· Matt Kenseth won for the 11th time in his NASCAR NEXTEL Cup Series career and first time at California Speedway with Sunday’s triumph.
· Fusion registered its first NASCAR NEXTEL Cup Series points victory today in only its second series start.
· Fusion is now the seventh different Ford model in NASCAR history to win a Cup event joining Taurus, Thunderbird, Torino, Galaxie, Fairlane and the original Ford.
· The last time Ford Racing swept a NASCAR Craftsman Truck, NASCAR Busch and NASCAR NEXTEL Cup Series weekend was when Roush Racing teammates Greg Biffle and Jeff Burton combined to win all three events at Phoenix International Raceway in 2001. Biffle captured the Truck and Busch events on Oct. 26 and 27 while Burton won the Cup feature on Oct. 28.
· Ford has 571 all-time NASCAR NEXTEL Cup Series wins.
GREG BIFFLE – No. 16 National Guard Ford Fusion (Finished 42nd) – DID THE ENGINE GIVE YOU ANY WARNING? “Yeah, it did. Earlier in the race it was kind of laboring a little bit. It might have been a valve spring or something. I hate to even guess, but our engines have been so strong. We didn’t have an engine failure all season last year and the guys keep building more and more power in these things. Sooner or later you’re bound to find a point where something is gonna give and today we did, so we’ll look at it and study it and hopefully not have that failure the rest of the season.” YOU WERE STRONG ALL DAY. “We had a great race car today and I have to applaud the engine department. We’ve had great engines. We’ve got great horsepower. You can see it out on the race track how good these engines run. We didn’t have a failure the entire season last year, so they’re making more and more power and you’re bound to find a limit some time or another and we did today. It’s unfortunate. The Jackson Hewitt National Guard car was good. The guys in the pits, a phenomenal job. Doug call the race was just perfect. I made some mistakes out on the race track driving and cost me a few spots, but I was able to get back and get going again. I think I was a little bit better than the 17 at the end there and thought it might have been mine, but we’ll never know. Matt had a good car and the 48 is right there and everything. It’s just unfortunate. We finished 30th at Daytona and now probably gonna be 40th at least here, so this is not the way we wanted to start the season out.” WERE YOU WORRIED? “I really wasn’t. Our engines have been so good. It showed some early signs. It felt like it was laboring a bit at times and it may have been a valve spring going. I’m not sure. I hate to speculate what it could have been, but the guys are tearing it down so they can find out and get home and get working on it tomorrow to prevent this from happening at Las Vegas maybe.” HOW FRUSTRATING IS IT TO BE SO DOMINANT? “It’s frustrating. It kind of drains you, but I’ve got to be optimistic about our season. That’s the only thing that keeps me going is I won yesterday. Thinking about Las Vegas, going there and running well. It’s unfortunate because this is how we make our living, too. It’s a big payday, big PR to come and win a race like California Speedway and lots of points on the line. We need to get inside that top 10 for the end of the season and a 30th place and now probably a 40th is not the way to start the season.” WERE YOU AND THE 20 THE CLASS OF THE FIELD? “That says something, but the 20 and I were pretty quick. I think I got my car better. He was good in the middle part of the race, but I got my car really good here at the end. I was gonna be tough to beat. I was a little nervous when I saw the 20 behind me squared up with fresh tires and all that, but we were able to get out on him a little bit.” ANY DIFFERENCE WITH THE FUSION ON THIS TRACK? “I couldn’t really tell a lot of difference. The Fusion’s got a great balance just like the Taurus did. It may be a little bit better, but it’s hard to tell without running one right against the other – just coming here the next year, but it’s definitely a good car.”
