LEADS FORD SWEEP OF TOP FOUR SPOTS
Greg Biffle won for the sixth time this season and for the second straight year at Homestead-Miami.
Biffle now owns nine NNC wins (Daytona, Michigan twice, Homestead-Miami twice, California, Texas, Darlington, and Dover).
Roush Racing has had four drivers finish in the top 10 in five of the last seven Cup events. This marks the first Roush Racing has finished 1-2-3-4.
The last time Ford swept the top four spots in a Nextel Cup race was May 26, 2002 when Mark Martin won the Coca-Cola 600 at Lowe’s Motor Speedway. Matt Kenseth was second with Ricky Craven third and Ricky Rudd fourth.
In its eight-year history racing in NASCAR’s top division, Taurus ended up winning 100 points races and 108 overall when the Budweiser Shootout and Nextel All-Star Challenge are included. In addition, Taurus produced three driver’s championships (1999, 2003, and 2004) and three manufacturer’s championships (1999, 2000 and 2002).
Dale Jarrett won the most races in a Taurus with 19 while Mark Martin was second with 16. Ford will be racing the all-new Fusion in 2006.
CARL EDWARDS – No. 99 Office Depot Taurus (Finished 4th) – “That’s a pretty cool finish with Mark and Greg. We did almost everything. We elected for four tires on that last pit stop. The Office Depot Ford was awesome. I’ve got to say congratulations to Greg and Mark, and especially Tony Stewart. He’s a true champion. I’ll be really proud to go up there on stage in New York and get to congratulate him. This was a fun season.”
TIED FOR 2ND WITH BIFFLE. WHAT ABOUT YOUR CHASE. “We just have an unbelievable team. We’ve been working really hard and Office Depot has put a lot of confidence in the team. My guys are unbelievable. Points or no points, whatever, those last 11 laps are what it’s all about. I haven’t driven like that very many times in my life. My mouth was dry and I was shaking and I was just driving as hard as I could. I’m having a good time and that’s what it’s all about and we’ll be back next year.”
HOW CONFIDENT ARE YOU THAT YOU CAN CONTEND NEXT YEAR? “If we can maintain the same amount of luck, we’ll be alright. We’re gonna have a good time next year. I can’t wait.”
MATT KENSETH – No. 17 DeWalt Taurus (Finished 3rd) – KIND OF APPROPRIATE WITH ROUSH GOING 1-2-3-4. “Yeah, that’s pretty cool for Jack. I was thinking about that and that’s pretty cool. It was a great race today. We kind of stole a third-place run there. We didn’t run very good all day. Robbie made a great call putting two tires on it and it worked out good.”
EMOTIONAL DAY FOR THIS TEAM. “Yeah, it’s a hard day. Without Johnny R. and Robbie I wouldn’t even be here. They’re the ones that gave me a chance to get in the Busch Series and he’s a special, special man and he’s gonna be missed a lot for sure.”
WHAT ABOUT YOUR SEASON? “I feel pretty good about it. It’s been an interesting year. We’ve had some turnover. We started the year 43rd in points and worked our way back up to make the chase. I’m real proud of the guys for that. We’ve got a really good group here. I just have a feeling for some reason that next year we’re gonna have an even better group. We’ve had some turnover and sometimes that’s healthy. I think we’re gonna have some young guys in the there that want to do it worse than ever. We’ve got some hungry guys and I think they’re gonna be ready for it next year.”
MARK MARTIN – No. 6 Viagra Taurus (Finished 2nd) – “That was a great race. The race track was just in perfect condition. I wanted to get a win for Viagra in their last race. I was so close. Congratulations to Greg Biffle. Congratulations to Tony Stewart. We had a great night. Man, it was close. I thought we were gonna be able to pull it off but we were just inches short. I guess maybe we needed another lap, or maybe I would have crashed trying. I raced Greg hard and I raced him clean and vice versa and he was in front when it was over.”
YOU HAVE NEXT YEAR NOW. “I hope these guys stay with me. I hope we don’t lose any of these guys. They’re killer. I’ve had the time of my life in 2005. I want to thank the fans. I want to thank Ford, Pennzoil, Gatorade, Goodyear, Maxwell House and all the people that support us. Like I say, I hope we can keep these guys together for another year.”
