COLIN BRAUN – No. 6 Con-way Freight Ford F-150 – (finished 3rd, qualified 6th) PRESS CONFERENCE – TELL US ABOUT YOUR RUN TODAY. “First off, I want to apologize to Matt Crafton, I did not mean to get in the back of him there. We were just having a tough, tight race there and me being a rookie, unfortunately, I got in the back of him there and I feel real bad that we wrecked his day. He had a fast truck and I didn’t mean to do that, that’s for sure. Other than that, the whole No. 6 Con-way Freight Ford F-150 team was awesome. Those guys did a heck of a job. We had great pit stops all day and we just kept going and steadily progressing our way back up to the field there. We had a really fast truck. Mike Beam and all my guys did a great job. They just keep working hard at it. We finally got it finish that I felt like we kind of deserved. We’ve been fast everywhere we’ve gone and we really haven’t had the result that we thought this team deserved, so it’s nice to finally get a top-five for everybody and everybody at Con-way and Ford.” DID YOU SEE WHAT HAPPENED TO TODD BODINE? “I don’t know what happened. It looked like Bobby East was involved and Todd was involved. I don’t really know. It looked like Todd went up the track and I don’t know if Bobby came down or what. I was trying to do everything that I could just to avoid not running into them guys.” HOW TOUGH WAS IT TO CATCH RON [HORNADAY] TONIGHT? “It was tough. Ron had a great truck and congratulations to him and that whole group. They did a really good job. I just felt like today with the way this race track is, it’s real hard to race on. You get behind other trucks, you get real tight behind them. I just felt like it was real tough to try and pass and if you got up to another truck, it was real hard to stay within three or four feet of them. You just got so aero tight behind them. I guess that’s the way the race track is, I think places like Atlanta and Chicago and Texas, those places where you have a little more banking it helps, I guess, aid a little bit of racing there. It was tough to get anywhere near those guys and you just start to get aero tight especially with this restrictor plate. It was hard to get a run on anybody or drive off faster into the corners because if you lift for just a few seconds right in the center of the corner, so it’s hard to drive off into one or three and pass anybody getting in.” ARE YOU A LITTLE DISAPPOINTED THAT YOU WE’RE ABLE TO CHALLENGE RON HORNADAY? “Certainly any time you go to a race, you go there wanting to win the race. Being a rookie and everything, we were happy with what we had. We we’re so far down in points here, those guys hustled so hard to get our truck through tech and get everything set on it to get out there for first practice. They did a great job on that. We just really wanted to have a good solid day and not take any huge chances. I felt like, I’m sure Mark Martin could have won in that truck right there. We had a fast truck and I just wanted to take care of it and bring it home in the top five and have a good solid day for everybody here. I just kind of wanted to get the momentum rolling. We needed to have a good day. We needed to save that for our next race at Charlotte. We certainly didn’t take any huge risks or huge chances out there towards the last couple of laps trying to catch Ron. They did a great job.” HOW HARD WAS IT TO RACE AGAINST TWO OF THE WINNINGEST DRIVERS IN THE SERIES HISTORY BEING IN FRONT OF YOU? “Those guys are obviously really good at what they do. They can definitely move the air around when they’re in front to really hamper your performance. It’s just fun watching those guys, following those guys, getting to race a little bit with those guys and see how they race. As a rookie, I learned a lot today and certainly learned a lot of what not to do at the same time. All in all, it was a great day.”
