Matt Kenseth, driver of the No. 17 Crown Royal Black Ford Fusion, has the most Top 10 finishes among all drivers at Auto Club Speedway with 12. Kenseth, who also has three wins at the track, spoke about his success here before today’s practice.
MATT KENSETH – No. 17 Crown Royal Black Ford Fusion – DO YOU THINK THERE IS SOME SORT OF ETIQUETTE BETWEEN CHASERS AND NON-CHASERS, LOOKING BACK ON LAST WEEK’S BUSCH-REUTIMANN ISSUE? “I didn’t really see what went down last week, so I can’t comment on that, but, in my opinion, I think you race the same all year. I think you should race everybody the same whether they’re in the chase or not in the chase. I think you try to show people respect all year because everybody has the same right to be out there, whether they’re first in points or last in points.”
THAT BEING SAID, ARE THERE CERTAIN PEOPLE ON THE TRACK THAT YOU’RE MORE AWARE OF AND TRY TO STAY AWAY FROM BECAUSE YOU FEEL SOMETHING COULD HAPPEN? “No. I race the same all year, honestly, no matter where you are in the points. If it came down to the last week or something like that and you’re the point leader by a bunch, you’re probably gonna be a little bit more careful, but, other than that, as competitive as it is I think you race as hard as you can all year. Everybody has the same right to be out there. Everybody is out there racing for wins and have their own particular responsibilities.”
AS A CHASER DO YOU WORRY ABOUT SOMETIMES RUBBING FENDERS WITH A NON-CHASER, KNOWING THEY COULD POSSIBLY RUIN YOUR CHAMPIONSHIP HOPES? “I don’t want to ruin any race. No matter where you are in the points they’re all big races. I think you go out there and you’re gonna race whatever your style is all the time. I don’t think that really changes. You still have to race hard all the time because it’s so competitive that you can’t just go out and think about not knocking a fender off. You go out there and think about trying to get to the front.”
DO YOU CONSIDER THIS THE KIND OF TRACK THAT CAN HELP YOU GET BACK UP IN THE POINTS? “Where we are, we’ve got to gain some significant points on the leader every week to get back in it and have a realistic shot. I think our performance has been picking up a little bit lately, we just have to get a whole race put together. We’ve been struggling with that a little bit. There were times last week where I thought we were very competitive but we didn’t finish it off. This has been a pretty good track for us in the past, so, hopefully we can be competitive from the time we get on the track this morning all the way through Sunday when we’re done and get a good finish. So that’s really what I’m more focused on is just trying to get back up with the leaders and be competitive so we can get in a really good position to win some races.”
IS THERE A SPECIFIC POINT IN THE RACE WHERE YOU FEEL YOU NEED TO IMPROVE? “Our adjustments have just not been good enough to keep up with the track for whatever reason. Last week, the worst we ran the whole race was our last run and you can’t do that because you’re not gonna get the finishes. Lately, there have been a lot of long, green-flag runs at the end and you’ve got to have your car handling right and do the right things at the end of the race. On the last pit stop we came out ahead of Jimmie Johnson and he finished second and we finished seventh without a caution, so we just haven’t been doing the right things to keep up on whatever it is – track conditions or adjustments. That’s probably my fault for not knowing what I need for adjustments. I’m trying to give them the best feedback I can and hope that we do the right things on the car in the pits to get it running better.”
WHAT DOES IT TAKE TO DO WELL AT CHARLOTTE? “Track position has been really important there since the introduction of this car with the spoiler and that pavement. The pavement has a lot of grip and even though the track gets pretty wide, it’s a real fast track and kind of hard to pass so track position is real important. You’ve got to be in position the last couple of stops.”
WHAT’S THE BIGGEST DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THE FALL AND SPRING RACE THERE? “I don’t think there’s much of a difference.” WHAT IS IT GOING TO TAKE FOR ANYBODY TO BEAT THE 48? “You’ve got to prove you can beat them. I’ve said it for five years, they’re the best team out there and somebody has to beat them and knock them down before you can say they’re not the best team. Everybody says, ‘Oh, they don’t have momentum. They’re not running as good.’ Well, as soon as somebody shows they can beat them, I’ll believe it.”
WHAT TRACK ARE YOU WORRIED ABOUT THE MOST OF THE TRACKS LEFT? “Honestly, for me I worry about all of them. I’ve really just been focused on Fontana this weekend and then trying to get back on track here and get a good finish.”
