JON WOOD – No. 21 The Barnhill Group Ford F-150 – (finished 11th, qualified 32nd) – EARLY IN THE RACE YOUR CREW WAS FIXING THE GRILL. WHAT HAPPENED THERE? “Race cars are made to be wrecked. When you’re in a position where you have every race car in the field in front of you, who ever it is that does wreck, you’ve got to drive around. So, the odds of being in a wreck are the highest riding around in the back like I did all night. I don’t know what our situation was, but it wasn’t from lack of effort, I know that. It’s a shame to finish 10th and be the best finishing Ford in a Ford sponsored race.” YOUR TRUCK WAS LOOSE DURING QUALIFYING, WERE YOU ABLE TO GET IT WHERE YOU WANTED IT? “We battled so many issues yesterday in practice, that there wasn’t a lot of preparation done for qualifying today. We concentrated more on the race. It wasn’t that I didn’t have a fast truck, I was just always at the wrong place at the wrong time. I had to use my tires up every time I got new tires. It seemed like every time we came in and pit for tires, something would happened and I would have to race really, really hard to make up positions. It was essentially useless to put on tires.”
RICK CRAWFORD – No. 14 Circle Bar Truck Corral/Power Stroke Diesel by International Ford F-150 – (finished 14th, qualified 31st) – DID YOU MAKE THE RIGHT CHANGES TO GET THE TRUCK WHERE YOU NEEDED? “We did. It was almost the Built Ford Tough 225 test session for the Ford Power Stroke Diesel Ford Series F-150. I told Cowboy [Kevin Starland, crew chief] before the race, ‘I’m a thinkin’ driver here and I know the mechanics of a race truck. If I ask for something this off the wall, please do it and believe in me.’ It took more than a pound of air pressure here or a round there. We were making as Chris Economaki used to say ‘wholesale changes.’ There at the end, the last 30 laps, it was running good. But what made us do there, we were able to put ourselves in position to miss a mishap. We almost said, ‘Yahoo’ for finishing 14th after where we started. We moved up a position in the points. I’m just proud of my team. That truck really was running strong at the two-day test we had at Darlington. But Darlington and Kentucky are not necessarily alike. We just couldn’t catch it. The truck was too far gone when we got here and it was just hard to keep up.” YOUR TRUCK LOOKS PRETTY CLEAN CONSIDERING THE WRECKS HERE TONIGHT. HOW DID YOU AVOID GETTING CAUGHT? “I didn’t hit anybody. I had a plan when I came when I came here. The last couple of years have been sort of rough on me here at Kentucky. I had a plan when I came here and it was to finish the race no matter how we ran. Dick Trickle always used to tell me, ‘You must first finish before you finish first.’ Starting 31st, I wanted the best finish we could and the maximum points we could get tonight. And we got it. That’s a successful night for our team, I just wish we would have been top five.”
BRENDAN GAUGHAN – No. 10 International MAXX Force Diesel Ford F-150 – (finished 28th, qualified 30th) – “I have no clue on what happened. Somebody didn’t like the fact that we had a great restart. I passed, I think like nine trucks on the outside. Bryan Berry and the guys gave us a Ford in the end that could probably get up there and contend for the win, we just had to get there. Some [drivers] in the back got us. That’s all right because we had a great Ford truck tonight. I was up against the wall on the outside and had nowhere to go.”
COLIN BRAUN – No. 6 Con-way Freight Ford F-150 - (finished 16th, qualified 3rd) – “We started out good there and we were just trying to stay out of trouble. My guys did a great job tonight. We just got back in traffic and it’s hard to race in dirty air. This race track seems real hard to pass on. We really couldn’t pass anybody on the bottom, so we had to go to the topside. Everybody wanted to run on the topside. So, it was difficult. It was definitely a two-lane race track. It would have been nice if it would have been three grooves and I thought we could have passed a lot more people. It’s just tough when you’ve only got two grooves to work with and everybody wants the second groove. We tried to pass down low and we didn’t have enough power to pass on straightaways. We just kind of got pinned back there. Unfortunately, I don’t know what happened there or who started what but we got caught up in that deal there and that was that.” HOW DID THE RED FLAG AND CAUTIONS CHANGE YOUR RACE STRATEGY? “I think the pit strategy Mike Beam did works really well and it was just a tough break for us.” WHAT DID YOU LEARN FROM THIS RACE? “I learned that it’s important to stay up near the front and not get back in traffic. All the wrecks usually start in the back. I don’t know who start that, but with 25 laps to go, wrecking on the backstraight is not too fun.”
ERIK DARNELL –No. 99 Northern Tool + Equipment Ford F-150 – (finished 29th, qualified 25th) – WITHIN THE FIRST 60 LAPS, YOU HAD THREE PIT STOPS COMPLETE. DID THAT STRATEGY WORK THE WAY THE TEAM PLANNED? “It worked out exactly the way we wanted it to. We qualified in the back and knew we’d have to make up some ground in the pits. We had that yellow around 11 or 12 and we came in and got tires and fuel. Then when the caution came out on 20, everybody came in and we came in for fuel only and that gained us a quite a few spots and put us right up in front and right where we needed to be. Our Northern Tool + Equipment Ford F-150 was pretty good in the race, just like I thought it would be. Obviously, we didn’t qualify where we needed to, but it didn’t really matter come race time. Our strategy was working out the way we needed it to. We got up front and we were able to stay there. I don’t know what happened at the end.” WHAT DID YOU SEE IN THE WRECK WITH THE 59, 51 and 8? “It seemed like we were four wide getting into the corner and I was on the top. The next thing I see, they’re kind of piling up underneath me and the 8 truck [Chad McCumbee] is going around and just didn’t know where to go. I haven’t seen a replay.”
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