Mark Martin, driver of the No. 6 Viagra Taurus, comes into this weekend’s Coca-Cola 600 looking for a sweep after capturing Saturday night’s Nextel All-Star Challenge.
MARK MARTIN – No. 6 Viagra Taurus – AFTER WINNING LAST WEEK IS IT A CASE WHERE YOU CAN’T WAIT TO GET BACK IN THE CAR? “I’m looking forward to it. Obviously, everybody knows I love this place regardless, but, certainly, we feel we’re on a roll. We did do testing out here a couple of weeks ago. We brought two cars and the car that was faster and drove better we saved for this weekend, but, at the same time, I know that every competitor is gonna raise their game so we have to do the same if we want to contend to win this thing Sunday.”
WAS THERE ANY DISCUSSION ABOUT BRINGING LAST WEEK’S CAR BACK FOR THIS RACE? “It was common logic from mostly the media – are you bringing that car back. I’ve done all kinds of things in my career. If you don’t bring it back and you don’t run good, then you’re a dummy. If you do bring it back and you don’t run good, you’re a dummy because you left the best one at home. So we’re doing what we do. We chose that other car, the car for this race, based on it being faster and driving better. I know that the competition will be a lot tougher. There is a lot more time to adjust and make adjustments and there’s also more practice time to get right. We caught those guys looking the other way. Elliott Sadler was really our main competition in that thing, but if we run the same as we ran out here Saturday night, we’ll have at least a dozen to contend with if not more, so we’re gonna have to try to raise the bar ourselves.”
WHEN YOU WENT BACK TO BATESVILLE TO REARRANGE YOUR CARS, DID YOU LEAVE THOSE PLANS FLUID IN CASE YOU NEED TO DO SOME MORE REARRANGING? “We’re still in the early enough stages that we can make a lot more room. What we’ll do is push some of the less important stuff out of the way and bring in the more important stuff.”
THERE’S ONE PIECE OF HARDWARE THAT WOULD MAKE A NICE CENTERPIECE. “Saturday night, I’ve said it was a bit of a miracle and the coolest thing in my career and all those things, but the championship would be the real miracle. To do that in your last try would be something that would be fun because I know it would kind of mess up NASCAR and Nextel just a little bit, but that would be kind of fun to do.”
YOU MENTIONED GIL DE FERRAN LAST WEEK AND HOW HE LEFT THE SPORT. THAT RESONATED WITH YOU. “It did. It brought tears to my eyes the way he went out. I knew going into this season that something like that was asking too much, but my desire is to go out as strong as possible. I do have a team that can contend for that championship, so if everything lines up right, contending for it would make me happy. Winning it would be another one of those miracles I think.”
IF YOU DIDN’T THINK YOU COULD WIN IT, YOU WOULDN’T BE BACK THIS YEAR WOULD YOU? “No, I would not. I have reached deeper this year than I ever though possible and the only way to do that is to know that this is my last time I was gonna have to do that. I’ve had to raise the bar quite a bit each year the last four or five years, and going into this year I had to do it double because not only did I have to do it from a competition side, but I had to do it from a fan and media commitment as well. So it’s a double reach and we’re doing it and we’re doing it with a smile. Stuff like Saturday night makes it easy to smile.”
WHAT ABOUT THIS SPLIT-SEASON CONCEPT? “It’s the only way it would work. It’s the only way. When I sat down and looked at what I would do in 2006, the thing I would not do is drive a limited schedule with a limited team and a limited budget and a limited deal because I’m not gonna be a part of that. So it made more sense to drop back and do a full truck schedule than it would be some kind of limited deal where I’d get limited results. If you could share a full schedule with the 6 car with another top driver, that’s never been done before. Selling that to a sponsor, it would take the right sponsor and it would take a lot of things. I’m 100 percent headed truck racing, but I don’t have any paper signed yet.”
SO IT’S LIKE THE MUSEUM IN THAT YOU CAN STILL REARRANGE THINGS? “I can still rearrange.”
Roush Racing announced earlier today that Greg Biffle has signed a multi-year contract extension that will keep him in the No. 16 National Guard/Subway Taurus. He spoke about the deal after Friday’s Nextel Cup practice session.