IS THE FR9 ENGINE COMING ON AT THE RIGHT TIME? “I think the engine has been helping a little bit. I think there’s still some room for improvement and Doug knows that – everybody knows that – because we’ve only been working on it for six months or a year, whereas we worked on that old engine forever. I think it’s certainly an advantage and it’s better than what we had, plus they keep getting it better.”
DO YOU THINK IT WILL RUN PARTICULARLY WELL HERE IN FONTANA? “I hope so. Fontana and Michigan are big horsepower race tracks, but they’re also big handling race tracks as well. It’s real similar to Michigan, so if you perform well there, hopefully you’ll perform okay here.”
Greg Biffle, driver of the No. 16 3M Ford Fusion, has a pair of wins this season, including last week at Kansas Speedway. The win allowed Biffle to move within 85 points of leader Jimmie Johnson in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series point standings. He spoke with reporters after Friday’s practice session.
GREG BIFFLE – No. 16 3M Ford Fusion – HOW HAVE THINGS GONE SO FAR? “I’m certainly really excited about coming off a good week last week and the car is fast right off the truck again – good in race practice and we switched to qualifying practice and I think we ended up in the top five, so it looks the same as last weekend so far. It looks like we’re gonna have a decent qualifying run, although we’ve got to back it up on the race track now. We’ll see what happens here in a little bit, but I feel really good about this race track. I like it here. We run well on this race track and I just can’t wait for Sunday and can’t wait for qualifying, hopefully get a good lap and look forward to the race.”
WHAT ARE YOUR THOUGHTS ON HAVING ONLY ONE CALIFORNIA RACE NEXT YEAR? “Obviously I’m not real excited about that. This is probably one of our best race tracks that we race at, so getting cut down to one time – me personally – it’s gonna hurt. I’ve got a lot of family here and get back to the west coast a little bit. I’ve got friends and family who come from Washington and Oregon, where I grew up. I see a lot of people here I used to race with and fans, so it gives all the west coasters a chance to come and visit this race track. So I think it has a pretty good draw from a lot of different states. As far as that goes, one is the personal side of it. I really enjoy coming to Southern California and get to see everybody, but two, I run really good here so that’s kind of a double thing for me. I guess the bright side of it is, if there’s a positive, is at least we get to come here once a year. Unfortunately, we’re not gonna get to come twice.”
DO YOU THINK THE FR9 IS COMING ON AT THE RIGHT TIME AND WHY OR WHY NOT? “I was hoping that this was gonna happen. It was kind of ironic that the FR9 engine came in right as Ford had struggled for so long. We really struggled with our cars. Our engines have always been great and made great power and been reliable, so it was like, ‘When are we ever gonna get our cars turned around and get our cars running better and be more competitive?’ And right as we did that, we were integrating the FR9 engine into the program, so it sort of makes it look like the FR9 engine is really our saving grace in the whole thing, and that’s part of the piece of the puzzle, but it’s not as big as what some people from the outside would look at that don’t know a lot about the sport. They say, ‘Oh, they’ve got their new engine. Now they’re winning races and really competing well.’ So really, where the turnaround was, if you look back at our stats, was Chicago for all Roush Fenway cars. The RPM cars had outrun us for the better part of the season, so we kind of switched to more of their suspension package in Chicago and I think Carl has three second-place finishes then, I’ve got two wins and was running second when the engine expired at Chicago that very race, so, really, that was kind of our turnaround race. We really turned our program around and the engine came on board, so with the two combination, it certainly made us a ton better. Some of the things about the engine, it makes a little bit better mid-range power, which the passing takes place from the center of the corner to the corner exit. When you put the gas down, the guy whose car handles the best and puts the gas down the earliest is normally the guy that will make the pass, but also that’s where you need the engine to have its most power. So this engine does that a little bit better and then the cooling package, we’ve really caught up to all the other manufacturers on our cooling package. It’s a little bit more efficient, so we’re able to match the tape on the front of the car as the other guys, so those two things – and it’s got the lower center of gravity. It is a little heavier than the old engine just because we had to make our engine a little bit longer to match the other manufacturers, so it has plusses and minuses to it as far as what it does.”
