger advantage, or an advantage, and it will be a bigger advantage, maybe, than in the Cup series. So, I think you’ll see more shaking up of the field with double-file re-starts in Nationwide than you will in Cup.”
WHAT WAS YOUR REASCTION TO YESTERDAY’S NEWS REGARDING JEREMY MAYFIELD? HOW COMFORTABLE WILL YOU BE AS A DRIVER WITH HIM ON THE TRACK IF AND WHEN HE RETURNS? “I think the best thing is just to wait and see what the real facts are and what comes out. I think all of the speculation is damaging to both NASCAR and Jeremy, so I’ll just wait to see what comes out of it. But, I feel safe with all the drivers on the track. I don’t have any problem racing anyone.”
FROM WHAT YOU REMEMBER FROM THE RAIN-SHORTENED DAYTONA 500, DO YOU THINK YOU’VE GOT A GOOD HANDLE ON WHAT YOU HAD? “I felt like the Daytona 500 was a good race. Our cars were good. It obviously didn’t finish under green, which is never good, but I felt like we learned enough at that race that we can lean on that information and have a little bit of confidence. I felt like we were pretty good. The last two trips here, I felt like we’ve been good. This track is a lot more fun, for me. It’s the most fun restrictor-plate track, because it’s got bumps and it gets slick and handling comes into play, and that’s pretty cool after 10 or so laps. I feel like we’ve got a good handle on that, so hopefully that translates to a good run.”
AFTER WHAT HAPPENED AT THE END OF TALLADEGA, WHAT ARE YOUR THOUGHTS ABOUT HERE, THE NEXT RESTRICTOR-PLATE RACE? “Honestly, I’ve had wrecks that were worse feeling than that by far. That one was pretty wild, and the potential for something bad to happen was maybe a little higher – not for me, but for Ryan Newman, the fans. I’m not going to drive any differently. If I had it to do over again, I think it would end up probably the same way. At least I’m aware more of the fact that, hey, there’s some things that can happen that I hadn’t thought of before. It’s funny in racing, you forget about those wrecks that quick and then you go do the same stupid stuff again and again – at least I do. So, I’d say that’s far from my mind. I hadn’t thought about it today until you said that.”
YOU’RE ON FACEBOOK NOW. HOW IS THAT OR CONNECTING WITH FANS ON YOUR TERMS? “It’s really fun. That whole medium is kind of finding its way to where it’s going to end up. I used to think Why would you have a MySpace page or Facebook or Twitter? It’s silly. I have 26,000 fans on my Facebook page now, and it’s really cool because it’s the only place I can reach that many folk, and I can just tell them what’s on my mind or what’s going on. There’s nobody looking over my shoulder or telling me what I can or can’t say, or trying to slip things in there. It’s the coolest thing. If I’m riding my bicycle, I might take a picture from my phone, and send it up, it’s kind of fun. It’s fun for them, but it’s really fun for me. Fans send me pictures and sometimes it’s hard to get things, but they can post pictures. There’s a guy had a real cool picture of his mini-Cup car and had it painted up Aflac 99. That was pretty cool. It’s kind of neat. It’s fun.”
HOW DO YOU GET OVER WHAT HAPPENED AT THE END OF TALLADEGA? “One of the things that attracted me to racing so much was that the first time I drove a race car it scared the hell out of me, so, I was like, ‘Man, that’s pretty exciting.’ Now, I don’t get that feeling. It’s just the competition, and that the fear is losing. That’s the only real fear out there is making a mistake that costs you a position or the race. There’s really no issue there.”
RICHARD PETTY WON HIS 200TH RACE 25 YEARS AGO. CAN YOU TALK ABOUT THE LEGEND AND HIS INFLUENCE ON YOU? “Richard Petty, he’s larger than life. My dad went to a race to somewhere in Kansas. He’d leave on a Friday and come back 4 in the morning Saturday night after racing somewhere, and one of the coolest things he ever brought me was a little plastic Richard Petty helmet with a visor. All pictures and videos when I was a little kid riding my Big Wheel I’m wearing this 43 helmet. I wore it out. The visor broke off and the decals were ripped. I was just this kid riding around in a blue helmet. It was cool. To me, he was a mythical figure. Now, I get to see him and talk to him. He’s just a regular, down-to-earth guy, that’s Superman, really, to all of us. One of the neatest things he did to me is he pulled me aside one time after we went to our event for Coca-Cola, and I had forgotten my dress shoes so I had these boots and they were all nasty, so I’m wearing a suit with these nasty boots, and he said, ‘I don’t mean to get in your business, son, but you make enough money, and when you’re going to go to something nice like that, you need to get yourself a nice pair of shoes and dress appropriately. I think that would be good for you.’ I was like, ‘Yes, sir. I appreciate it.’ And I’ve got a pair of dress shoes on my airplane now. He’s that kind of guy. He can grab anybody in this garage and tell them the same thing, and they’ll say, ‘Yes, sir.’ He’s pretty cool.”
