Carl Edwards led Roush Racing teammates Mark Martin and Matt Kenseth across the finish line en route to winning the Dickies 500 at Texas Motor Speedway. It was Edwards’ second victory in as many weeks and fourth of his career.
CARL EDWARDS Press Conference – No. 99 Office Depot Taurus (finished 1st)
THE DECISION TO PIT AT THE END OF THE RACE WORKED OUT WELL FOR YOU. WERE YOU NERVOUS? “It was kind of an eenie-meenie-miney-moe deal. I was just looking behind me and I saw a couple of guys start to turn like they really wanted to pit, so just turned in there and Bob did a great job. I thought we were going to take four tires. I just thought that four would be the thing and would be the right thing to do, and at the last minute Bob said two tires and it was the right call. He had the air pressure adjusted for two tires – I mean the guys were just flawless. The pit crew performed excellently. We got out in front of Tony Stewart, who would’ve been very difficult to pass, if we hadn’t, so I’ve got to thank my crew.”
THERE WERE A FEW GUYS BEHIND YOU WHO ALSO TOOK TWO. DO YOU THINK IF YOU WOULD’VE TAKEN FOUR YOU WOULD’VE HAD ANY CHANCE TO GET AROUND ALL OF THEM? “Probably not. Everyone was racing so hard. I think that if we would’ve stayed out Mark Martin would’ve beaten us; if we would’ve taken four, someone else, Mark Martin probably still would’ve won the race. So, we were just very fortunate to get that caution at the end. Mark was coming, and it was very nerve-wracking to see him coming with about 18 to go. I knew he was going to be extremely tough to beat, so we got a real big break there.”
JACK ROUSH, team owner – THIS IS YOUR FIFTH WIN AT TEXAS WITH FIVE DIFFERENT DRIVERS. “Mark Martin certainly sets the standard. He’s really good on mile-and-a-half race tracks. And of course Jeff Burton was good here. He won in the 99 car the first time in the inaugural event. This is the second time the 99 car has won at Texas, even though it hasn’t been with a repeat driver. My understanding is this is Carl’s fourth win. Is that not a record for somebody first full year? So, I’m really proud of Carl and what he’s done, and what Bob Osborne. This is Bob’s first full year. My assessment of what was going to happen, I figured that the way you raced Jimmie Johnson at Atlanta, I figured it would be awfully hard for Mark to beat you if you stayed out. Stopping as you did was a gutsy move that Bob made and taking the two tires was exactly the right move if you were going to do that.”
BOB OSBORNE, crew chief – DID YOU SECOND-GUESS YOURSELF AT ALL ON THAT CALL AT THE END? “Before we pitted I definitely thought that was the way to go. After we pitted I definitely was second-guessing that decision. I really thought the 6 car would pit, and I thought that push everybody else’s hand to pit also, and he didn’t and that worried me a little bit. But, Carl did a great job, drove through the field there. Did an awesome job.”
CARL EDWARDS – YOU TOLD YOUR CREW THAT IF THEY GOT YOU OUT SIXTH OR BETTER THAT YOU KNEW YOU COULD DO IT. HOW DID THAT HAPPEN? “All night the car had been awesome on the re-starts. The last re-start it was really good and I just felt like as long as they could get us out in sixth or better no matter what happened I just felt really comfortable for some reason. That’s how I saw my chances, so that’s what I told them and they did the job. I don’t know if we got out sixth or seventh, but it worked out.”
JACK ROUSH – AFTER TODAY, DOES GREG BIFFLE STILL HAVE A CHANCE? “We don’t have a realistic prospect of beating the 20 or the 48 with any of our cars, Carl included, unless somebody else has trouble. I expect Tony and Jimmie to run second, third or fourth, certainly a top-five for the next two races if they don’t break a part or if they don’t get caught up in somebody else’s wreck. We’re just going to go out and try to win races. The thing I’m doing is building toward next year and the years that will follow. We’ve had a great run, even though this may not be a year of harvest for that. When we started, with the way the 20 had been running and the way the 48 had been running and the way we were extraordinarily lucky to have won our championships in the last two years – people ask me what I thought the chances were of one of our guys winning, and I thought they were one in three. I think they started off one in three and now they’re probably one in five.”