ARE YOU FEELING MORE COMFORTABLE WITH IT NOW AND CAN PUSH THE LIMITS MORE? “Yeah, I definitely do, especially after last week because we definitely tested it last week. The engine was on the chip for three-quarters of that race from just past the flag stand all the way to the corner. The engine shop said, ‘Make sure you don’t run this engine on the chip. We don’t want it running on the rev chip. Run it right before it.’ When you start making it miss on cylinders it gets angry inside with all the parts and pieces. Of course, we listened to them and then ran it on the chip for three-quarters of the day and the thing lived the whole time. I got preliminary reports back that everything looked good in the engine – the valvetrain looked good, everything looked good – so maybe in the future we can get another 100 RPM and get the blessing from the engine guys to run the engine another 100 RPM. It’s not that you can’t run it another 100 RPM if you feel like it, it’s just particular tracks. Like here, we’re turning 9400 RPM or so – 9350 or so, and then in the race we’ll probably turn only 9100. So that’s an extreme from last week when it was turning 9600. This week during the race it’s probably turning 9100 or 9200, so it just depends on the race track and the temperature of the day as far as how many RPM the engine runs.”
IN THREE OF THE LAST FOUR RACES THERE HAVE BEEN FIVE OR FEWER CAUTIONS. AS A DRIVER, HAVE YOU NOTICED THAT AND IT IS MORE DIFFICULT TO MAKE ADJUSTMENTS DURING THE RACE? “Yeah, I can definitely attest that there have been less cautions because we are unfortunately sitting here eighth in points because we pitted at Dover and the caution came out the next lap and caught us two laps down and the caution came out only one more time. So with a top 10 car we finished 19th and here we sit 85 points out of the lead. Respectfully, we should be about 40 points out of the lead or maybe 35 if we would have just got our laps back that we lost because of that caution flag. So, yes, I have seen more green flag running, although last week it seemed like there were more cautions – a few more than there were at Dover. I think the trend is kind of up-and-down and as we figure these cars out and we all get better at driving them and more proficient, I think as drivers and teams we make less and less mistakes, and, of course, that means the caution comes out less and less as we go. I think it’s just a product of everybody getting better. The engines getting better – if you remember, it wasn’t uncommon to lose an engine and now it’s a lot more rare to see an engine failure because technology has gotten better and the guys have gotten better about building them. And to be honest with you, these cars are easier to drive than the old cars. The old cars you really had to be on your toes. These cars are a lot easier to drive. They’ve got a lot of sideforce, the sides are real big and tall, they’ve got a huge spoiler on the back of them, so the cars are much easier to drive and they wreck a lot less.”
IS IT MORE DIFFICULT TO MAKE CHANGES WITH MORE GREEN FLAG STOPS? “Yeah. You’re worried about getting on and off pit road, which is okay, that’s really not the biggest thing, the biggest thing is you don’t get a chance to experiment. If a race has a few more cautions or a normal amount of cautions, then you won’t be afraid to put some wedge in it and change the tire pressure. Well, when it runs green for four cycles in a row, if you’re off a little bit, you can get lapped or lose a lot of positions in a hurry. You have to be much more executed on the decision you make because the chance to un-do it if it’s the wrong way is normally about 70 laps later when you’re out of gas – then you get to come back and try it again. Under that scenario, it’s not as easy.”
MARTINSVILLE IS THE SMALLEST AND SLOWEST TRACK. WHY DOES IT CREATE SUCH A BIG CHALLENGE? “I think that is the challenge – the smallest race track is probably the biggest thing. When you take 43 cars and there’s really one lane that makes the fastest way around the route, it’s hard for everybody to get in that same lane and make things happen. That’s really the biggest thing about it. The bottom is the fastest way around it because it’s so flat. It doesn’t provide any banking, so you can’t really effectively run the top much faster. If it had a little bit of a progressive bank, the top might be a little bit faster, where you could kind of run up and down the race track, so that’s really the biggest thing is you’re trying to put so many cars in a circle in one lane around the bottom of the race track and that’s what makes it so hard – just makes it really, really difficult. You get bottled up from the guy in front of you, the guy behind you can get the gas down and turn underneath you, sticks you on the outside and even though you’ve got a good car, you just got checked up a little bit because the guys up there are playing bumper cars, and, all of a sudden, you get shuffled to the outside and you can lose 15 spots before you can get back in line. It’s kind of a gamble.”