DID THE 01 HOLD YOU UP ON THE RESTART? “We just did the best we could there. Greg got to the front first. That’s just how it works out. It’s just how it fell. That’s racin’.” I
T LOOKED LIKE YOU TRIED TO MOVE HIM UP TO GET A HIGHER LINE ON THE LAST CORNER. “I did everything I could, man. I got beat. It was a great race. I’d love to win, but I reckon me and my teammate wouldn’t have been any good. We also moved up to fourth in the points. If I would have wiped out in the last turn, we wouldn’t have done that either. I tried to win. I thought we might. We had a great race. We came up short. That’s racin’. Only one guy gets to win.”
GREG BIFFLE – No. 16 National Guard/Subway Taurus – VICTORY LANE INTERVIEW – “I tell you what, racing Mark Martin like that – a veteran guy. We’re gonna miss Rusty Wallace and Ricky Rudd in this series. I tell you what, they’re two icons – and John Reiser. Robbie lost John this week, but I’m so excited to have National Guard, Post-It, 3M – everybody on board all year. These guys did just a great job. This car just wasn’t what it needed to be all night. I really want to congratulate the 20 team. They were troopers all year. I don’t know if it would have come down to that loose wheel at Texas or not, but it was gonna be awful close.”
YOU KNEW YOU HAD TO WIN AND LEAD LAPS TO HAVE A CHANCE. “It was unbelievable. I’m just so proud of the whole organization. These motors that Yates-Roush build, the engine department is unbelievable. It’s just fantastic.”
YOU FINISHED SECOND IN POINTS. “That’s pretty neat. Thirty-five back, you have to say that if we would have got a top-five at Texas that would have clinched it for us, but we’re excited to be here. We’re thankful for every opportunity we’ve gotten so far and we’re gonna make the best of next year as well.”
LOOKING FORWARD TO NEXT YEAR? “I can’t wait for the chase next year. I don’t want to race for 26 races, I want to race the chase again because it’s so much fun.
NASCAR has done a great job with the chase. I thought Carl was looking strong there for a long time. I kept asking where the 20 was and where Carl was, and then they took four on that stop. I’m just excited to get this National Guard car in Victory Lane again. Everybody is here, so it’s pretty exciting to win this for them.”
DALE JARRETT – No. 88 UPS Taurus (Finished 17th) – “I thought we were going to be a lot better than that. Never could get the car turning in the middle of the corner, and that hurt us. We fought all day and got as much as we could.”
ARE YOU PLEASED WITH THE WAY THE SEASON WENT? “Can’t be pleased. We won a race, that was good, but we got to get this part of our program a little bit better.”
ELLIOTT SADLER – No. 38 M&M’s Taurus (Finished 23rd) – “Tough season. I’m proud of the way my guys fight every race, they never give up. We struggled a lot there at the end. But, my guys stuck together, we had awesome pit stops during the race, they never hung their heads. We’ve got a championship-caliber team, we’ll just come back next year and prove that to everybody, so we’ll be okay.”
KENNY WALLACE – No. 97 IRWIN Industrial Tools Taurus (Finished 21st) – “All in all, for what I got thrown into last week, you know, I’m holding my head high. I got these guys a 16th and a 21st. And I never said I was the greatest driver but I’d like to think I did these guys a good job for my circumstances. I kept the car ahead of my brother Rusty in car-owner points, and that was important for me to have these guys to keep that pride to go to Daytona. If I would’ve gotten this 97 and I’d a lost the car-owner points and the 2 car would’ve shown up in Daytona ahead of these guys, I’d have felt bad about my self. But, hey, a 16th and a 21st, for the champion car I wanted better but the guys are proud of me. Part of me is a little upset, but part of me, Jimmy Fennig, my crew chief, said the reason they hired me was all them drivers have respect for me. So, I’ve got to look at that on an even base.”