GREG BIFFLE – No. 16 National Guard/Charter Taurus – ARE YOU HAPPY TO HAVE THIS OVER WITH AND NOT HAVE TO TALK ABOUT IT ANYMORE? “Yeah, I really am. I’m excited. I went to Jack and told him that I really wanted to stay at Roush. Geoff Smith worked very hard at doing what he could do for me to stay there and I’m really excited about having National Guard and all the other sponsors on the race car. I feel we’re locking in a championship battle right now in 2005 and, obviously, if I decided to do something different this year is pretty much down the drain for me. All of it was a consideration on what to do. I felt like I wanted to stay here. They gave me an opportunity to come drive for their organization and they’ve treated me well and are gonna continue to treat me well over the next three years. We’re just excited about having it done. It was starting to be a distraction. I was starting to get a lot of inquiries and people calling and other people talking about it and I wanted to put it to bed. I wanted to secure the team and tell them that, ‘Hey, I’m here to stay.’ They’re wondering where I’m going. They’re hearing other team guys talk or whatever, and Ford was a major part in helping us solidify our deal and get it done. They’ve been behind us 100 percent. I went to them and asked for support for the team and they’re there to support us technical-wise and aero-wise. We’ve got a new race car coming that we’re real excited about and part of my decision on what to do was all the neat things we’ve got coming and how stout our organization is. It would be tough for me to go do something different.”
THERE WERE A LOT OF RUMORS. WAS IT EVER CLOSE THAT YOU WERE GOING TO LEAVE ROUSH? “I don’t think so, not ever close, but I had plenty of opportunities and I’m thankful for that. I’m really blessed that I’ve got the driving ability that I do and other people have interest in me to drive their race cars. There are a lot of fine teams in this sport – a lot of people I respect very well. I’m friends with a lot of the team owners. I like to mingle with them and talk with them. Ray’s got a great organization. Joe Gibbs, Richard Childress – all of them – Roger Penske. Every single one of those guys – DEI – have great organizations in our sport. I had some opportunities, but this is where my heart was at and we were able to work out a deal and I think I’m gonna be happy.”
CAN YOU TALK ABOUT THE CHALLENGE OF 600 MILES HERE? “That’s tough. We’ve got to have adjustability in the race car. With the way our race cars are set up today it’s more difficult, we’re finding out, to have that adjustability over 600 miles so we’re really focusing and concentrating on how to have that adjustability. We spent probably too much time today on qualifying because qualifying, obviously, for a 600-mile race probably doesn’t mean a lot, but we went the whole two hours practicing qualifying. We ended up 13th right now and we’ll be a little better than that, I think, qualifying. That would be a good starting spot for us, but it’s adjustability and being able to adapt from 5 o’clock, to 7 o’clock to 9 o’clock at night.”
HOW MUCH DID THE CHAMPIONSHIP BATTLE THIS YEAR EFFECT YOUR DECISION? “That was one of my factors in staying here and doing what I want to do because of the championship battle we’re locked into. That was a big factor. I’ve got quality race cars right now. I’ve got quality people and it pays $5.5 million to win the championship, plus a lot of other dividends. That’s really hard to weigh out options of going somewhere else and driving another race car. A lot of guys don’t have an opportunity to win more than one. You look at Tony Stewart, Matt Kenseth, Kurt Busch, Bobby Labonte. In this day and age it’s very difficult. I feel like this is my best opportunity right now is this year. We may not be the guy to beat coming down the homestretch, but we’re doing well right now.”
COCA-COLA 600 QUALIFYING
DALE JARRETT – No. 88 UPS Taurus (Qualified 7th) – “The guys will run faster as it cools off some more, but it was a great lap for us. Billy (Wilburn) made an air-pressure adjustment right before we went out and we really got the car to turn well. It was all I wanted. One hundred and ninety miles an hour around here is incredibly fast, but it was a fun fast. I’ve really got to say thanks. Billy and Jason (Burdette) have done a great job and everybody on the 88 team, but say thanks to Todd Parrott and the guys from the 38 crew. They’ve done a tremendous job the past two weeks in helping us get better prepared in getting our cars more alike. Thanks to Elliott. We talked a lot today during practice about things he was doing because he was fast. He’s been fast everywhere this year and is always fast, so he kind of walked me through what he was doing and that helped me, and some of the things that they did help me gain some confidence in my race car and allowed us to go run that. So it’ll be a good starting spot and hopefully that will translate to a good Coke 600 on Sunday night.”
ELLIOTT SADLER – No. 38 Pedigree/M&M’s Taurus (Qualified 10th) – “I was just really tight. I’m not really sure. It felt like those tires were a little bit tighter than what we had in practice. It’s just one of those deals. We know we’re gonna have a good car for the race. I mean, we’re gonna be disappointed with that starting spot of course, but we think we’ll be OK come race time. We’ll just do the best we can. Six hundred miles is a long race, we’ll get ‘em there.”
