AJ ALLMENDINGER – No. 44 Ford Drive one. Ford Fusion (finished 13th) – “We had a decent day in the No. 44 Ford. We were good early on and started working our way up through the field. We got just a little bit of damage on the right front just around half way and it caused our car to tighten up a lot making it hard to turn. I was really hoping for a top-10, but we came up just a little short today. So far we’ve been pretty good in our Fords and we’re gathering information that we can hopefully use going into next year.”
ON BEING THE TOP-FINISHING FORD IN HIS SECOND RACE WITH THE MANUFACTURER. “I’m just proud of the guys. I thought we could’ve been a little bit better, but we got just a little too tight there the last two runs, and that hurt us a little bit. And it felt like I was using the right-front brake a little too hard at the end there. I was trying to catch Kyle, but, all in all, we’re racing with the best guys out there right now, and that’s what we should be doing every weekend. I wish we could’ve gotten a little bit better, but I’m still happy about it.”
IN THE FIRST HALF OF THE RACE, YOU WERE ONE OF THE FEW SRIVERS WHO COULD MOVE FORWARD. WHAT COULD YOU DO THAT OTHERS COULDN’T? “It was tough to pass. It was so aero-sensitive out there. That’s why we fight so hard on the re-starts is because you didn’t want to let anybody by. You felt like if they got in front of you it was going to be 10 times harder to pass ’em. We were getting the car to turn just a little bit. We just kind of fought a little bit back and forth just a little loose and tight. We’re getting closer, so it’s good.”
ANY CLOSE CALLS WITH ANY OF THE WRECKS? WERE YOU AROUND ANY OF THEM? “Not the wrecks. I scuffed the wall once – Me and Kasey were side by side on the re-start and he got loose and I gave him room, and then I got loose and just scuffed it. I thought that hurt the fender a little bit; that’s what made us a little bit tight there. But, other than that, I was out of the mess for once.”
SO, DOES THIS TEAM CARRY GOOD FEELINGS INTO HOMESTEAD NEXT WEEKEND? “Yeah. A 10th and a 13th (in his two starts in a Ford), like I said, I think this is where this race team needs to begin at, we need to begin in the top-15 every week and then start building from there. You know, all of us would like to go out there and win, but can’t expect that yet. We’ve got to go out and just keep chipping away at it. We made good points, and we’ve got a chance to be 23rd next week. And I think for a team that wasn’t supposed to run all year, that’s not too bad.”
GREG BIFFLE – No. 16 3M Ford Fusion (finished 14th) – YOU DIDN’T SEEM TO MOVE FORWARD OR BACKWARD TODAY. “What we got is what we got. It’s been that way all year. There was no light at the end of the tunnel. Just keep after it.”
DAVID RAGAN – No. 6 UPS Ford Fusion (finished 23rd) – “Restarts here at Phoenix are always kind of a mess. With the inside wall there, you just don’t have any place to go when something like other drivers checking up happens. In the middle of the pack on that restart, everybody started checking up and we got into the back of the No. 12, and it was a chain reaction. We were fortunate that we didn’t damage our car bad enough that we couldn’t finish, but we did have to make a couple of trips down pit road after that happened. After we lost our track position, there just weren’t enough cautions for us to get the Lucky Dog. I felt like our UPS Ford was better at the end than the beginning, but we just started too far off. We just didn’t have enough speed and as a whole, and it looks like all of the Fords really struggled today. This has been one of our tougher tracks and I’m just glad to have Phoenix behind us.”