FINISHES ASIDE, WHAT HAS THE EXPERIENCE OF THE LAST WEEK BEEN LIKE? “Nerve-wracking, just knowing everybody’s looking at me – you know, how much talent do I have? Can I do it? I’ll tell you what: This is just an incredible race team. I was racing some of the best in the business there the last two weeks, and it gave me a lot of confidence. The experience was just incredible, something I’ll always remember the rest of my life. Now when I talk to this bunch, I can talk to them about chassis and not have them look down upon me, you know, because I raced hard.”
WHAT DO THE LAST TWO WEEKS DO FOR YOU PERSONALLY FOR 2006? “Well, I ran so bad in my Busch Series car, it killed my confidence. Now, I’ll go in to the winter with my head high and feel real good about myself. Don’t let nobody kid you, the best in the business – when Dale Earnhardt and Mark Martin and Rusty Wallace and Bobby Labonte – when they went in their streaks, there’s nothing like a little picker-upper, and this just really saved my confidence. It’s a wonderful experience. Wonderful.”
RICKY RUDD – No. 21 Motorcraft Genuine Parts Taurus (Finished 37th) – “Just disappointed to end up this way. We had a really good car. We had come from 25th to 18th and we were going forward and got wrecked on pit road. It’s a darn shame, things like that.”
HOW BAD WAS THE CAR, AND WHAT WAS THE WORST ASPECT AFTER THAT? “It knocked the front end out of whack, and messed up the aerodynamics and this is a real aero track. If it wouldn’t have been a points deal, we’d have probably just parked it, but we needed to go out there and run as fast for the fans.”
A FEW YEARS AGO, WHEN YOU WERE IN THE 28, THERE WAS A SIMILAR SITUATION. DID THAT CROSS YOUR MIND AT ALL? “No, not really. I did what I was supposed to do, and a guy turned in a pit stall and knocked me into somebody. We were barely moving, we hadn’t gotten going yet.”
WHEN IS STEPPING AWAY GOING TO SET IN? “Probably about February, Daytona time.”
MARK MARTIN-MATT KENSETH PRESS CONFERENCE
MARK MARTIN – No. 6 Viagra Taurus – “I thought I had him. That’s the overview. Oh man, I’m the luckiest man in the world to drive that 6 car. I sure hope that we’re able to keep all those guys together. They are true winners. We scored a lot of points in the chase. If you look at what we did, we were in the top five almost every race, except for two where one time we shot ourselves in the foot, and the other time the wreck at Talladega. I’m just hoping that I can drive cars that good again next year. That was fun. The track was spectacular tonight.”
MATT KENSETH – No. 17 DeWalt Taurus – “We didn’t run very good tonight, really. We finished really good, we just got a really fast pit stop at the end and got two tires. My car was pretty good on two tires for about five or six laps, I could actually keep up with Mark and Greg, and then it just kind of gave up a little bit but we were out far enough to finish third. That was about it. We didn’t run very good, we just finished good.”
MARK MARTIN CONTINUED – A GOOD FEELING OR DISAPPOINTMENT THAT YOU HAD FIVE GUYS IN IT AND DIDN’T WIN? “I’m happy to be fourth considering I was fifth coming in. My team’s performance was spectacular in the chase, so I can’t ask for more than that.”
MATT KENSETH CONTINUED – “I think that once you get in anything less than winning it is somewhat a disappointment, but kind of like Jeff said, if you perform good, that’s what you feel good about. Probably seven out of the 10 races we performed really good to be contenders in the top five at least. Other than that, we had some trouble in a few races. When you have trouble, you lose a lot of points. When you run good every week and don’t have trouble, you get a lot, so at least we’ve been running good. That’s the main thing. A couple races in the chase we didn’t run that good, but overall we ran pretty good and that gives me some hope for next year.”
MARK MARTIN CONTINUED – ON TONY STEWART WINNING. “I would like to say congratulations to those guys, and one other thing. Last year, surely the champion didn’t score as many points as Tony did this year. I don’t know, but I’d have to say that 19 out of 21 races being in the top 10, you’re not gonna beat that. Those guys were unbelievable. Old or new point system, that’s just incredible.”
