CARL EDWARDS – No. 99 Aflac Ford Fusion (finished 2nd) – TELL US ABOUT YOUR RUN TODAY. “It’s close. It’s close. I didn’t think Tony could save that much fuel, but he did a really good job. Our car was getting great fuel mileage all day. I’m just really proud of my guys. We were great on pit road – Tony beat us off of pit road that last stop by about three-quarters of a car length or something, but that’s primarily because of his pit stall – but my guys did a great job. They stepped it up. We ran up front all day. I think we led the most laps, I’m not sure. But, that’s good. That’s a good step. I’d really like to be out there with the trophy, but it’s good for points.”
IS THE DOMINANT EMOTION YOU TAKE FROM TODAY HAPPY, BECAUSE YOU HAD THE DOMINANT CAR FOR THE FIRST TIME THIS YEAR, OR MAD BECAUSE YOU DIDN’T WIN? “I’ll probably be happy later today, but right now, man, to be that close to victory and to not win, that is frustrating. The cool part about it is, it kind of felt like we’re in the form that we were in at the end of last season. We ran really well, I could pass people, I felt like if Tony and I had to race there at the end, I felt really good about my chances of being to win the race on speed. So, the points are great, though. That’s really what it boils down to. All this is great, but you’ve got to keep your pride in check, and know that the real race is with 10 to go. So, I definitely take something good out of this.”
THE ROUSH FENWAY CARS WERE DOMINANY EARLY, BUT NOT AT THE END, AND THAT SEEMS TO HAVE HAPPENED ALL YEAR LONG. “I felt like we were strong at the end. I don’t know what happened to my teammates but I felt like my car was very strong at the end. You’ll have that in racing. People are going to come and go, and I felt like – I don’t know what happened to my teammates. But, we were overall stronger this week than we have been. We were really good at Dover, but we were better here. We weren’t one through five, but we’re getting there.”
THERE HAVE BEEN TRADITIONS STARTED IN RACING IN RECENT YEARS – BURNOUTS, CLIMBING FENCES, GRABBING THE FLAG. AFTER WHAT HAPPENED LAST NIGHT IN NASHVILLE, DO YOU ENVISION EVER WINNING A RACE AND DESTROYING THE TROPHY? “No, I don’t think so. I’ve got a lot of respect for Sam Bass and those people at Gibson that make those beautiful trophies. You definitely will not see me smashing one of them.”
WHAT DID YOU THINK OF THE DOUBLE-FILE RE-STARTS? “I thought of one thing that I thought would make it just a little bit more fair, and that would be to let the leader start in his own lane, so he has his own row, I guess is what I’m saying. The leader would have no one beside him; he would start inside, outside, do whatever he wanted, and then second and third start behind him with the second-place guy having the option. I think that would be a better way to do it. But, other than that, I thought it was great, it was fun and I thought it made for exciting racing. I think NASCAR is moving in the right direction there.”
AT LEAST ONE DRIVER HAD TALKED ABOUT DRIVERS LAYING BACK ON THE RE-STARTS, SO INSTEAD OF RE-STARTING FIFTH IT WAS LIKE RE-STARTING SEVENTH. DO YOU THINK WE’LL SEE A LOT OF THE CAT-AND-MOUSE GAMES ON RE-STARTS IN THE FUTURE? AND, DID YOU SEE ANY OF THAT TODAY? “I didn’t see any of it, but we’re going to get all we can. We’re racers. We’re going to do everything we can, it’s just the nature of us as drivers and until somebody gets penalized – I didn’t see it, though, so I don’t know how bad it was.”
“And, sometimes it’s not what it appears. If David [Reutimann, also at the press conference] were lined up nose-to-tail, and he started laying back a little bit, I’d back up to him, so now I look like the guy who’s laying back, but you can’t let the guy behind you lay back. So, you really never know who’s starting it.”
WHEN FUEL COMES INTO QUESTION, DOES THE CREW CHIEF TELL YOU WHAT YOU’RE GOING TO DO, OR DO YOU DISCUSS IT? AND, DID YOU BEGIN THAT LAST GREEN-FLAG RUN KNOWING THAT YOU WOULD HAVE TO BE IN FUEL MODE AT SOME POINT? “I always ask, ‘Can we make it?’ We need a better system. We don’t have a system right now. You know, Bob [Osborne, crew chief] tells me, ‘Worst case, you’re this many laps short, and best case, you’re this many laps short,’ so – ‘Worst case, you definitely won’t make it,’ and I asked him, ‘Which is it? Best case or worst case?’ He said, ‘I have no clue.’ So, really, you want to start as early as you can, so you can save fuel as long as you can, but you want to go as fast as you can so that you run out at the end. The problem with that is you don’t know how much fuel you have. You start going back in your mind, thinking about how you drove all those runs, and then you’re so confused, you no clue what you’re doing, but you just hope for the best, I guess. A lot of praying.”
CAN YOU IMAGINE WHAT TONY STEWART IS GOING THROUGH RIGHT NOW? “I can only imagine it. The things that he set out to accomplish this year were huge. I personally didn’t believe he could get it done – I did not think he would succeed the way he has so far. So, I’m extremely impressed with that. I can only imagine how good that feels to be able to do what he’s done.”
GREG BIFFLE – No. 16 3M Ford Fusion (finished 11th) – “We had a great car, but when we don’t need to have good fuel mileage, we’ve got good fuel mileage, and when we need it, we don’t. And, that’s what it came down to today: fuel mileage.”
YESTERDAY, YOU SEEMED TO KNOW YOU’D HAVE A GOOD CAR. “Yeah, I thought my car was really good. It wasn’t quite as good as I thought – a top-three car, a second-place car.”
YOU WERE UP FRONT FOR MOST OF THE DAY. WHAT ARE YOUR THOUGHTS ABOUT THE NEW DOUBLE-FILE RE-STARTS? DID YOU SEE ANYTHING YOU DIDN’T EXPECT TO SEE? “Not really. The one lane, you know, if you’re in the one lane, you lost three or four spots per re-start, so it’s going to be like that all year, it just depends what track you’re at.”
JAMIE McMURRAY – No. 26 Crown Royal Ford Fusion (finished 13th) – “We didn’t very good today. Matt and Greg and Carl ran really, really well. We had a fast car in practice and when the race first started we were good, and then we were terrible for a while there, and then they got the car better. We just didn’t have as good of a car as we needed.”
MATT KENSETH – No. 17 DeWalt Ford Fusion (finished 16th) – “We ran third all day and finished 16th. I don’t know what else to say about it.”
DAVID RAGAN – No. 6 UPS Ford Fusion (finished 26th) – COMMENTS ON THE DOUBLE-FILE RESTARTS “I thought that the double-file restarts worked out well. Strategy-wise, the first chance that we had to stay out and be the waved car and try to short-pit and get back out, it just didn’t work because the cautions fell outside of our pit window, so that’s just an unlucky break for UPS team.”
ON HIS CAR DURING THE RACE. “We kept trying to make our UPS Ford fast today; we just didn’t get it driving good enough, quick enough. The first 100 laps we just struggled with being too loose. But, the last run of the day, we were trying to conserve a little bit of fuel, which was a good call. If we had had a little bit more fuel, we could have raced a little bit harder at the end.”