KURT BUSCH – No. 97 Smirnoff Ice Taurus (Qualified 35th) – THIS TRACK IS GOING TO CHANGE A LOT SUNDAY. WHAT DO YOU LOOK FOR? “It used to be a big deal in the past with the track changing so much. Now with this new surface it pretty much stays the same. You do gain speed at night, but what happens in the daytime is it used to be real slick and now it won’t be as slick. With the new lucky dog rule, you can get your lap back if you’re too slow in the beginning, so there are gonna be plenty of cars to race for 600 miles.”
GREG BIFFLE – No. 16 National Guard/Charter Taurus (Qualified 29th) – “I tell you what, I was real excited with the lap. I was kind of hootin’ and hollerin’ on the radio coming to the start-finish line because the lap felt so good. I got a lot of speed across one and two, and really got a lot more speed in three and four. I felt like it was gonna be marginal for the pole and it was three-tenths off the pole, so I really have no idea where the speed went but the car drove really, really good. That will be a key element in Sunday’s race – the drivability of that race car and it was really, really good there. So I’m excited about that, but not excited about going out early and, of course, being only fifth right now. We’ll probably be in the top 20 for a starting spot in the 600.”
NOW YOU HAVE TO DO THIS 400 TIMES ON SUNDAY. WHAT WILL CHANGE WITH YOUR MENTALITY? “I’m glad that the bonsai run is over with because you always go out there and see how fast you can go for one lap, so we got that out of the way. We’re really looking forward to practice on Saturday. That will really tell the tale on how people will stack up in the race. We’ll have that happy hour. We’ll get some 30 or 40-lap runs in and see how our car is maintaining its speed and see what problems arise. The key is not putting too many miles on your car. You know you’re gonna put 600 on it Sunday, we can’t change engines or transmissions or any of that, so we don’t want to put too many miles on it, but, yet, we’ve got to figure our race car out for Sunday – get some adjustability in it and get ready for the race.”
RICKY RUDD – No. 21 Motorcraft Genuine Parts Taurus (Qualified 16th) – “Like everybody we wish we went later on in the draw, but I’m pretty happy. We picked up three-and-a-half or four-tenths – something like that – from practice. The car is good, it’s just too tight. We were too tight last week, so we went home and worked on it a little bit and they got it better. We just need another dose of that. We need to get the front end to turn. It’s a new car and the track is a brand new race track, so we could be more aggressive with the car and they’re sneaking up on it. But I know how these other guys are running faster, they can just drive it deeper and have the front stick and that’s what we need to work on.”
MATT KENSETH – No. 17 DeWalt Taurus (Qualified 3rd) –
YOU BROKE THE TRACK RECORD BUT DIDN’T GET THE POLE. “Well that’s normal whenever Newman is in the field. Pole day, I always call it Newman Day because that’s what it usually is. We’re never usually a threat for the pole, so I’m really happy where we qualified. That’s a lot better than we usually do.” WHAT’S THE KEY FOR SUNDAY? “This is just a starting position. This is not an impound race, so we did get to do what we want to qualify, so we did work on race trim today and our car seemed much better than it did last week. We’ll work on it Saturday night in practice and hopefully have it right for Sunday.” IT MUST BE CRITICAL TO HAVE TEAMMATES LIKE YOU HAVE. “Yeah, it does help a lot but every car has its own personality. Last time we ran this car it ran really well for us. We have awesome engines with Doug Yates doing them. We have really great equipment, we just, as a team, got to figure out what to do with it.” HOW WAS YOUR LAP? “Honestly, my lap wasn’t really that eventful. My car was plenty tight. It wasn’t very hard to drive. It was just a good, solid lap. Usually, my laps are really eventful and not very fast, so it was really solid. The track has a lot of grip. When it cools down here it gets a lot of grip.”
CARL EDWARDS – No. 99 RoundUp Taurus (Qualified 12th) – “Hopefully we’ll stay up there in the top 15. The car was really good. We picked up half-a-second from practice. The track cooled off and we really benefited from the late draw and our RoundUp Ford was pretty good. I left a little bit on the table. Mark went before me and he told me that it had a lot more grip, so I kind of gambled and I went in the corner way farther than I had before, but I could have gone a lot harder than that. I didn’t realize how much more grip it had, so I learned that lesson. We’ll take that to the next race and maybe we’ll qualify a little better.”
