CARL EDWARDS – No. 60 Scotts Miracle-Gro Ford Fusion – YOU HAVE SEVERAL WINS AT NASHVILLE; IF YOU DON’T WIN, IS IT DISAPPOINTING OR DO YOU THINK THE ODDS HAVE FINALLY CAUGHT UP WITH YOU? “We come to every race track every week to do the same thing. The way this sport changes so much, it doesn’t matter if you’ve won the last 10 races in at a place or if you’ve run terrible the last 10 times, there’s no reason you can’t go win the next time. Odds don’t change based on previous races. So we have the same odds of winning this race as we have race before that. We don’t let it bother us. I personally don’t think of this as a place I’ve won three times. I think of this as a place we’re running this week and we’ve just got to do the same thing we’ve been doing.”
DOES THE SPACER CHANGE THE WAY YOU DRIVE NOW? “Yes, it’s way different to drive. I’m just figuring it out. We weren’t planning on running all the practice, but now I think we’re gonna end up using all of it trying to figure out how to drive around the track with that spacer. I went out there the first couple of laps and it just felt so foreign to me. It’s like something’s not right here and I’m not going the right speed.”
HOW HAS THE SPACER CHANGED THE CAR? “The spacer just makes it so your not going as fast at the end of the straightaway. The car still goes the same speed through the corner but you don’t have as big a change in speed. You have to decide how far to drive it in the corner, when to get on the throttle and all of the habits from the thousands of laps that everybody’s run here are kind of hard to break. You’ve got to be aware of what you’re doing and make sure your making the car fast and you’re not slowing down by the way you’re driving.”
WHAT DO YOU DIFFERENT IN YOUR DRIVING? “I don’t want to say what I’m doing differently. I don’t want to give anybody any hints. (laughs) I don’t know if we’re fast enough for anybody to take them. I don’t know. I’m sure by the middle of the race different people are going to figure how to be faster. This race is going to be very interesting.”
YOU AND CLINT [BOWYER] HAVE A PRETTY GOOD RIVALRY HERE, HAVE YOU SAID ANYTHING TO HIM? “Oh, I told him that I’m smokin’ him and that it’s over and he mind as well go home. (laughs) No, he’s real fast and we’ve had some good races. I was checking out the statistics on NASCAR.com and it’s amazing how close our statistics are and how they can lay over one another. He will be cool to be able to race Clint for the win here. Clint’s just a great guy. He’s a true racer. Anytime I can race against him, it’s good. I almost wrecked him last week in Bristol, so hopefully he doesn’t have any payback in mind.”
COMING INTO THIS SEASON AS THE DEFENDING CHAMPION, DO YOU HAVE A DIFFERENT PERSPECTIVE NOW THAT YOU’VE PROVEN LAST YEAR THAT YOU’RE THE GUY THEY HAVE TO KNOCK OFF THE TOP? “We ran really well last year but we didn’t win that owners championship and that kind of hangs over us. Personally, I want to win both of them this year. I want to win owners and drivers championships. One thing I had to remind myself this week coming with all this success that we’ve had here, obviously anything other than winning is going to be a little bit of a let down to everybody on the team. But that’s not the point right now. The point is to be leading the points when we leave here. I’ve been thinking about that championship and how we’ve got to race here for the first half of the season to ensure that we can do that again.”
Colin Braun, driver of the No. 16 CitiFinancial Ford Fusion makes his second career start in the NASCAR Nationwide Series during this weekend’s race at Nashville Superspeedway. He participated in a press conference this morning with other up-and-coming NASCAR rookie drivers Landon Cassill and Bryan Clauson. Braun is the full time driver of the No. 6 Con-way Freight Ford F-150 in the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series.
COLIN BRAUN – No. 16 CitiFinancial Ford Fusion- TALK ABOUT YOUR SEASON TO DATE. “I’m excited to be driving the 16 CitiFinancial Ford Fusion this weekend. Like you said, I’ve been driving that No. 6 Con-way Freight Ford F-150 for every race here so far and driving that the whole year. I’m looking forward to finishing off the season in that and doing more races and learning more. It’s cool to get the chance to come out here and drive a few Nationwide races. I’m doing this race and Mexico City. It’s fun to get a chance to come out and doing something where you’ve got more drivers and more Cup drivers in the series. I’m excited to race against those guys. It’s cool having Carl [Edwards] and David [Ragan] actually be in the same race so I can learn a lot more from those guys. They’ve been real helpful with my truck series stuff but it’s neat to be driving the same weekend in the same series and the same car as those guys. That should help out and I’m excited to be part of the whole CitiFinancial Team. It should be a good weekend for us. I’ve done about half a day testing in an ARCA car here once. We’ll see how it goes. It sounds like Bryan [Clauson] knows the track really well, maybe I get out and follow him.”
WHAT HAVE YOU LEARNED FROM THE OTHER DRIVERS? “My crew chief on the truck side of things is Mike Beam, so he’s obviously a really experienced crew chief. He’s been teaching me a lot. I’m really learning a lot from him, asking him a lot of questions and I think when we go to the race track I feel like we work together really well. I spend a lot of time with him in the shop and get to know him, the way he works. I got a chance to go to quite a few of the truck races the year before, in 2007, at the end and kind of learned the way him and Travis Kvapil worked together. I really kind of knew what to expect when I started with him and it’s been great so far. I’ve really been enjoying working with him. I learned a lot. My crew chief on this side is Eddie Pardue; he normally works with Greg Biffle and all those guys. Both of my crew chiefs are really experienced, so I think they’re really good at stepping away from that and look at more teaching me how to drive the race car and what I need in the race car. That’s what really helps me. I feel like I can tell him what the race car or truck does pretty well, but I don’t know what it needs to do. So that’s where they help big time for me.”
