Matt Kenseth, driver of the No. 17 Affliction Clothing Ford Fusion, met with media members outside his hauler prior to the first Cup practice session Friday at Pocono Raceway.
WHAT WILL BE THE DIFFERENCE THIS RACE NOW THAT YOU CAN SHIFT? “I don’t really know but I think it will be a little bit better. I think it will be more forgiving if you get in traffic or if you miss the corner or whatever you will be able to down shift and have a little power to get back up out of there. I am looking forward to it.”
DID YOU LIKE SHIFTING WHEN IT WAS HERE BEFORE OR THE WAY IT WAS THE LAST COUPLE OF YEARS? “It is easier not to shift but I like shifting because it adds another element to the race. I think it probably makes more passing and you have to be a little easier and careful on equipment. I think it gives you more of a possibility of things breaking. It puts it more in the drivers hands and I like that.”
YOU HAVEN’T HAD THE SUCCESS YOU’VE WANTED AT THIS TRACK, WHAT HAS TO CHANGE THIS YEAR FOR YOU GUYS TO FIND VICTORY LANE? “Yeah, it hasn’t been the best track for me but I am really looking forward to it this time. I think our cars are the best they have been in a long time and our engines are running better than they probably ever have been. I am looking forward to getting on the track. You need everything to go right, like any track, but I need to do a better job of giving my guys the feedback so they can give me what I need which is the car going fast.”
DO YOU LIKE YOUR CHANCES THIS WEEKEND? “I feel good about it. Our team has done a superb job this year and we have had really fast cars at almost all the tracks that we have gone to. We don’t have quite all the finishes we would like but we do have a couple of wins and have been in contention a lot more than we had the last couple of years. It has been a lot of fun to go to the track this year.”
FUEL MANAGEMENT HAS BEEN AN ISSUE THE LAST COUPLE OF RACES. WHAT KIND OF IMPACT DOES IT HAVE AT THIS TRACK?
“It depends on when the cautions come out. That is what it is all dictated by. IF you have a caution come out and everybody is a little short and some can make it and some can’t, that is when it comes in play. If there is a caution with 25 to go and everyone can make it then it doesn’t matter. With the longer green flag runs it is something you think about more than last year at this time with all the cautions toward the end and green-white-checkers is tough. Last weekend you had to start thinking about two pit stops from the end, not one pit stop from the end. It has definitely been more of a factor this year.”
THERE HAVE BEEN SOME HIGH PROFILE ON AND OFF TRACK INCIDENTS THIS YEAR. IS THAT GOOD OR DO WE NEED TO GO BACK TO A KINDER, GENTLER NASCAR? “I don’t know. I like watching it as long as I am not involved in it. I never like being involved in that stuff, but it is a lot of fun to watch it.”
JEFF GORDON WAS JUST TALKING ABOUT HOW SOME GUYS WOULD PLAY AROUND WITH SHIFTING HERE THE LAST COUPLE OF YEARS. DID YOU EVER TRY IT AND TAKE A CHANCE AT HOW IT WOULD WORK? “Yeah, but the ratios were so far off that you were taking a chance at breaking something. A lot of people toward the end, like the last 10-laps, I would start shifting in a few spots and passing some cars. When you are underneath and shifting and the guys I race on the last 10-laps, everybody was shifting in turn one and turn three just because everybody else was and you could gain a couple car lengths off the corner. They needed to either open it up and let us shift again or change that third gear ratio to make it so big it was impossible to shift. I think this will be alright.”
DO YOU THINK THERE WILL BE A NOTICEABLE IMPACT ON THE TYPE OF RACE WE SEE ON SUNDAY? “You know, hypothetically, I think it should create more passing. If you get in a two or three-wide situation and get and get bogged down you have another gear there to get your rolling a little better. I don’t know if it will make a big difference but it will be a fair amount different from the drivers seat. Without shifting it is a lot easier and you have less things to do and less things that can go wrong. I am looking forward to doing it again and I think it will add another element to the race.”
WHAT DOES IT TAKE TO HAVE SUCCESS AT MICHIGAN NEXT WEEKEND? “Michigan is a two-mile track so everyone thinks about horsepower but it has a ton of corner so really you need to handle really well, that is the first key to being successful there. Of course you have to have a good motor. Lately there have been a lot of fuel mileage races and that is one of those tracks where you have to look at everything.”