MATT KENSETH PRESS CONFERENCE – HOW DO YOU FEEL ABOUT SUNDAY? “I don’t know. The last time we ran this car is the last time we really ran very well. We qualified really well at California and raced really well most of the day. I don’t really know. We’ve been struggling so bad the last few months that I’m not really sure. We started today in race trim and made some changes and when we unloaded it drove just like the car did last weekend, which was terrible – pretty much a last-place car, and by the time we got done it actually drove pretty decent and felt fairly competitive, so I’ll really have a better answer for that, I guess, Saturday night after practice. But Jeff talked about learning the track. I’ve been going through some of that too. We didn’t test and when I came here I just kind of drove off what I heard other people say and it is different and it does take a little time to get used to it, so, hopefully, the extra practice today will help and we’ll be able to run up front on Sunday.”
IS THE TRACK TOO FAST? “I think it’s exactly the same as what Jeff said. I mean, everybody gets personal to certain tracks. I don’t like a lot of change in a lot of things, but this was one of my favorite tracks or probably my favorite track. I made my first Busch Series start here and we all race here a lot with all the laps in the all-star race and the longest race of the year and all that stuff. I thought before it had character. I thought before when you caught somebody you could always pass them, it seemed like to me. You could get up close to them and get them off the bottom and get underneath them and you really had to hit a good line getting into three because of the bumps, and there was a lot of character to it. Being smooth and fast is cool for qualifying night and for everybody to watch, but I don’t think that necessarily translates into a better race. It’s probably a little easier to drive. I don’t know if it’s gonna be easier to setup for or not, but it’s probably a little easier driving and you can definitely go faster by yourself. I don’t think when all the cars get together that the fans know the difference or we know the difference of three or four or five miles an hour, but the cars know the difference and it does make it tougher to pass and race around each other.”
WHERE ARE THE DIFFERENCES ON THE TRACK? “It’s hard to explain. It’s just a different track. It just feels different. It almost looks different. Just before it was real rough and the groove was right on the bottom in one and two and there was one spot right down by the white line where it seemed like all the grip was. There was one really good way to get around here if your car worked good and now it’s just different than that. It’s smoother. It has more grip and you can run up higher than you ever used to before.”
WE WERE TOLD WHEN THIS GRINDING PROCESS STARTED THAT IT WOULD MAKE FOR MORE SIDE-BY-SIDE RACING. WAS THAT JUST WRONG FROM THE GET-GO OR IS THIS A SURPRISING OUTCOME? “I think a promoter’s job is to fill the seats up and I think whenever you do you’re probably thinking about better racing to fill the seats up in the future, but I think the big hype and all the advertising and all the names doing stuff is to try to fill the seats up this weekend. I mean, that’s what their job is to do. It is different. But when they do this I kind of compare it to Atlanta. I remember when they paved Atlanta and it got reconfigured before I started racing down here, but the first few I watched at home and heard everybody talk about how bad the race was. The groove was on the bottom and I fell asleep in the middle of the race. Now that it’s wore out and the grip is down and the speeds are down, it’s one of the best races of the year – I think, at least to be part of and to be able to pass somebody. I think as a fan to watch there at Rockingham and all of those tracks once they start to lose grip – Michigan – that’s I think when the racing is good. It is exciting to watch pole night and see how fast somebody can go and all that, but it’s like we’ve both been saying, I don’t know if that’s gonna create better racing. We all talk about aerodynamic problems and how dependent the cars are on air today, well the faster you go the more dependent they are on air. When you’re by yourself, that’s great. But when you’re around other cars the less grip you’re gonna have.”
WHAT’S THE DEAL WITH THIS NEW SURFACE? DURING TESTING MOST REVIEWS WERE POSITIVE. AT THE CHALLENGE IT WAS MIXED. NOW IT’S LIKE A DISASTER. “I think that whenever you get a track like he said, smooth and you get running fast, it’s always a lot of fun and you’re gonna have great reviews, and I don’t think the reviews are it’s a disaster. I still think a lot of the cars were wiped out last week. It’s a little tough to run side-by-side. I talked about filling the grandstands and didn’t so much mean it to be a gimmick either. I think you want to make better racing and fill the grandstands, but this time nobody knew what it was gonna bring. So I think everybody wants to be here to see what it’s gonna bring and I think you have to wait until after 600 miles to judge it. Some of us really loved the place the way it was, so you maybe have a little harder time converting or saying how much you like it because we loved it before. I think it’s still a good race track and it’ll probably still be a good race, it’s just gonna be a different race. I think it’s better than a new coat of asphalt, for sure.”