ARE YOU ENCOURAGED ABOUT NEXT YEAR NOW? “I turned over a new leaf. Kenny Wallace said I was a pessimist after Charlotte, so I got mad and I’m so excited about coming back that I just can’t stand it. I wish we were starting tomorrow and I’m gonna win (laughter). That’s the new me.” J
EFF GORDON SAYS, “It took Kenny Wallace for you to figure that out?” MARK SAYS, “Yep, it took Kenny Wallace.” THOUGHTS ON THE LAST LAP. “I got a good run across the bottom of one and two and got off the corner beside him. The outside just has so much momentum here and it also pulls the inside car loose. For every single reason in the book I didn’t want to wipe us both out, but I sure did want to win. Being able to hold beside him down the backstretch made me feel pretty good. If I could get into three and get it stuck down on the bottom, I felt like I had a good chance if I didn’t get sideways. I had to let him roll in a little bit further into the corner and I got it pinned to the bottom and got back to the gas, and when I did that – without getting sideways – I thought, ‘This could be our race here.’ He just rolled the top just a little bit – he had that momentum coming off the corner – and, like I say, it was just so close. It was just inches, but I thought there when I got it pinned down on the white line and got back to the gas, if he hadn’t had just a really perfect corner around the top there, we would have had him by a few inches, but it was a great race. He’s a great competitor. As you guys saw, my car was faster on the long runs and that thing was just spectacular on the long runs. It’s strong suit was not restarts, and it just took me a few laps to get that thing rolling on the restart and he got to the front first. If I could have cleared those two guys and got out in clean air and got a couple of laps under my belt before Greg got to me, I think I might have been able to keep him back, but he got to me so quick that my car just wouldn’t roll yet. It took it a few laps to come around.”
MARK MARTIN CONTINUED – HAVE YOU NOTICED A DIFFERENT TONY THIS YEAR? “I think Tony drives a lot the same. He definitely has learned to handle situations better through experience and that’s a hard thing to do, but, like Jeff said, I don’t believe the trophy makes the man. Tony Stewart, in my eyes, is the greatest race car driver I’ve watched drive in this era. A.J. Foyt might have been that when I was a little boy, but Tony Stewart is my driving hero.” FINAL COMMENTS: “I would like to say one more thing. I want to salute Rusty Wallace and Ricky Rudd. This is big. I’m excited for Rusty and sad for Rusty at the same time. I’m so excited for him to start a new chapter in his life. I am incredibly sad to think that all those times that we had and all the things that we’ve done along the way are a thing of the past. I look forward to the next 30 years. If they can be anything like the past 30, we’re still in for a good time. He’s entertained me for almost 30 years.”
THOUGHTS ON CARL’S FUTURE. “They asked me after the race about him and I said, ‘He’s magic.’ And they said, ‘How do you mean?’ And I said, ‘Well, you see him. He’s magic.’ The guy is pretty incredible. That’s all I can say.”
MATT KENSETH CONTINUED – THOUGHTS ON CARL’S FUTURE. “Carl is just massively talented. Some people are really gifted and naturals at it, and then there are other people probably like me that have to work really hard at it. Carl is one of those guys that it just comes so natural that I don’t think he has to work real hard at it. I’m not saying he doesn’t work hard because he does and he’s real interested in the sport. You see him walk down pit road. He’s the only driver I’ve ever seen in my life walk down pit road during qualifying with a headset on listening to the scanner to see what everybody is saying about the race track. I mean, he’s really involved in it, but he’s just so naturally talented. He reminds me a lot – they’re different personalities – but he reminds me a lot of Greg Biffle. Those two guys can just get in anything and drive it an inch off the fence without hitting it all day long and get every ounce there is out of the car all the time. I think he probably surprised us all with how good he did, but he’s definitely one of those gifted people.”
MARK MARTIN CONTINUED – DID IT OCCUR TO YOU BEFORE THE RACE THAT YOU COULD HAVE WON YOUR LAST RACE IN THE VIAGRA CAR? “This particular one I was too busy, but you know what, now that you say that, I might have been willing to wreck for it if it would have been my last one. I don’t know. That wouldn’t have been my style, but I did everything I could to win it, but that’s pretty ironic. I would have been in a pickle, wouldn’t I. I would have been in a pickle right there. I hadn’t thought of that, but, anyway, it was a great race and it was a lot of fun, we just came up short today.”