IF YOU COULD ONLY CHOOSE ONE BETWEEN HORSEPOWER AND AERODYNAMICS THERE AT MICHIGAN, WHICH ONE WOULD YOU TAKE? “That is an easy answer these days. You go for the engine because everybody is in the same box and very close with the aero on these new cars.”
WHAT IS THE TOUGHEST ASPECT OF 400 MILES AT MICHIGAN? “That is a great question. Probably just managing everything. There have been times we have had really fast cars but it comes down to fuel mileage at the end. Probably handling the way you need to and having the track position and making sure you have the right fuel mileage to get it done or the right strategy at the end to have a shot.”
Carl Edwards, driver of the No. 99 Kellogg Ford Fusion, talked with media members after the first practice session of the day at Pocono Raceway Friday afternoon. Edwards is a two-time Cup winner at Pocono.
TALK A LITTLE BIT ABOUT LEADING THE POINTS AND YOUR STRATEGY HERE THIS WEEKEND. “It is nice to be leading the points and coming here without a lot of pressure and just going for the win. We have a pretty fast race car and practice went really well and it is a fun race track. We were racing at Eldora on Wednesday night and coming here is so much different. That first lap in practice is an attention getter, driving down in that tunnel turn especially. It is one of my favorite race tracks to drive on. I am glad we are here.”
WHAT HAVE YOU LEARNED WITH THE SHIFTING AND WHAT IS THE GAME PLAN THERE? “We have some different ratios for third gear. I tried shifting there in practice and I went the same speed shifting and not shifting. I think that will be something you can use maybe on restarts when the cars are bunched up. Right now with my limited race trim practice I don’t see myself shifting very much. There are a lot of cycles on the engines here and a lot of up and down on the RPM. Three times per lap and then if you add another shift in there it makes a lot of opportunity for mistakes. To me, I am going to do the best I can to not shift and have the car set up for that.”
CAN SHIFTING IMPACT THE FUEL MILEAGE HERE? “Yeah, I think you use more fuel shifting and getting into third gear and then lifting and standing on it again going into fourth you burn more fuel shifting. If it becomes a fuel mileage race there won’t be guys shifting that last run. You just never know. There have been a couple of fuel mileage races here that I have been a part of and it is a tough place to save fuel at. There are a lot of bumps and the car moves around a lot. It is really hard to run really smooth laps.”
HAVE YOU GUYS HAD ANY ISSUES LIKE GREG (BIFFLE) HAS HAD WITH FUELING THE RACE CAR? “That is a good question. I think there were a couple of times we had issues, but we haven’t had them lately. At least if we have, Bob hasn’t made a big deal about them with me. For a couple races maybe two months ago we had a little trouble.”
CAN YOU TALK ABOUT HOW THAT CHANGES THE PIT STOP FOR YOU GUYS HAVING TO WAIT AROUND? “Sometimes you have to wait and that last little bit of fuel can impact a race hugely. If you look at our Nationwide race at Chicago, it was full but that was a race that showed you that six more ounces of fuel and you can win the race or be the difference between winning or losing. The gas man is a bigger part now than I think they were before. It is hard to wait on pit road. It is hard for everybody.”
WHAT IS IT LIKE TO LEARN TO NEGOTIATE THE GARAGE? SOME GUYS COME IN AND HAVE TO REALIZE YOU HAVE TO CARE WHAT OTHERS THINK ABOUT YOU. “I don’t know. I think I might care less now than I used to (laughter). At the end of the day you have to just respect one another on the race track. It doesn’t really matter what you think of each other off the race track as long as you have a good relationship on the track and respect one another as drivers and competitors. That is the most important thing.”
WHAT DO YOU THINK THE GENERAL PERCEPTION IS OF KYLE BUSCH IN THE GARAGE? “I don’t know about the general perception because I try not to talk with other people about someone else. My perception though of Kyle is that he is a very hard racer and we have gotten into it before as you guys all know. We had our deal at Phoenix this year and I felt that he really was trying hard to set things straight after that. Even last weekend he raced me extremely clean there at Kansas. He is just a hard racer and we have a very good working relationship on the race track I think, other than that deal at Phoenix which he came over and apologized for. To me, we are fine and we race hard and it is fun to race him.”