HOW DO YOU TRAIN YOUR FOCUS ON WHAT YOU’VE GOT TO DO EVERY RACE AND NOT LET THE 48 BE A DISTRACTION WHEN IT LOOKS LIKE THE SAME SCENARIO PLAYING OUT AGAIN? “It’s pretty easy for me because the way I look at it is I worry about the 16 car and get the best finish I can here at California. I’ve got to beat Tony Stewart, Kyle Busch, Martin Truex, Jimmie Johnson and all the rest and it really makes no difference who I’m racing for the lead or who I’m racing for fifth as far as what car it is. What he does, I don’t have any control over, so I focus on getting the best finish and not making any mistakes. Whether it’s sixth or third or a win this weekend, I just do the best I can. Last weekend, when I finished the race at Kansas I had no idea, and I still don’t today, who finished third, fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh. I guess that’s bad of me, but I’ve been so busy this week I haven’t looked at the finishing order. And I didn’t know Jimmie finished second until I was in the media center and somebody said, ‘Well, what do you think about the 48 getting second?’ I had no idea where he finished. I didn’t see him all day. I didn’t see him one time. The guys later told me he was running in the teens with about 40 laps to go, or something like that, and they made some adjustments and got better and whizzed their way up to second place. That’s a perfect example of paying attention to what we’ve got to do and do the best we can. I can’t control what they do. Unfortunately, they got all the way back to second, but we’ll just see. Hopefully, they’re off one of these races and we can gain some points on them.”
WHICH TRACK IS MORE AGGRAVATING FOR YOU AS FAR AS TALLADEGA OR MARTINSVILLE BECAUSE THEY’RE VIEWED AS THE TWO WILD CARD RACES? “Probably Martinsville because there is so little room to race and so little you can do on that race track. We predominantly as a company and as a team have not run as well at Martinsville as we would like to, so, with that being said, my vote is Martinsville is probably the nemesis more than Talladega. We’ve run restrictor plate races and you’ve got more room to try and get things done and draft and pick a lane and do those kinds of things, although we did get 10th in the spring at Martinsville. We can go back there in the fall do that or better that by a little bit I think we’ll be good. And Talladega, we’re just like everybody else. I’m ready for it. I don’t let it affect me, that we could get caught up in wreck or that somebody else could. You just go in there and run the race, when they throw the checkered flag you look where everybody finished and head to the next one.”
Carl Edwards, driver of the No. 99 Aflac Ford Fusion, finds himself 53 points out of the points lead thanks to fifth and sixth-place finishes the last two weeks. Edwards, who will be a guest on tonight’s Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson, spoke about his team’s improvement after practice.
CARL EDWARDS – No. 99 Aflac Ford Fusion – WHAT ARE YOUR THOUGHTS ON THIS WEEKEND? “Our Aflac Fusion is pretty fast. I believe that last week was a good test for us. That Kansas race track is a lot like the Auto Club Speedway. It’s going to be a really hot, slippery race on Sunday. It looks like the temperatures are gonna be pretty high. The track temp will be really hot, so, hopefully, we can get a good qualifying effort in here in the next hour or so and start up front. I feel like our team has been marching towards this points lead just little bits at a time and I think this track is an opportunity for us to do that again.”
WHAT ARE YOUR THOUGHTS AS WE GET READY TO GO TO MARTINSVILLE? “The spring race, Matt Kenseth had a chance to win that race and I think, if you ask Matt, that’s not a great race track for Matt. Our car was pretty fast. We’ve had on and off days there, but I look at that race track where if we can qualify well and can run like we’ve been running, we’re gonna be good, but it’s a bottleneck. It’s a spot in the chase that I’m a little bit nervous about, but we’ve just got to qualify well there. I think that’s the thing that’s hurt us the most in the past. Once we get out there running I always feel like we run okay, but we’ve just got to make a good lap.”
TEXAS IS SHORTLY AFTER THAT RACE. WHAT CAN YOU DO IN A NATIONWIDE CAR THERE THAT YOU CAN’T DO IN THE CUP CAR AND DO YOU PREFER ONE OR THE OTHER? “Texas Motor Speedway is a lot of fun to drive in any car. The Nationwide car there is just so hammered down. You’re on the throttle so much that it’s a different kind of race than the Cup race, but I like them both. There is no carryover or transfer of information. The Cup race there is spectacular. The track is very well suited to the Cup cars. You can run different lines, the speeds are extremely high, and the track has a little bit of character with the way the transitions work and there are a couple of bumps that make it a fun track to drive. But for me, the biggest thing at Texas is just that crowd. Seeing that many people at a race track and that many real race savvy fans, that’s a really special place to win.”