GREG BIFFLE – No. 16 National Guard Taurus – “The night didn’t start out very good for us. The car was real, real tight, loose in, and I got it off in practice. I started the race car way too tight for the race tonight, and really paid the price early on. I made it hard on the pit crew tonight – you know, putting rubbers in and taking rubbers out and doing a tremendous amount on the race car under the caution. They did a fantastic job, the speed, of getting all that work done and keeping the track position. And finally the last pit stop, I think was the only time we didn’t make an adjustment on the car and it was Doug’s call for two tires there at the end. It was the best the car had been all night, that last run I drove almost to fourth or whatever so the car really come around. Then right there at the end I had the thing perfect.”
CAN YOU DESCRIBE THE THREE-WIDE PASS FOR THE LEAD WITH LESS THAN 10 LAPS REMAINING? “That was pretty hairy, but, you know, I had to go. There was no time to race those guys and when you’ve got fresh tires on and the car is sticking to the race track – you know I went down in there and it just stuck beautiful. Right when I turned in and I was flat on the throttle and the thing was stuck to the race track awesome, and they were sort of holding me up a little bit.
I kind of breathed the throttle a little bit and Blaney slid up and gave me just enough room, barely, to get my car between ’em. Actually, I just drug the brake pedal a little bit, I never lifted on the throttle, slowed the car down and then I let up on the brake pedal to get between them. Blaney started pushing up coming off the corner and had to get out of the throttle, gave me room. It was phenomenal pass. But just did what I had to do to get by him and try to hold Mark off.”
LOOKING AT THE BIG PICTURE, TO THINK THAT A COUPLE OF LOOSE LUGNUTS AT TEXAS MAY HAVE COST YOU A CHAMPIONSHIP… “It not ‘may of,’ it did. It’s something I’m going to think about for a long, long time. I lost the championship by eight points in 1999 and lost one this year by 35, and we lost over 50 with the loose wheel. When it happened I didn’t think anything of it, because I figured we’d get back on the lead lap, no problem, you know? But just no cautions. It was an unusual race. Even if had been a race like tonight we would’ve been able to get back on the lead lap. But that’s the way it goes. Things happen for a reason. It wasn’t our year. We know what not to do next year. We can count on our hands – flat tire at Dover, which we can’t do anything about, not a great run at Martinsville and then that crash at Talladega. So there’s a lot of races that we gave up a tremendous amount of points, besides that loose wheel. But that kind of sealed our fate there. I’m excited about the win, thankful for all the opportunities I’ve gotten this season, that Doug and Jack have given me my entire career and then to come off this season with six wins and be second in points, only 35 back behind a two-time champion like Tony Stewart, I can’t think of a way to finish this season out any better.”
ALL THINGS CONSIDERED, THIS IS A GOOD FINISH. “You know, it was funny, we kept getting better and better and better and better and better. Every adjustment made to the car tonight was right, was correct. The only thing that I did wrong was failing to get right in practice. It’s kind of funny, the press conference, I was kind of thinking about this all week, I was hoping that we wouldn’t lose by only 35, because then it would bring that Texas thing back in my head. If was 50 or more, it would’ve been a moot point, you know, because it didn’t matter. But I’m so thankful being second – I mean, even tied, from what I understand, I don’t know exactly, but they said it was a tie and because of the wins we got second, so that’s pretty neat for us.”
JACK ROUSH CONTINUED – THOUGHTS ON FINISHING 1-2-3-4, BUT NOT WINNING THE TITLE. “Nobody’s race cars have ever been better driven than our cars were tonight by all the guys. They did a super job. The engineers did a nice job on the car. Ford Motor Company did a great job negotiating for the templates and the architecture of the car with the NASCAR tech folks. We were luckier than we should have been last year. Anybody that watched that race, we shouldn’t have won a championship last year here. Of course, Jimmie Johnson finished behind by only seven or eight points, and Kurt Busch had a wheel fall off and go down the right side of the pit road and he missed the end of pit road and got a tire as the caution came out. So that was more luck than we deserved.