RESTARTS ARE CRAZY HERE. DO YOU STILL SEE SHIFTING HAVING AN AFFECT HERE? “I forgot until you just mentioned that how crazy those restarts are here. They are crazy. There is so much room and everyone can draft and really make things hard on one another. I think what will happen is that I don’t think the shifting will affect the first lap of the restart, but that second lap there are going to be guys who will go down into turn run and think, ‘okay, do I stick this thing in third gear or leave it here and try to run this in fourth.’ I think that is going to change a lot. As you stick it down in third gear you can miss that a little bit and upset the car and make a mistake. I think it will make the second lap on restarts a little harrier.”
I THOUGHT YOU DID A REALLY GOOD JOB ON REGIS AND KELLY AND SEEMED VERY COMFORTABLE, DID YOU ENJOY DOING THAT? “It was a lot of fun. Leslie from NASCAR New York called Randy and said that there was an opportunity to go on the show. That was at about noon on Monday and we went on Wednesday. I thought, ‘well, sure, that sounds like fun.’ My wife and I were out on a walk and her mom said ‘Regis and Kelly, no way! I can’t believe it.’ I told her to tell her she could go, so she went and my mom went and we went up there on Monday night and it was really fun and we had a good time. They are really nice people. The coolest thing about that show is when the camera shuts off, nothing changes. They are the same folks and they were interacting with the crowd a bunch and having a lot of fun. Marc Anthony is a really cool guy too. I talked to him and I didn’t realize that he and Jeff Gordon are such good friends. He is a huge race fan and I never would have guessed that. He knew all about NASCAR and was pumped to get to talk about it a little bit. It was a good experience overall. I hope we go back. Kelly did throw me off by asking me what the car smelled like after a race. I had such a great opportunity to plug my Avon Turn 4XT and I just missed it.”
WHAT WORKED WELL FOR YOU IN PRACTICE, WHAT WILL YOU WORK ON IN THE SECOND SESSION AND WITH THE NEW SET-UP YOU WILL GO LAST IN QUALIFYING. “We took a little gamble here because qualifying starts right around 11 and we think that going in early is going to be an advantage but with the chance of rain and cloud cover that is supposed to be here. We gambled and went out and set the fastest lap we could in qualifying. We achieved our goal, which was to be the fastest car, but we might have actually done the wrong thing though because if the sun is out and qualifying goes off this plan we will go at the end and have a disadvantage. We gambled and some other guys gambled that qualifying would go as planned and the sun will be out so they are going to go early. There are a lot of different strategies being played out behind the scenes that may not be obvious. If it rains we will look great. It would be wonderful to start on the pole but we will just see what happens. We will do some cloud seething or something. This is the game now. You have to set yourself up based on when qualifying happens, what you think the cloud cover will be. You try to run your practice to put yourself in the front or back of the order if you can.”
“Are those all of your 5-Hour Energy’s there Mulhern? That is like 45-Hours of Energy. (laughter) You guys are screwed. Oh, and you have a Red Bull and a banana. Well, I see you are on a health kick there. You need a cigarette or anything?” (laughter)
HAVE YOU EVER BEEN ISSUED A SECRET PENALTY? “I haven’t had a secret penalty yet. I don’t know if you can believe that statement inherently, but I haven’t had a secret penalty. I have had some good public penalties. I don’t know. Due to their secret nature I don’t know what they are or what they were for, so I don’t know what to think about that. I guess you have to be careful what you say around here.”
DOES IT BOTHER YOU THAT WITH THE NEW QUALIFYING PLAN THAT DRIVERS CAN MANIPULATE THE SYSTEM BY SEEING HOW SLOW THEY CAN GO? “It is a little bit strange, the way the qualifying procedure has an impact on what you try to do. I think it is a neat idea and has been working for the most part very well, what NASCAR has been doing. I think it is exciting for the fans that the faster cars go toward the end. But you get these races where qualifying occurs earlier in the day and all of a sudden people don’t want to go fast in practice. It is an interesting thing. We talked a little about it this weekend. It is another opportunity for you to apply some thinking and strategy and I think it is another part of the race weekend that is kind of neat for the fans. I don’t mind it.”