HOW DOES THIS RACE BEING 400 MILES CHANGE THINGS FROM THE SPRING RACE? “Oh, so this is a 400-mile race? I thought it was a 500-mile race all weekend. Man, I’m glad we covered that. That’s gonna go quick. The thing is it’s gonna be hot and starting at noon, a 400-mile race here should be over at about 3 o’clock or 3:30 at the latest. It’s such a fast race track, so that will change things a little bit. I was really looking forward to the 500 miles. I like the grueling aspect of this race track and that long distance race, but I think for the fans things are gonna shake out. The fastest car will probably be leading by the 400th mile, so if that makes it a more exciting race, then that’s good.”
YOU HAVE A BIG DEFICIT IN THE NATIONWIDE SERIES, JUST LIKE LAST YEAR. IS IT THE SAME PHILOSOPHY OF TRYING TO GAMBLE A BIT TO CATCH UP? “Our Nationwide program, we’ve just got to go out there and learn the most we can and take the most risk we can to try and win races, but, really, it’s about building for next year. I’ve committed to running full-time next year. I don’t know if I’m gonna be able to race for the championship or not, but we’ll still keep our own score if we can’t. We just want to go out and be the best we can for next season, so that’s what we’re really focusing on right now. There are a lot of changes coming to the Nationwide Series and I think that what we do now is we just focus on building towards that. Brad has been doing a great job this year. They’ve got a really big lead and they’ve earned it and, unless something major happens, I think they’re gonna be able to keep that lead. So we’ve just got to go for it, I guess.”
WHAT HAVE YOU HEARD ABOUT NATIONWIDE CHANGES FOR NEXT YEAR? “I don’t know how many guys from the Cup Series are planning on running full-time. I think it might just be me. Hopefully, Brad will run again. It would be great if Kyle would run. It’s fun to be able to race with those guys for points. That’s fun. I think what NASCAR is trying to do is they’re trying to make an opportunity for the Nationwide Series to be more of a development series. I think by eliminating the ability for a guy like myself to run for the championship, I don’t think that changes the face of the average Nationwide race. Kyle Busch has won 11 races this year and he’s not racing for the championship. There’s nothing that would keep him from doing the same thing again next year, or our team winning 11 races next year – whether or not I was racing for the championship. The only thing it does hurt is team’s ability like ours to go out and get sponsorship to run for the championship. That’s an important thing to Copart and Fastenal is for us to have an opportunity to do that. I know they’re looking at it from all different angles and I’m glad they’re doing that and not making a rash choice and, hopefully, they come up with the right decision. But I don’t know what it is, yet. Nobody has told me.”
IS YOUR SETUP DIFFERENT FOR THIS RACE THAN EARLIER? “It is a little bit different because the track will be slicker, the times will fall off more, it’ll be a different race, so, yeah, the car has to be set up differently.”
DO YOU KNOW WHAT KIND OF CAR YOU’LL BE RACING AT THE RACE OF CHAMPIONS LATER THIS YEAR IN GERMANY? “No, Jim Hancock from the United States team is here and we haven’t had a chance to talk about everything yet, but I know he’s here and he can talk to you about that. Travis Pastrana has committed to going. I’m committed to going. It’s in that big soccer stadium, but I haven’t seen what kind of cars we’re gonna race yet. We’re gonna go there and get all the practice we can and try to beat up on those Germans (laughter) the best we can, but they’re pretty fast.”
WHY DOES A LONGER RACE WORK BETTER FOR YOU. YOU SEEM DISPPOINTED THIS IS A 400-MILE RACE? “I work really hard to be as fit as I can be. My trainer, Dean, from Carmichael Training Systems, we work really hard to be prepared for these long races. I can’t believe I didn’t know this was a 400-mile race. This race track just seems like one of the hottest race tracks we go to sometimes. When the sun is out here there is no escaping the heat, so I feel that those long races play into my strengths physically, and then I feel that from a handling standpoint and the way the car drives, I think the hotter and slicker it is suits me and our team as well. I grew up racing at dirt tracks and I really like when the car moves around a lot. I really enjoy that.”