CARL EDWARDS – FOR A GUY WHO SAYS HE’S JUST HAVING FUN, YOU SURE LOOK SERIOUS ON THE RACE TRACK. “I haven’t been racing for a real long time, but I’ve been racing long enough to know that I can approach it a couple of different ways. I can be extremely focused and stressed out and think of it as a have-to-do-this-a-certain-way manner or I can just go and prepare the best I can, and when I’m done preparing, just decide it’s time to go race and go have a good time and see how it goes, and both ways seem to work pretty well. It’s just that at the end of the day, having a good time with it and not really running yourself into the ground from a stress standpoint, it seems to be the best way for me. I don’t think there will ever come a point where I try to go back and try to do it the other way. This way seems to just be a lot of fun. But don’t get me wrong; I just don’t treat it like a joy ride. The most fun part is winning. It just so happens that’s the best way for me to go do it.”
WHAT IS IT THAT HAS MADE YOU LESS-PRONE TO MAKE MISTAKES OF ENTHUSIASM? “I’ll let Bob comment on what Bob thinks. I feel more comfortable. I feel like I do a better job of pacing myself as a driver. I don’t feel that panic to win a race. But the one thing that I can really say that I truly believe – this is Bob’s first full year as a crew chief. It’s Jason Stocker, our car chief, it’s his first full year on the job as well. So, all three of us, there’s nobody that’s holding our hands there, to make the calls and decide what we’re going to do on setups, and at the beginning of the year we did everything very conservatively because we know really, like Jack would say, the edges of our box, we didn’t know exactly what kind of change, how aggressive we could be. And I feel like, from the driver’s seat, Bob has gained a ton of confidence and we can just fire back and forth and we can come up with decisions to change things on the car, and I think that’s been a big change. But as far as me personally, I just relaxed maybe a little bit.”
BOB OSBORNE – “A lot of what’s changed for Carl, I believe, is his ability to manage the race car and manage the race itself. From early on in the season and late last year when he first started running the Cups cars, he had that win-at-all-costs mentality and lot of times he would either run the tires off the car or put the car in a bad position and cause some sort of damage. He’s come an extremely long way with that. I know a lot of this race, I’m sure the car didn’t look that great at the beginning of the run but I know that he was managing the car and taking it easy at that time – even though he doesn’t come over the radio and say that when he does it. That has been a huge improvement for him this season.”
BOB OSBORNE – HOW DO YOU THINK YOU’VE GROWN INTO THE JOB? DO YOU FEEL MORE COMFORTABLE? “I don’t know if I have or not. Jack knows that I’m most uncomfortable with calling races. When he asked me to take on this job, he asked me what I would need help with the most. Anything, he’ll get it for me. And I told him, ‘The only thing I really will need help with, in my mind, is calling the race.’ And he said, ‘Well, you’re on your own there. You’re going to have to learn it.’ That has gotten a little bit better, but I still am really uncomfortable calling races. It’s high-pressure, live-or-die type of job, and you either can do it or you can’t do it.”
CARL EDWARDS – “You do a good job.”
BOB OSBORNE – “I appreciate it. But I still make mistakes. I think I make mistakes, in my mind, every race. I think there’s room for improvement every race, calling the race on my part. I’ve got a long way to go there. Some race tracks I’ve got a lot further to go than others, but all around, I have a long way to go.”