AT THIS POINT IN THE SEASON DO YOU THINK WE ALREADY KNOW WHAT GROUP OUR CHAMPIONSHIP CONTENDERS WILL COME FROM? “That is a really good question. I have not been paying that close attention to the points but I have noticed that the group of winners, we have had a lot of different winners. I think that this season has shown us that we are more competitive, all of us are with one another, than ever before. I don’t know. I just think there is a lot of time left. You look 13-15 races ahead and there are guys rolling out new cars and guys coming up with strategies and guys getting wins and making their way into the Chase that we might not be thinking about right now. I think it is too early yet. I think that this season you have had enough surprise winners to prove to me it is possible to have a surprise champion.”
Greg Biffle, driver of the No. 16 3M Ford Fusion, took the checkered flag in the last race at Pocono in the fall. Biffle took time to talk with media Friday afternoon after the first practice session.
WHAT IS YOUR STRATEGY THIS WEEKEND? “Just coming off a good run here in the fall last year we are just trying to get our race car driving good. We weren’t that great for a major part of that race but we got good at the end and a little rain shower and got track position. We are trying to duplicate that and be a little better than we were in the first half of that race last year. We worked on qualifying a little bit. We are getting ready to work on some race trim stuff here in the second practice and see how we can get it to drive.”
WITH THE SHIFTING, WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU WILL BE DOING AND WHAT OTHER GUYS WILL BE DOING? “I think everybody will have a little different strategy. Some guys will try to shift in every corner, some guys in one and some guys in one and three. The main thing is that we are shifting again like we need to be at this race track. I am still not clear on why we stopped shifting here originally. I know there as a rule that came into affect but we also still road raced and we shifted there. At this race track in the middle of the run you would go so slow in turn one and two that shifting will make it a lot more exciting and make some more passing zones and a little more side-by-side.”
DO YOU THINK THIS IS THE BEST PLACE FOR YOU TO GET YOUR FIRST WIN OF THE SEASON? “Yeah, I think any of them are good, but as far as opportunity we feel like this week or especially next week at Michigan, which is a great track for us, we think that one of those race tracks or we keep saying that. Last week at Kansas, I had the best finishing average of anyone there at that race track. Darlington, you know. Dover has always been a good place. We have come up a little short so far. We are running pretty good and good enough to win, we just have to be in the right position at the right time.”
YOU HAVE HAD FUEL ISSUES. DO YOU FEEL THOSE ARE BEHIND YOU? HAVE YOU FIGURED OUT THE PROBLEM AND DO YOU FIND IT CURIOUS THAT 13 RACES IN WE ARE STILL HAVING PROBLEMS WITH FUELING? “Yeah, we are going to always have fuel issues as long as we have this fueling system because it has a few down sides to it at the same time as it has upsides. With an improvement comes maybe a set back or something that could be negative. The one negative thing is that it is very important, from what I understand and I did a lot of research on it, the way you plug it in. If you get fuel on the air side, where the air returns, it is like a straw that has a bubble in it and the air won’t come out so the fuel won’t go in. No matter what you do, you have to get rid of that can and get another one because it has that air lock in it. The other thing that this thing does that the guys are getting better at is that it spills gas on the ground. They are trying to minimize that as well. When the connection comes apart it has a void area where there is some excess fuel. It doesn’t seal up right when it disconnects. It is just part of the changes that we have to face and deal with to get the best we can. If a guy doesn’t get it perfect in there, any one of these teams are going to have that issue.”
IF SOMEBODY OFFERED YOU THIS DEAL BEFORE THE SEASON, YOU COULD WIN ANY THREE RACES AND NOT MAKE THE CHASE, OR NOT WIN A RACE AND MAKE THE CHASE, WHAT WOULD YOU TAKE? “Do I get to win the championship? If I get to win the championship then I am going to take no wins and win the championship by far. Nobody knows who won the three biggest races compared to the guy that owns the title a few years from now. We all know that Jamie won those last year, but we also know who won the championship. Like I said, it is very important. Winning races is important. That is how we measure each other. How many races have you won? When was the last time you won? Where did he win at? That is how we justify whether you are a good driver or team or have the talent or ability to compete at this level. On the other hand, the 12 guys that make the Chase are kind of the icons of the sport so to speak. They go to New York and do the thing. They do the banquet. There is a poster and this and that and media events. Those 12 guys and those 12 sponsors take a leadership role for 10 weeks and then somewhat the next season prior to the Chase again. That has a lot of importance as well.”