Of course, Matt Kenseth had extraordinary durability the year before in 2003 with what I call an obsolete Taurus. It hadn’t been changed since ’97, so we really got more as a team, and as a company we got more than our share of luck, and, yeah, we had wrecks at Talladega and we had lackluster performance for our 16 car at Martinsville, and, of course, we had a loose lugnut. Hopefully, we won’t have another loose lugnut next year. But things happen. Greg says they happen for a reason, I’m not sure of that.
I sat down, you can bet that I had a conversation with the young man who left the lugnut loose. It was the first time it ever happened for them, the first time he ever made a mistake and he’s just fine. But we just hope we don’t have things like that in the future, and if they do fall on us on a year when everything else has gone OK, well then it takes a while to win a championship. Mark Martin has sat there four years and hasn’t been able to do better than second out of his 18 years now. Anyway, this is fairly young for our 16 team, it’s very young for our 99 team. The 17 team is still by Mark’s standards, fairly young. We’ve got a lot of time for a lot of championships and these guys are gonna go get them as long as I can keep them in good cars.”
GREG BIFFLE CONTINUED – HOW MUCH DIFFERENT IS IT CELEBRATING AFTER THIS RACE THAN OTHERS? “Obviously, it’s way more difficult this year. Last year was a tremendous celebration because Kurt won the championship and it was my third career win and second win of the season in really dominating fashion. Tonight, we just worked our way to the front and it was kind of bittersweet. Like I said, missing out by 35 points, but jumping from fourth, 102 out, all the way to second and cap off the season with six wins, that puts us in the win column for the most wins. I can’t be more proud of my team, and Doug and the engine department. I hated to talk about it before, but we didn’t have one engine failure the entire season – practice, testing, nothing – ever. I didn’t want to jinx myself and talk about it before the season was over, but tremendous effort by the engine department. If you can imagine those guys having a flawless record like that is pretty incredible.”
JACK ROUSH CONTINUED – ARE YOU DISAPPOINTED IN NOT WINNING? “No, I considered at that time (at Richmond) that our odds were one in three, and I think we’ll have one more miscarriage before we’re able to close the deal again. Hopefully we’ll win and then we’ll have to give up two sometime after that, but we’re not supposed to win all these races and we certainly won’t win all the championships. The competition is too tough, it’s too tight and there are too many risks that we can’t manage. And we’re all just human. Everybody that touches the car, that puts a lugnut on, or that touches the car to tighten a hose is gonna make a mistake from time to time, but you can’t make a habit of it. But I’m not disappointed. I did not expect to win the championship this year.
I guess I would be sitting here if we had with a little embarrassment if we would have won three in a row. ‘How did I let Mark Martin down all those years if I could help the other guys win three times right after him or while he was still not able to do it.’ So I’m a little relieved in a way that I won’t get more criticism than I’ll get for having the year that we’ve had. We’ve had a great year. The talent that’s around and the ability that’s around to make the decision of whether to put two tires or four tires. Nobody has got better minds working on their cars and nobody’s got better drivers for our cars than we’ve got. It’s awesome and I’m just glad to hang with them. But, no, I’m not disappointed. I didn’t expect to win.”
GREG BIFFLE CONTINUED – CAN YOU COMMENT ON WINNING THE MOST RACES THIS YEAR? “It just says what kind of job Doug has done this year in getting these race cars prepared and the team. Bobby, Keith, our car chief – and all the guys working on the race car back at the shop. Our engine program. When they give me race cars like that, it’s hard not to win and when we don’t it’s because I made a mistake or we did something in the pits wrong – made the wrong two or four tire call. But when they give me race cars like that, I let one slip away last week and kind of winning this one even makes that one hurt even worse because I could have won the last two of the season. I can’t be more grateful than I am. I just wake up in the morning and it’s exciting every day that I get to drive these race cars that Doug’s put together.