David Ragan, driver of the No. 6 Discount Tire Ford Fusion held a media chat behind his hauler before Friday’s first practice at Nashville Superspeedway. Ragan talked about his season, outlook on this weekend’s stand-alone race and teammate Colin Braun.
DAVID RAGAN – No. 6 Discount Tire Ford Fusion – WILL THIS WEEKEND BRING THE POINTS RACE CLOSER? “We think about that a little bit. Just five or six races in the ’08 season, we’re just thinking about top-fives and top-10s and we’re still wanting to get that first win pretty soon. It’s cool that a couple of guys in front of us aren’t going to be here, but at the same time in the long run of things, we’re not running against those guys. We’re running against Carl [Edwards], Reutimann, Clint Bowyer, people like that. So that’s who we’re focused about. When Stewart, Harvick and Jeff Burton and some of those guys come down and run with us, its great for the sport and great competition to get out there and race some veterans that can get the job. It makes us a better race team. But at the end of the day, we always look at where those championship contenders finish.”
HAVE YOU PULLED CARL ASIDE AND ASKED HIM WHAT THE SECRET IS TO WIN HERE? “He’s just had good race cars and had good fortune. I think we’ve had good race cars equally as he has last year. We just haven’t had the good luck. We got wrecked here in the spring and I think we finished sixth or seventh in the fall. I think the key today is just having a good race car and not so much getting worried about that first or second practice. The track changes so much here with the amount of rubber that gets laid down from the first few laps we’ll take to the end of the race. We just have to stay focus on what we need to be focused on and that’s the last 50 or 60 laps of the race. I’m sure we’ll be talking some through practice.”
HOW UNIQUE IS THIS TRACK? “Dover is the only thing that is relative in speed as Nashville, this concrete. But Nashville is like a Kentucky that’s concrete. It’s cool. It’s something different. I don’t know that it’s anything really special. It’s just another race track to us. Coming here to a concrete surface that’s 160, 170 miles an hour is just something that you don’t get to see fairly often.”
ON THE WINNING THE GUITAR TROPHY. “If I won the race, I would probably play it a little bit just to say I’ve made a few notes or made a little bit of music or noise, probably. Just to win a race right now would be awesome. I didn’t care if they give a trophy at all, I’d be happy. Yeah, Nashville is probably the best place if you’re gonna get that win at to get the trophy to get the guitar to take home. We’re in the position now we just want to win. If we had to pay them for the trophy, we would do that. This is a pretty cool place.”
TALK ABOUT YOUR CAR. “This is a proven car. We’ve got some top-fives and top-10s with this race car and always, every year we try to do a few updates on the body and a few things that we’ve learned. We haven’t run this car yet this year, only time will tell. It should be fast. I think all of our Discount Tire Fords that the guys prepared back in Charlotte, they’re all pretty fast. It’s just a matter of fine-tuning it at the race track. Yeah, I’m excited. There’s no reason why we can’t be a top five car here and contend for the win.”
WHAT ARE YOU AND YOUR TEAM GOING FOR TODAY DURING THE TWO PRACTICE SESSIONS? “The track changes so much here at Nashville. Rubber gets laid down. The track gets tighter as the weekend goes on. We’ll go out and just make sure our clearances are right, check some air pressure, make sure our cambers and stuff are right or we’re wearing our tires or we don’t have any tire issues. I think the biggest thing is the last 30 minutes of that second practice and getting the car dialed in. The weather looks like it’s going to be great, so we’ll finally get a chance to qualify. We haven’t got to qualify too many times this year. Just kind of get back in the rhythm of things. Usually we’ve got a Cup practice and we’ve been on the track all morning so far, so it’s kinda weird to just be sitting around all morning.”
YOU’RE RACING AGAINST A NEW TEAMMATE HERE. TALK ABOUT RACING WITH COLIN BRAUN. “It’s going to be a lot of seeing Colin making his first start. It is something that I can relate to just a year or two ago, I was kinda in his shoes doing that same thing he was doing. I got a chance to go up to VIR last week and test with him. He’s an outstanding road racer. I can learn a few things from him on the road course. It’s fun to be able to help him out a little bit. He’s a good guy and I think Eddie [Pardue, crew chief] and the whole 16 team will probably have a lot of fun working with him. There’s no reason why he can’t run up there in the top 10 and be right there with us.”
WHAT DO YOU SAY TO COLIN BRAUN SINCE IT IS HIS FIRST TRIP HERE? “Just don’t worry about trying to be the fastest every lap and lead every lap and don’t get disappointed so many times you come into this sport. You’ve been used to dominating the short tracks or the road courses, or whatever you’ve been running. Then you get here and you’re running 10th, your like, ‘man, I need to be up there first or second. This feels weird.’ The biggest thing is to get out there make laps. This is a tough series. You’ve got a lot of great teams, a lot of great sponsors and great drivers that make it tough. Just don’t get too crazy if you’re not running up there in the top two or three your first few laps.”