HALF WAY THROUGH THE REGULAR SEASON YOU ONLY HAVE ONE TOP FIVE FINISH. DO YOU FEEL MORE BEHIND THIS SEASON BASED ON HOW WELL CARL AND MATT ARE RUNNING? “Yeah, we definitely feel like we are further behind. A lot of those races have been circumstance. We have run good enough to win. We have led a lot of laps and we were leading at Charlotte and probably would have won. We potentially could have won at Vegas but had a fuel issue. There are a lot of places where we should have top-fives for sure and don’t. The team is feeling the pressure because we are running good enough to get those finishes; we are just having crappy stuff happen to our cars and track position with throttle linkage falling off and can’t get gas in the car. We have fouled up this or that and I have come down pit road when I shouldn’t have. We have made a lot of miscellaneous mistakes. We have been competitive enough with the two other cars, we just don’t have the finishes they do.”
DO YOU THINK NOT GETTING ALL THE FUEL IN THE CARS IS AFFECTING THE OUTCOME OF RACES? “Absolutely. 100-percent. The issue is that the teams are faster than you can fill the car with gas. It is that simple. The pit crews have gotten so good and the guys have gotten so good and trained and worked so hard that they can get the tires on the race car faster than you can get the car full of gas. Congrats to them for how hard they have worked and what they have accomplished. With the new fuel connection or whatever you want to call it, has slowed up the fueling of the car enough to where you can literally change tires faster than you can fuel. Not by much, but it doesn’t take much. You know, when you are filling 18 gallons in 12 seconds, one second, you do the math on how much fuel that is. It is over a gallon a second. So if you are two-tenths of a second off then you are talking about almost a half a gallon of fuel or probably over that. It is very important. The thing doesn’t flow very well when the can gets low, which makes it worse. You know as well as I do that when you start dumping something out that has a lot of fuel it it, it has a lot of pressure. When it gets lower, it doesn’t want to flow as fast.”
ARE THERE WAYS THAT TEAMS CAN START WORKING ON THESE FUELING SYSTEMS? CAN YOU LOOK TO ADVANCEMENT OF THE SYSTEM? “They have done a tremendous amount of work on this and the connection and different o-rings to give you more clearance or if you happen to not be square on it that it doesn’t shoot fuel into the air part of it and lock the can. NASCAR has let us kind of do what we want on the inside of the mechanism but the reality is the mechanism is kind of what it is. There are small things they can do and I know they have worked like heck to optimize them. I don’t know what the answer is. I don’t know if it is having a gallon more gas in the dumb cans or what it might be to speed it back up just a little bit. It puts the emphasis back on the pit crew a little bit.”
YOU HAVE HAD A FEW DIFFERENT FUEL GUYS THIS YEAR HAVEN’T YOU? “We switched guys and had an intermediate guy for a couple of races and now we have a guy that is doing it. We have had two or three times where we haven’t been fuel. I don’t think it is because he did anything wrong. I think it is the timing. We are a gallon and a half short and at the mercy of the caution coming out and have to stop six laps short of the field. I think lots of teams up and down pit road have had that happen, even with the old system. The reality is that the emphasis now unfortunately is on the fuel part of the pit stop and that is the function of it.”
AT THE RISK OF SOUNDING POLITICALLY INCORRECT, THIS WHOLE FUELING SYSTEM WITH CORN BASED ETHANOL AND THE PRICE HAS GONE THROUGH THE ROOF WORLD WIDE. WE HAVE THIS FUEL YOU REALLY DON’T NEED AND A FUELING SYSTEM YOU REALLY DON’T NEED THAT HAS COST A LOT OF MONEY. ARE WE SOLVING A PROBLEM THAT REALLY ISN’T A PROBLEM? “Yeah, I am going to reserve my comment on all that. If it is not broke, don’t fix it, you can always take that approach. Or you can always take the approach of trying to be ahead of the curve and innovative. We are trying to recapture the vapor or the fumes inside the fuel tank. When we first started messing with these things we are dumping a half a gallon of gas on the ground. I am not a physicist but I would have to say that probably makes as much fumes as what was inside the fuel tank. I was kind of scratching my head as you were at the beginning and asking if we were making it better or worse. We have gotten better about not spilling gas now and it has started to function more like it was intended to. The reality is that it is slower than the old system. Until we find a way to speed that up a little bit then we will be faced with having to wait a millisecond or half a second on the pit stop on the fuel.”
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