RICK CRAWFORD – No. 14 Power Stroke Diesel by International Ford F-150 – (finished 9th, qualified 12th) – “Everybody needs to take the Ford challenge and drive one. Drive a F-150 because today proved built Ford tough. Congratulations to Colin Braun on his third place finish. That’s a good podium finish for a road racer. He did a good job all day. He raced everybody hard. It’s a good finish for him, Mike Beam and everybody over there at Con-way. I hate what happened to the 99 [Erik Darnell], I tried to explain it to Erik and it probably wasn’t well taken. I was there. I saw it first hand. But it was a good run for the Circle Bar race team. Brendan Gaughan finished sixth in his Ford F-150 in the MAXX Force Diesel by International and another top-10 for the Circle Bar Power Stroke Diesel Ford by International. We went to Pocono and tested this Ford F-150 and thanks to Tony Raines and Cowboy [crew chief Kevin Starland], they did a good job. This is the first time that I’ve really come and raced a package like that. We’ve already gone over the truck and had some notes and told Cowboy about what we need to change for Charlotte or somewhere similar to this. We’ll be back up there in the top five and win pretty quick.” IN YOUR OPINION, WHY WAS THE RACE SO ROUGH AND FILLED WITH CAUTIONS? “These trucks are a handful. I think NASCAR needs to re-look at their rules of raising the fuel cells. We’re implementing ourselves with the team in putting side forces in these trucks. When they raised the fuel cell up they lost rear downforce on these trucks. Rookies are told and a lot of guys out there with any experience are told, ‘don’t lift.’ And when they get beside somebody and they start to get loose, it’s just all over. I think we either need to put a false-bottom floor in the fuel cell to give us more downforce or some kind of wicker on the right side or something to get these trucks a little more stability especially when they’re running side-by-side.”
BRENDAN GAUGHAN – No. 10 International MAXX Force Diesel Ford F-150 – (finished 6th, qualified 22nd) – “That was a typical night for anything that surrounds myself and racing. It doesn’t matter if it’s my team, or the Circle Bar team, we just can’t catch a break. I think NASCAR made a bad call on us on pit road. An official called me out of the box and that’s why I ended up coming in fourth and going out 25th was because they called me out of the box and I was four feet in and my bumper was hanging over. For this Ford F-150 to come from 29th or wherever we were with Roush Yates horsepower, Bobby Jones is our tuner from Roush Yates. Bobby does a great job on the chassis dyno and building us as much horsepower as we can get. We’ve got two teams with two great sponsors. Rick Crawford has bragged about Ford forever. I’m having a lot fun with MAXX Force, I’m having a lot of fun with International, and I’m kinda starting to like this Ford gig. I can get used to this. We need to stay up front more often.” THIS IS YOUR BEST FINISH THIS SEASON. “Yes, we’ve had runs that were this good, but we kept having problems like we had today. All the stuff the guys have done at the shop, cutting the front end off, moving geometry points, all the work that Roush Yates has done getting more torque and more horsepower in the engines, we were able to overcome it and make just a charge through the field. I even had to pass the boss [Crawford]. I hung it out on the outside and passed the boss. I said, ‘I’m sorry, man, but that’s what you pay me for.’”
ERIK DARNELL – No. 99 Northern Tool + Equipment Ford F-150 – (finished 28th, qualified 7th) – “I’m fine. Until I really see a replay, I don’t know what happened out there. I heard ‘inside’ and the next thing I know a truck started coming around on me. We we’re at the top of the track at that time anyway. By the time I got it corrected, we we’re bouncing off the wall. It’s pretty unfortunate. Our Northern Tool + Equipment Ford was good today. We were just kind of cruising around; this is a long race. That’s kind of unfortunate how things ended the way they did.”
JON WOOD – No. 21 Air Force Ford F-150 – (finished 32nd, started 32nd) – “Since I had a substitute for practice and qualifying, I had to start in the back, being in Talladega and all. We had a really good truck, all things considered. Things were good considering that I hadn’t turned a lap in it all weekend. We were passing a bunch of people. Stacy Compton and lost it. As he spun out, I chose to go around on the apron and it was the way he turned the wheel or something and he came down the race track, right where I was at the last second. He just got me in the door. Then our day was over from there. We had just come in and pitted for the first time and John Monsam [crew chief] and I made some changes and we got the truck driving like it needed to.”
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