BOBBY EAST – No. 09 Zaxby’s Ford F-150 – (finished 8th, qualified 13th) – YOU WERE IN THE TOP 10 MOST OF THE RACE. “Yeah, we’re happy. The Zaxby’s Ford F-150 was great. We unloaded good and Chad Norris and the crew did a great job. Our performance was because of him, Mike Beam and Matt Puccia. I want to thank everybody. I want to thank Jack Roush for this opportunity.”
JON WOOD – No. 21 Air Force Ford F-150 – (finished 10th, qualified 4th) – “In reference to my comments after qualifying about how we’re doing; we’re doing a lot of different things now with springs. All in all, we’ve thrown out our old set-up and we’re starting over something brand new that’s pretty much opposite. Prior to this week, we didn’t know how to start the race the way we needed to. Next week we’ll know how to make it better during the race because the only part that we were missing was knowing what adjustments did what, given the fact that everything is now backwards from what it was.” ARE WE SEEING A TURNAROUND IN YOUR PROGRAM? “I don’t know. You’d like to fire off immediately and know everything but in a realistic world, that doesn’t happen, particularly when it appears as if we’re a Cup-backed truck team. But there’s only so much that is applicable to what we do. We’ve pretty much done it on our own.” ARE YOU PLEASED WITH YOUR FINISH TODAY? “As long as we keep getting better, that’s all I care about.”
BRENDAN GAUGHAN – No. 10 International MAXX Force Diesel Ford F-150 – (finished 15th, qualified 21st) – “We moved up to at least 12th at one point. Normally, I’m really good at restarts and I feel bad that I let the team down. It was a typical Bryan Berry [crew chief] night; he works hard for me. The guys on pit road worked hard for me. They did shock adjustments, spring rubbers, tire pressures and track bars. The worked their tails off. I kept my tire guy busy with up and down and up and down on tire pressures. The boys gave me the best Ford they could tonight and unfortunately, it wasn’t enough for us. I think we ended up 15th, and it looks like we stayed the same in points. It’s real tight still. It’s unfortunate that we had another tough spot. Jack Roush keeps giving me good engines and the boys keep giving me good Ford trucks. We’ll be at Michigan next week with a different truck. I’ve had a win there in the past, let’s see if we can’t find another one.”
COLIN BRAUN – No. 6 Con-way Freight Ford F-150 – (finished 22nd, qualified 20th) – “We just got free off of turn two behind Matt [Crafton] and I just made a mistake. I thought we had a truck that could have challenged for the win there. We certainly had a top five truck there pretty easily. I just feel bad for all these guys. They worked so hard on the truck getting it ready. That was probably one of the best trucks we had there. So it’s terrible to wreck it and have to go back and fix it. These guys did a great job. I think we made 17 or 18 pit stops after we wrecked and never gave up. The guys did a real good job, I just feel bad letting them all down.” BUT YOU HANDLED THE TRUCK SO WELL AND AVOIDED OTHER TRUCKS, DOESN’T THAT SHOW YOUR DEVELOPMENT AS A DRIVER? “I thought we had it there for a second and then I just ran out of race track. If that wall had been back six inches, we would have been all right there. At one point I kinda had to give up and just let it hit the wall and avoid trying to spin down to the inside. It’s an unfortunate day for everybody here in the No. 6 Con-way Freight Ford F-150 team.” WHAT DID YOU LEARN FROM THIS RACE? “I learned a lot just coming up through the pack there from the back and racing with those guys and how important it is to have a good pit crew. Those guys did a great job on pit road and got us a lot of spots on pit road. I also learned that it’s important to be patient and let the race come to you. I learned a lot there. Unfortunately, when we wrecked, just how these trucks drive and how much you can get away with and how much you can’t get away with.”
ERIK DARNELL – No. 99 Northern Tool + Equipment Ford F-150 – (finished 24th, qualified 22nd) – “It was a frustrating night, again. That’s the way our luck has been going. We cut a right front tire on the restart getting into turn one. Then we had to do a drive through penalty after that. And then that got us a couple of laps down and we never could recover from that. We were actually pretty decent again today. This was the same Northern Tool + Equipment Ford F-150 that we had in Charlotte. We’re happy it’s still in one piece. We’ll tune on it and go to the next one.”
