GREG BIFFLE – No. 16 3M Ford Fusion (finished 4th) – TOUGH NIGHT, BUT YOU BATTLED BACK FOR A TOP-FIVE. “Yeah, we did. We had a great car, but just track position again, unfortunately. This 3M Ford Fusion did a great job. We had pretty good pit stops. We just needed the track position. We took two tires and were gone, and we’re just going to have to figure out how stay up front.”
TRACK POSITION IS ALWAYS HERE. HOW DIFFICULT IS IT TO FIGURE OUT? “It’s really difficult, because when you take two the other guy takes four, when you take four they take two, so it’s a cat-and-mouse game trying to get track position. Our, when it was back in traffic, wouldn’t run as good as all the cars around it – David Reutimann, all those other guys were better than us back in traffic. We’ve got to work on that and figure it out, and I think we’ll be good.”
CAN THIS RUN GET YOU SOME MOMENTUM? “Heck, yeah. I’m excited. I just wish that we would’ve had a good run last week, the Coke Zero 400. We had a good car over there, and unfortunately made a mistake getting off the corner and it cost us a good finish.”
YOU MENTIONED THE TROUBLES IN TRAFFIC, BUT WHEN YOU WERE IN FRONT YOU RAN REALLY WELL. IS THERE A WAY TO EXPLAIN THE DIFFERENCE? “Yeah, it’s just having track position. With this race car, you’ve got to be out front and stay out front, and it’s really important. We weren’t as good back in traffic as the other cars were, like David Reutimann, Kevin Harvick, all those guys were better than us back in traffic. They could pass cars and we couldn’t. Matt Kenseth, good example. He drove by us back there in traffic. So, we need to work on our car a little bit, on this 16 team, and we just need to work a little harder in traffic and get our car running good.”
MATT KENSETH – No. 17 USG Ford Fusion (finished 7th) – HAVE YOU EVER PASSED THIS MANY CARS IN A RACE BEFORE? “Yeah, but not with these cars. These are a lot tougher to pass with. They just get so tight. We just had that flat tire and there were a lot of green-flag running, and it took us a long time for us to get our lap back, and then we just sort of ran out of time. Overall, it was a great night. We had a really fast car, we just couldn’t get quite the finish we thought.”
GREG BIFFLE SAID POINTED TO YOUR CAR AS ONE THAT COULD REALLY RUN IN TRAFFIC. “Ours was one of the better ones just because I thought our set-up was a little bit better. We were better than most, but it was still a huge advantage to be out front. When we were out front, we were running side-by-side with the 18 and he ended up winning the race. But, we could run with those guys, we really could. We’ve got to figure out how to get there, you know, you can’t have flat tires, you got to figure out the pit-stop strategy and whatnot to make it happen. It’s just tough to drive by those guys.”
DAVID RAGAN – No. 6 AAA Insurance Ford Fusion (finished 8th) – ANOTHER TOP-10. “Obviously, top-10s are what we need to get to run well and make the Chase, but we’ve just to keep getting better. The top-10s need to lead to top-fives and top-fives need to lead to wins. So, we’re close. We’ve had fast race cars. Jimmy Fennig and the whole AAA team have really put a good race car underneath me, and it’s just a matter of circumstances and figuring out a couple of small little details. But, we’re close, and we’ve got to just keep getting better.”
GREG BIFFLE SAID HE COULDN’T RUN IN TRAFFIC, AND MATT KENSETH SAID HE COULD. HOW WAS YOUR CAR? “Obviously, you’re not going to be as good in traffic, and we weren’t as good in traffic, either. Certainly, when we were in the top three or four, we felt like we were one of the cars on the track to beat. But, when you get back there in traffic, it’s just tough dirty air, you’ve got lapped cars that have decent speed race you hard, and it’s just one of those things tougher, you know, racing fifth on back. So, we’ve just got to keep working on the small areas. Like I said, we’ve taken a 15th-place team and we’re running top-10, we’ve got to take a top-10 and keep getting better.”
DAVID GILLILAND – No. 38 freecreditreport.com Ford Fusion (finished 42nd) – DID YOU GET ANY WARNING? THIS IS UNUSUAL FOR THIS TEAM. “Yeah, real unusual, but no warning. It just let go. It was a long night – a long night. I had a flat tire and had to pit under green, and just tried to ride it out there and had a problem. So, it was a disappointing day for our freecreditreport.com Ford Fusion, but we’ll be back and we’ll get ’em at Indy.”