JACK ROUSH – “Bob is a degreed engineer and he likes good, tight data and he likes to draw conclusions with it that are defensible and you can’t refute. And of course what a crew chief has to do on pit road is reach down and try to predict which way the stars are going to line up and decide what’s going to happen. So it isn’t quite as precise as he would like for it to be. He’s very good at it. One of the reasons he brought a brand-new car down here, he knows for a fact that of his cars have got demons in them. A lot of the guys that drive the cars and a lot of the guys who work on the cars, they’re pretty sure they’ve seen demons and they’re waiting for the next one to come around the corner. But Bob’s done a great job. I guess when I fired Bob off in there, I said, well, Carl’s a rookie and Bob’s expendable, I didn’t really mean expendable in that sense, but he doesn’t have a reputation as a crew chief that I was going to jeopardize it if we struggled with Carl getting going. Bob has been the best engineering manager that Roush Racing has ever had. And if things didn’t work out for him as a crew chief, he still had a day job that would put bread on his table and I was real comfortable with that. Not everybody wants to be a crew chief. Not everybody’s that’s a car chief wants to be a crew chief. Not everybody’s got the tools and wants to do this job. It’s a lonely place. You’re out there. You’re the captain of the ship, I insist that the guys understand they’re going to make the final decision. They get information from the engineer and they’ll listen to appeals and pleads from there peers – all up and down pit road, not just the Roush guys, and they’ve got to decide the quarter that they give and when they give no quarter and whether they stop for two tires or four, that they stand alone on that. It’s a lonesome place to be when you’re out there when you’re saying I really got the result of this race and maybe the result of the year and maybe the longtime affect of sponsorship in my decision here. And Bob’s measured up to that. He’s been just awesome. In my weekly staff meetings, I hold him up to the senior guys, ‘You look at Bob. Think about when he gets the experience that you guys got how bad he’s going to be.”
CARL EDWARDS – “I used to have this allusion that if I didn’t win every race that that was failure – that race was a failure if we didn’t win. That is the wrong way to approach racing. I have to come to realize as long as I do my job the best I can do it and I don’t make mistakes, that is a great day. That’s all you can do. That’s all I’m in control of, personally, So, to me, our expectations were not anywhere near what are achievements have been, but that doesn’t change anything. Having a couple of good races doesn’t change expectations, it just shows us, that hey, look, right now we’ve got cars that can do it, we’ve got engines that can do it, Bob can make the calls and if I do my job perfectly, this will be the result, instead of a 10th place or whatever it is. The expectations will change, but it sure is neat that when you do everything right you end up with a victory. That’s awesome.”
JACK JUST SAID THAT ROUSH RACING IS BUILDING FOR 2006 AND THAT IT DOESN’T LOOK LIKE THE 20 CAN BE CAUGHT. YOU JUST WON THIS RACE. DO YOU WANT TO PROVE HIM WRONG? “Oh, for sure I want to prove him wrong. What are you talking about Jack? The people who know me, the people back home in Missouri, this whole deal is a dream come true. This is not supposed to happen. I have achieved in my career that are not at all supposed to happen. Winning this championship is a lot closer to a realistic goal than just that fact that I’m here. I don’t know if that’s the right way to put it, but five years ago I’d never raced on a pavement race track and people were laughing at me for passing out business cards, so this is not the biggest challenge of my life, by any means, and we’re just going to go out and treat it that way. We’re going to try and win these races. We probably won’t beat Tony Stewart. Probability would say it probably won’t happen. The guy knows how to championships and he’s an unbelievable race-car driver and they’ve got a great team, but that’s not going to stop us from giving 100 percent. And it would be just so much fun to do, I just couldn’t describe it.”
MARK MARTIN – No. 6 Viagra Taurus (finished 2nd)– “The best car won. Carl was spectacular, but we just about did it. It was a great run by the whole team, a great call. It was close. We were trying hard, though. It was a great run. Our car was good on short runs, and it took off there on the re-start and we didn’t have anything we could do. Just came up a little short.”
YOU WERE SMILING WHEN YOU GOT OUT OF THE CAR. “It was a great run. Pat Tryson made the right call. We just wound up second. Carl was spectacular today, and our car was too, especially on the re-starts. I think we made the right call. We just almost pulled it off. There was just a little too much time left.”
HOW DID THE CAR AND TEAM REACT AS THE CONDITIONS CHANGED FROM AFTERNOON TO EVENING? “My guys did a great job making adjustments. Started off real good and then it got not-so-good, and then we got better at the end, and that’s when we needed to be good. It was spectacular there on those used tires, it’s just that Carl was even better. Congratulations to him.”
