Edwards Finishes Second as Chase Field Locks in Richmond

Carl Edwards, No. 99 Cheez-It/Kellogg’s Ford (Finished 2nd)
“Kevin wouldn’t give me enough room to run into him. He stayed on the bottom because he said I knew I was going to hit him. I wanted to get him for Trevor last night (laughs). He did a good job staying on the bottom and I couldn’t get a run to get up to him at all. That was a great race. As much as I am frustrating for not winning, tonight was about remembering our heroes and what America is about. I appreciate the fans coming out here. Hopefully we bring all these troops home soon. It was a fun race and I am ready to go win this championship.”

WHAT DOES TONIGHT SAY ABOUT THE ROUSH GUYS ON SHORT TRACKS?  “I says these other guys might have somebody new to deal with. I am excited to go to Loudon now and Martinsville. We have something here that is really great. I want to thank Kellogg’s and Cheez-It for being on board. We only run a couple races for them and I would love to get a win. Thanks again to the fans for coming out here. It was a huge crowd and it was a pleasure to put on a shot for you.”

Matt Kenseth, No. 17 Ollie’s Ford (Finished 23rd)
WERE YOU SURPRISED BY THE AMOUNT OF CAUTIONS TONIGHT?  “Yeah, it seemed like there were a lot more than normal for whatever reason, I don’t know. But it did seem like there was a lot of wrecked stuff.”

YOUR THOUGHTS ON BEING IN THE CHASE AGAIN AS WE HEAD TO THE LAST 10 RACES.  “Tonight wasn’t a good night for us at all so I am looking forward to trying to forget about it and go to Chicago and hopefully compete.”

DO YOU FEEL LIKE CHICAGO IS A GOOD KICK-OFF SPOT FOR YOU WITH IT BEING A MILE-AND-A-HALF TRACK?  “I don’t know. We ran good on some and not so good on others. Everybody else groups the tracks together but you really can’t. Atlanta is nothing like Chicago and Chicago is nothing at all like Las Vegas. I mean, it is hard because you can’t loop them together. They are different. Just because it is the same size around the circle they are still a lot different. It seems like our cars run a little better on the bigger tracks than the shorter tracks but yet on the other hand the 16 and 99 and 6 all ran really stout tonight.  I think our equipment is okay, we just have to get running better.”

David Ragan, No. 6 UPS Ford (Finished 4th)
“We needed to win this thing and our UPS team did a nice job. It is the same car we ran well with here in the spring. We had a race winner here if things would have fell our way. I think there are four or five guys that could have won this race depending on pit strategy and how the cautions fell. We weren’t very good on the short runs. We needed about a 150 or 200 lap run and I think we would have been fine but our UPS team did a good job. We want to win every single time we come to a race track. A top five is good. We gained some points from our recent bad luck and we will move on.”

TALK ABOUT HOW ROUGH IT WAS OUT THERE.  “It was rough. Everyone was racing hard and I think the Chase atmosphere and the Saturday night racing here at Richmond I think there are some guys that had some payback before the Chase started. It was fun to watch that. If one of them had gotten in our way we would have been mad but we were able to drive around them. I am glad we had a fast enough car that we could be the aggressor and not the one being pushed around.”

Travis Kvapil, No. 38 Long John Silver’s Ford (Finished 28th)
WHAT HAPPENED WITH YOU AND THE 88?
“I don’t know.  I think we were racing for the Lucky Dog, and two or three times I got a run on him on the outside – obviously the hard way to pass – and he chopped me a couple times.  So I gave him a tap at the start-finish line, and next time by he let me go and then he just wrecked me.  It’s just frustrating.  Obviously neither one of us was having a very good night, so it just made both of our night’s worse.   I feel like we had an OK car, we just caught up in that big wreck really early and it really messed our car up on both ends.”

David Gilliland, No. 34 Stephen Siller Tunnel to Towers Foundation Ford
“We got caught up in that early wreck and had damage to the right front.  Something must’ve gotten bent because it knocked the toe out.  And it just made the car tight the rest of the night.  Peter (Sospenzo) and the guys tried a bunch of things to help it, but it was kind of beyond anything they could do on pit road.  It was disappointing to start our night off like that.  It made for an uphill battle all night.  We had the Stephen Siller Tunnel to Towers Foundation on our car and wanted to have a good run for them.  Still proud to have been a part of the program.  I hope we raised some awareness for them.”

CARL EDWARDS PRESS CONFERENCE

Carl is the 5th seed going into the 2011 Chase for the Sprint Cup with 2,003 points based on his one win of the season.

CARL, TALK ABOUT THE RACE HERE TONIGHT AND YOUR THOUGHTS NOW THAT THE CHASE FIELD IS SET.  “Well, once I get over the frustration of not winning this thing I am going to be really excited about how fast our team is. We really turned things around tonight. That is the best we have run on a short track in years. That was huge. That was a tough race not to win. I feel like we had the car beat and if we had another lap or two we would have been all over Harvick there. It was a fun race. I had a good time and I am ready to go get this Chase on.”

LOOKING AHEAD TO THE CHASE, WHAT DO YOU SEE AS THE GREATEST CHALLENGE TO YOU AND YOUR TEAM?  “I am pretty excited about all the races we are going to after tonight. This is the best we have run on a short track in a long time. The race I am usually worried about the most would be Martinsville and now I am pretty excited. I didn’t expect us to run as well as we did tonight. I think for a little while we kind of were slowing down and then the last week we ran really well at Atlanta and this week we felt like we had a dominant car, a really fast car. I am excited.”

WHY DIDN’T YOU PIT AND WHY THAT DIDN’T COST YOU THE RACE?  “I am actually excited that Brad doesn’t get those bonus points. I didn’t know that until just now. I am pumped about that. I don’t know why we didn’t pit. I think Bob thought there was going to be another caution. We were getting caution after caution and we just thought more guys would stay out. We were still running third when the next caution came out and still should have been able to win. I just didn’t get a good enough restart and didn’t get by Jeff quick enough to have a lap or two once we got to Kevin. We learned a lesson. It cost us three points. Once I get over the frustration of not winning I will be happy about how we ran.”

DO YOU FEEL YOU ARE BACK WHERE YOU NEED TO BE TO GO OUT AND WIN THIS THING?  “Yeah, big time. These guys know how it feels. When you are running really well everything is easy. When you are struggling you get nervous about when you will get back on track. I feel like after tonight’s run, the way we ran, that is a shot in the arm for me. I feel like we can run with the guys that are running, like Brad has been running the last few weeks. I feel like we are back up there. I know it is one race, but I think everyone will agree that Richmond tests a lot of parts of your team. You have to have a real good car. We made one strategy mistake tonight but we are a team and we are in this together. If that is the worst mistake we make in the Chase then we will be okay.”