COLIN BRAUN – No. 6 Con-Way Freight Ford F-150 (Finished 28th)– “I think it was a good day we had going. All of my guys did a great job. We had a really fast truck there. I don’t know what happened. My spotter said, ‘Inside,’ and the next thing I knew we were turned around, so I don’t know if he slid up or what. It’s a pretty slippery race track and I’m sure that stuff happens, that’s just part of racing. I just feel bad for all of my guys. They did a great job on pit road. They did a great job. I had a really fast truck today. That’s just the way it goes.” SO YOU WEREN’T REACTING TO THE 10 TRUCK SPINNING? “No, we were just doing our own deal there. I don’t know if he saw it and wanted to come up or what, but he just tagged us in the quarterpanel and turned us around and that was that.” YOUR TRUCK GOT BETTER AS THE RACE WENT ON? “Yeah, we struggled there a little bit to start. My crew chief did a great job tuning me up there for two stops and got it going pretty good there.”
TRAVIS KVAPIL – No. 09 Zaxby’s Ford F-150 (Finished 3rd) – “Our truck was really good on the long haul, but it just took us way too long to get going. About 10-15 laps into the run our truck would take off, but we were just way too free to go fast and go hard, and then after 10-15 laps we’d take off. We were just really good in the long haul, but it just took us too long. I’m really proud of my team. Everybody on the Zaxby’s Ford did a great job and we just had a long green-flag truck and had a bunch of yellows there at the end that really hurt us.” WHAT HAPPENED WITH THE LAPPED TRUCK ON THE RESTART WHERE YOU HAD TO SLOW UP AND THE 33 GOT BY? “I don’t know if I would have been able to hold off Ron. Like I said, my stuff was pretty loose and that lapper just got down inside of me and got in there too deep and got loose. That washed us up the track and Ron skated by. You never know. All of the cautions there, we might have been able to hold him off, but it’s just a bummer to have that good of a truck and not bring it home. It’s kind of disappointing, but it’s good to be back in the truck and it’s good to run well.”
ERIK DARNELL – No. 99 Northern Tool + Equipment Ford F-150 (Finished 4th) – YOU RACED TRAVIS HARD THERE FOR A WHILE. “We were just racing each other hard. I got underneath Travis and had to give it a little bit of wheel to keep off of him and, unfortunately, got us a little bit loose. Our Northern Tool + Equipment Ford was pretty good today. We weren’t great. The middle part of the race I think we were better than the 33 and just as good as the 09, but track position was real important. I guess we had track position at the end, but it was hard to pass back there and we didn’t have the truck where we needed it to be.” DID ALL THE CAUTIONS HURT YOUR CAUSE AT THE END? “Yeah, we were better on a longer run it seemed. It seemed like we could go for about two or three laps on a short run, but then it would fall off a little bit and then it would start to pick up again. In the middle of the race, I felt like our truck was really strong. We could run lap times faster than the 33 and I think us and the 09 were about the two fastest trucks on the track at that point, but I guess we got a little bit behind with the track. The track changed more than I thought it would toward the end of the race with the sun going down and upset our truck more than I thought it would, so we weren’t quite where we needed to be at the end.”
RICK CRAWFORD – No. 14 Powerstroke Diesel Ford F-150 (Finished 5th) – “We go from fourth to ninth and back to fifth and ended up fifth, so it was a typical day here at Loudon. I expected that at the end and I think that’s what probably helped us out at the end. I expected it. I knew what they were gonna do and I had to drive a little defensively, but aggressively. We searched around and searched around the first 75 laps and found a groove that the Ford Powerstroke Diesel wanted to run and when somebody else was running that groove, that made it hard for me to race, but when I got back in the groove, it would come back to the front. We kept searching around and found a nice one out there. We had to get in the groove, how about that?” SO EXPERIENCE HELPED AT THE END WHEN THEY STARTED BANGING EACH OTHER? “I had it happen to me down there, so when I let David (Starr) and Todd (Bodine) go, David still drove it in there as hard as he did when I was there and he needed all three grooves to gather it up. When they bumped, I knew what was gonna happen because it about happened to me down there. That’s just one of those things and then Kyle (Busch) tried to put it under Erik (Darnell) and got loose and took advantage of that, but, like I said before, that was the groove we wanted to race in. We were fast there and when he moved out of it, I took advantage of it. That was a pretty good day. I wish we could have won and Roush Yates Engines could have won, but it was a real good day for Ford Motor Company and the F-Series pick-up with three out of the top five.”
KEVEN WOOD – No. 21 U.S. Air Force Ford F-150 (Finished 22nd) – “We just struggled from the beginning. We came out here kind of with a partial different setup from the way we ended practice. It would have been really great to have gotten to run that second practice because I think we would have found that what we did just did not work. We just had to work on it all day long and just never could get it. It just stayed tight the entire time. The guys worked hard and I hate it that we couldn’t do anything better, but we’ll just go to Vegas. Jon will be at Vegas and we had a heck of a run there last year, so we’ll see what happens.”
TRAVIS KVAPIL PRESS CONFERENCE – “We had a really great truck. I knew that in practice yesterday and, unfortunately, we had to start by points so we started a ways back there. We just had a really good truck right from the get-go and we worked our way up into the top 10. Then the first pit stop I had them loosen the truck up a little bit for me and on the restart I thought the truck was gonna be way too loose, but after about 10 laps it took off and just drove our way up through there. Really, I think I drove all the way up to second and then when Ron pitted we stayed out and got the lead and led a little bit there. The guys on pit road had a great pit stop and we came out leading and the truck was really fast. We were just running great lap times and it just took my truck like three or four laps to get going after a restart. I was just too loose. We’d spin the rear tires and it just took me a little while to get going, but after a few laps I could really go and put good lap times down again. I was concerned when that caution came out with Ron behind me. He’s always good at restarts and I think the 17 truck got down inside of me and got in there too hot – a lapped truck – and got loose, got up into me. He spun out and I had to go way up the track to avoid that and that’s when Ron slipped by. Like I said, it just took me a little bit to get going – two or three laps – and Benson got by me. We definitely had a long-run truck and we had a bunch of cautions there at the end that hurt me.”
DID YOU LEARN ANYTHING TODAY THAT WILL HELP TOMORROW? “Yeah, I think so. I couldn’t believe it. That long green-flag run, the fastest lap I made of the race was two laps before I pitted and that’s 50-60 laps on the tires. I just couldn’t believe how durable the tire was. Now, granted, the Cup cars got 200 more horsepower, but, basically, the biggest thing I learned is that the tire is very durable and I think you’re gonna see a lot of no-tire and two-tire stuff tomorrow to gain track position. It seemed like my truck was actually better with 10 laps on the tires than on fresh stuff.”
DID THE CONTACT WITH THE 17 HURT YOUR TRUCK AT ALL? “No, I don’t think it hurt my truck, but the biggest thing was I lost my position to Ron and, like I said, my truck was just too loose for two or three laps, but the way the race played out, where you’d only run a lap or two and there would be a caution, I might have been able to just hold my position long enough to stay in front of Ron. I knew Ron was gonna be faster than me for a few laps and I was hoping we could go 10 or 15 laps straight. I felt I could reel him back in and go, but it’s just the way it is with all these cautions at the end. We were kind of stuck. We had a truck set up to just go for the long run and not five and 10-lap segments. I’d like to think I could have held Ron off, but, more than likely, probably not. He was pretty fast on the get-go and I was slipping and sliding for a few laps.”