YOU SAID YESTERDAY THAT YOU WOULD DRIVE UNTIL YOUR 60S IF THE CARS WERE ALL AS GOOD AS THEY WERE LAST WEEK. YOU WERE VERY GOOD AGAIN THIS WEEK. IS THIS REJUVINATING TO YOU? “I was full of myself when I said that, though. But, yeah, it is fantastic to drive cars like this. We had another great run and I’m just really blessed to driving these cars.”
MARK MARTIN press conference
MARK MARTIN – No. 6 Viagra Taurus – DID YOU HAVE ANYTHING FOR THE OTHER ROUSH CARS? “No, not really. Sure didn’t. We were decent on the short runs and he went to pit – I’d have spun out if I’d have choked my car that fast when he went down pit road, and about that time I was glad Pat said stay out because I was staying out anyway. It was the right call, and also the right car won the race. It would’ve been fun to have spoiled it.”
THIS IS THE FIFTH DIFFERENT ROUSH DRIVER TO WIN AT TEXAS. “It’s pretty phenomenal. The race track has changed a lot and the cars have changed a lot and it doesn’t even seem like the same race. When did we win here, ’98? It doesn’t even seem like the same race, it doesn’t seem like the same race track, we certainly don’t run the same setups by any means, but success is there. Carl was spectacular again this week. He just did a phenomenal job. Bob Osborne, as well. And I’m really happy for both of them. Bob was my engineer on the 6 car for a couple of years. It broke my heart when Bob moved on, but I’m really happy for him to be doing what he’s doing now and being so successful, and he sure got a wheel man in Carl Edwards.”
DURING THAT LAST CAUTION IT LOOKED LIKE YOU WERE GOING TO PIT, AND THEN DIDN’T. ANY REGRETS? DID YOU HAVE THE TIRES TO WIN? “Possibly. Especially if more cars would’ve stayed out. We would’ve won the race if more cars would’ve stayed, but Pat seemed to think that cars pitted on the second lap. He first told me 12 stayed out. Well, if 12 would’ve stayed out, we would’ve won the race, without a doubt. The way it turned out, there was four, and we nearly did. I certainly don’t regret it. It was the perfect move. It was the best shot we had and all that craziness get back there on new tires, trying to pass cars with old tires and all that banging, wrecking and all that stuff that goes on. I was all for what we did there.”
YOU WERE VERY COMPETITIVE WHEN IT WAS DAYLIGHT AND EVENING. “We made minor adjustments on the car. We made some major adjustments the first couple of times we stopped, and then after that they were very minor. We made very, very minor changes, little small quarter-turn of wedge. Stuff like that. Right as the sun was going down, I thought the car was terrible. We would go away from everybody but two cars, and I couldn’t even see anybody else. I thought we were going to have to go pit road and work on it for half a lap. I thought, ‘Man, we’re terrible.’ And then things seemed to get better. We made some slight adjustments and the car got better and the car actually just got faster than all the cars in the field, except for a couple – or really just one. To make a long story short, really, it was the 99 – and the 41, only if the 41 got a 50- or 60-lap run, then he was the car to beat, but short of that, he really wasn’t in the picture, and then the 99 had us.”
YOU’VE FINISHED THIRD AND SECOND IN THE LAST COUPLE OF WEEKS, BUT HAVEN’T MADE UP TOO MANY POINTS. IS THIS A CHANCE TO SAY, ‘I TOLD YOU SO’? “I’m going to say it. I told you all. I’ve been doing this longer than you all. But, you know what? It could change. It could change. And I know there’s only two races left. We’re running good, and that’s all I care about. And it would take a miracle for us to win the championship, but we’re digging. We’re going down with a fight. And we would be right there if he hadn’t got so beat at Martinsville, and that was our fault. I already told you all – I can get beat and take that. I just got robbed at Talladega and that was a hard one to take. We just ran bad at Martinsville, and if it wasn’t for that we would’ve overcome the Talladega thing and been right up there close to second place right now if we could’ve finished where we might’ve. So, anyway, I’m thrilled. Miracles do happen, and I’ve had the best season. I’ve had the best racing season of my life.”