GREG BIFFLE – No. 16 3M /Scotch-Brite Ford Fusion – YOU WON HERE IN 2003. WHAT ARE THE CHANCES YOU CAN DO THAT HERE AGAIN? “I think pretty good. I wasn’t very optimistic when we first started that practice. The car was slipping and sliding around. We tried a few different changes and got it driving good at the end of the session. So, pretty happy with the Scotch-Brite Ford Fusion now, and look forward to this other practice and try and get it driving good and dialed in for Saturday night.”
ANY TIRE PROBLEMS FOR YOU OR ANY OF THE ROUSH CARS? “Yeah, I think everybody is experiencing the same thing – about 25 laps or so they’re starting to show some wear. And, that’s common. A lot of race tracks, not only just here, but everywhere for the first time for the weekend; a lot of times we see that. I anticipate it being better next session, and a lot better on Saturday night when the temperature cools off. I think the track temps is like 148 degrees or something, so it’s pretty dang hot.”
IN WAKE OF WHAT’S BEEN IN THE NEWS LATELY, HAVE YOU HAD A DRUG TEST SINCE MAY 1ST? “My first drug test was last week at Loudon.” WAS IT A LONG, DRAWN-OUT PROCESS NOW? “I don’t think so. I thought it was pretty cut and dried, like the one I took at the beginning of the season. I really don’t think there’s anything to it. They make you empty your pockets and do all those things, you can’t turn the sink on, you can’t do whatever, and they can make an A and B sample. I watched them seal it up, just like I did at the beginning of the season. It didn’t look like I did anything different. I initialed off – I watched them do the samples. I guess I’m okay because they haven’t come and said anything to me.”
WHAT’S THE DIFFERENCE IN RACING HERE FROM FEBRUARY TO JULY? IS IT THE SLICKNESS OF THE TRACK? IS THE MAIN THING YOU’RE LOOKING AT FRONT-END GRIP? “It really is. This race track drives a lot like Darlington now – just how hot it is, how slick it is. Not quite like that. The car doesn’t slide quite as much, but pretty similar to that. The car really slips and slides a lot. There isn’t a lot of grip. Temperature and age in the race track and the surface makes it drive like that. It’s a fair amount different. You get a really hot, sunny day in February, when we’ve been here for a few days, and it’s close to these conditions, but not quite like this.”
DID YOU GET A CHANCE IN THE RAIN-SHORTENED DAYTONA 500 TO GET A GOOD IDEA OF WHAT YOUR CAR CAN DO? AND, WHAT ARE YOUR THOUGHTS ABOUT THE NEW DOUBLE-FILE RE-STARTS AT A RESTRICTOR-PLATE RACE FOR THE FIRST TIME? “I think double-file re-starts are probably best-suited for restrictor-plate racing. I couldn’t think of better spot to have double-file re-starts as here, or Talladega. And I would probably have to say at this point the worst place would be a road course where you can’t negotiate the corners and there isn’t enough room for side-by-side all the way around. But, I think it’s going to be great here, because, really, we’re side-by-side before we get to turn one anyway. So, starting side-by-side is going to be even better. It’s going to be like the beginning of the race. This track and Talladega, obviously, I think it’s going to be great for side-by-side. And, I’ve got somewhat of an idea of what my car was like in February. I was just saving it and trying to conserve, and have something for the end. We ran up through there, ran in the top 10 a few times and got caught 20th. We stopped and put tires on and weren’t going to come back again or felt like we’d come back and do two or something and try to keep our track position, and it rained out.”
ON DEALING WITH THE EXTREME HEAT. “Man, it’s hot inside of that race car. But I think that those kinds of things are important. It’s hot inside those cars, and you have got to keep your concentration level 100 percent all the time. You have to be hydrated and concentrate and physically fit and all those things to be able to do that. I know a lot of the younger guys or the other guys who have just come in have gotten sick in the cars, because it’s so hot, after the race. That’s a lot of it – is being prepared for how hot it’s going to be.”
DO YOU FEEL SOMETHING NEEDS TO CHANGE IN TERMS OF RESTRICTOR-PLATE RULES, LIKE THE OUT-OF-BOUNDS RULE OR THE PLATE ITSELF? “I guess there’s only one opinion I have as far as the out-of-bounds rule – they have threatened, if you force somebody below the yellow line, that you be black-flagged. If you go below the yellow line, you will be black-flagged. And, nobody’s been penalized for forcing someone below the yellow line to date, so far. And, so I think that people are going to continue to test that until somebody says, ‘You may be black-flagged,’ and you are black-flagged. ‘In our judgment, he was inside of you and you forced him down there or chopped him down there,’ or whatever, ‘you’re going to get a pass-through.’ Once that happens then people are going to more reluctant to turn left when someone is inside of ’em because they know that guy’s got to let up on the gas. And if that guy doesn’t let up on the gas, we’re going to have a wreck, just like we did at Talladega. The last Talladega race he [Regan Smith] took the high road and went down below the yellow line, and that was the alternative situation. There was that one and then there was Carl, and they were both identical situations.”