MATT KENSETH press conference
MATT KENSETH – No. 17 DeWalt Power Tools Taurus (finished 3rd) – ON PIT STRATEGY AT THE END. “We had both ideas. One turned left and one went straight on pit road. I was told to pit or not to pit, kind of both, so just decided to stay out, and that was probably the best thing to do. I don’t think we would’ve pitted if we pitted, and I don’t think we ever would’ve back through there. It’s obviously a track is much wider than it’s ever been and has a really good outside groove, but it’s still difficult in traffic. The straightaways are real flat. It’s still tough to get your car pointed in traffic whenever everybody’s going real fast. To stay out, I think was the right thing, to keep as much clean air as we could on the car and get a decent finish.”
YOUR CAR WAS DOMINANT EARLY ON, AND WE HEARD A REPORT THAT YOU WERE HAVING SOME ELECTRICAL ISSUES. “We had the alternator go bad and we run two batteries so we switched to the second battery and luckily we were running two batteries, that’s a good thing. We were really good when the sun was out. I was really happy with our car. I didn’t think anybody could really beat us, and as the sun kept going down the track kept rubbering up and the top side really came in, and I was too slow adapting to the top. I tried to stay on the bottom as long as I could, and I was getting beat by the guys who tried to the top and got the cars adjusted for up there, and it just took until the end of the race to get our car adjusted to run on the top and the bottom. So, it was still not quite perfect but it was better.”
ON ROUSH RACING BEING STRONG AT TEXAS. “Jack has always had a real strong program, and our cars seem to run good at these mile-and-a-half tracks. Greg Biffle was real strong here in the spring at all these big tracks and we definitely learned a lot from what we was doing and, and we all applied it to our cars. It took us a while, but we all applied it, and git us all better as a group. Right now, with Doug Yates and them guys doing engines, we have engines second to none and we have really, really good equipment. We’ve got everything we need to go win races, so we really don’t have an excuse not to be up front or win, because right now Jack’s giving us the best stuff available.”
HOW MUCH DID THE TRACK CHANGE? “It wasn’t dramatic. The top was a lot different than I thought. I was kind of stubborn and stayed on the bottom because that’s where we made our living the whole first half of the race, and it was kind of apprehensive to go up high. The top changed a lot, the bottom didn’t really change a lot the whole race. It stayed the same, but the top just kind of rubbered up and got a lot of grip where you could really get in the gas – especially in three and four, it just got a lot of grip up there. It’s obviously shorter around the bottom, but the top, the rubber stuck. When the sun was on it, it didn’t have much grip, but as soon as that sun went away, the top just got real fast, it seemed like. The guys who had their cars right where they could run them, like Carl, really made it work.”
RICKY RUDD – No. 21 Motorcraft Genuine Parts Taurus (finished 13th) – “We didn’t have much all day, but I will say this: At the end, strategy, and plus these guys never gave up making adjustments all day. I think it’s one of those days that I have to say we’ll take what we got and I’m glad to be getting out of here with it. When we started this race I never would have thought we would’ve finished 13th.”
GREG BIFFLE – No. 16 National Guard Taurus (finished 20th) – “Our car would run really well for about 15 laps, and then, being down with that coil with the bad spring in it – I’m saying, we haven’t inspected it yet, but I think that’s what’s wrong – it just started sliding, that left-front tire across the track and it just wouldn’t do anything.”
WAS TODAY PARTICULARLY FRUSTRATING BECAUSE THESE TYPES OF TRACKS HAVE BEEN GOOD FOR YOU? “Yeah. It was pretty clear we would’ve had a top-five tonight, maybe a top-10. Our car wasn’t perfect, but we really had to make some wholesale changes there to try and get it better, and we were in traffic and stuck three-wide back there, and had to use up a lot of tire trying to get to be the Lucky Dog because we kept working on it on pit road. And, it’s unfortunate when you’re trying to race to be the Lucky Dog. It changes your whole systematic deal of the race – when you’re racing for the Lucky Dog versus racing for positions.”