MATT KENSETH – No. 17 DeWalt Ford Fusion – VICTORY LANE INTERVIEW – “We had a great handling car. The DeWalt Ford Fusion was awesome and we had a great pit crew with these guys behind me. This one is for Johnny Reiser. Without him we wouldn’t be racing here. It’s hard not to think of him everytime we’re at the race track, but these guys did a great job. I just have to thank my sponsors. Carhartt, USG, R&L Trucking, DeWalt and all of our great partners.” WHY ARE THE ROUSH CARS SO GOOD HERE? “We’ve got great people here. We’ve got a lot of loyal people. We’ve got people that want to work hard and want to win. I’ve been very blessed to have such a great team that works so hard at it. I feel bad for Greg because he had the best car today, but I thought we had the second or third-best car.”
JAMIE MCMURRAY – No. 26 Crown Royal Ford Fusion (Finished 6th) – “When I looked at the practice times from yesterday I pretty much focused on all the Roush cars because it just seemed like we were better than most. Matt could lay a good lap down at the beginning and then Greg and Mark were really good at the end. I told them as soon as the race was over I was like, ‘You guys have just really fast race cars here.’ I whined the entire race that it was too tight and we were still running in the top five, top eight most of the day. I’m just very, very excited. They had really good pit stops and altogether it’s just an incredible race team here. I think we can get to Vegas. We’re gonna take this same car and we had a great test there. We didn’t tear anything up. We had a tough day at Daytona. We ran well, but I ended up not finishing very well. This will be a good rebound in points.” WHAT’S IT LIKE BEING ON THIS SIDE OF THE ROUSH DOMINANCE? “I watch all the NASCAR programs in the morning and they all talk about the Roush dominance and that’s cool that I get to be a part of that this year. They actually won every division this weekend at the race track, so it’s just an awesome racing organization. Jack has hired really good people and the Roush-Yates engines are amazing. I’m just fortunate to be a part of this.” HOW DOES IT COMPARE TO WHAT YOU HAD BEFORE? “I had really good cars at Ganassi at times, but this is a fresh start with a championship caliber team. It was nice during happy hour to pull notes from Greg’s car because I felt like he was the best. He had a little different rear springs and we tried his springs and that’s what we ended up racing today. It’s nice to get to go pull some notes from some other guys and guys that were really, really fast.” WAS THAT NOT THE CASE BEFORE? “No, it’s not like that. When you’re getting notes from guys that won four or five times last year you certainly have more confidence in what information you’re getting. We had access before to get notes from Casey and Sterling, but we didn’t utilize that. We were kind of on our own deal, but all of our cars today had very similar springs. We all had a little bit different shock package on, but for the most part the springs, trackbars and swaybars were all the same. It’s pretty incredible they can build cars that close.” IS THE HANDLING THE DIFFERENCE FROM LAST YEAR WITH THE CARS? “The new Fusion is a really good race car and I was amazed at how fast it was at Daytona because from what they told me they built it for the downforce tracks and I think it showed today and in the Busch race yesterday. It’s a very dominant race car and to run that well with it right out of the box, I think, says a lot.” HOW MUCH DO THE OTHER ROUSH DRIVERS PUSH YOU? “I was glad to see Matt win. I think it’s cool that Roush won everything this weekend – the Truck, the Busch and the Cup. Certainly, if you can’t win you want to see one of your teammates win. We can go back and look at what shocks he had and everything and maybe learn something for us the next time we’re here.” WHAT ABOUT YOUR CONFIDENCE LEVEL. IS THERE MORE? “Yeah. It’s kind of ironic because on the last lap I see the 42 car on the inside of me and I thought, ‘I’m racing my old car here.’ That’s cool for those guys that they ran well today, but I have a lot of faith in Jimmy and the pit crew and the engine program and the bodies – everything over here. They’re at the top of their game and I’m very fortunate to be able to join in at this time.”
CARL EDWARDS – No. 99 Office Depot Ford Fusion (Finished 3rd) – HOW IMPORTANT WAS IT TO BOUNCE BACK AFTER DAYTONA? “It was paramount. This is exactly what we needed. We had a good, fun, safe day of racing and didn’t wreck anything. Hopefully that will help us out a little bit in points. We didn’t lead a lap, but you’ve got to congratulate Greg Biffle first of all. He had a dominant car, and Matt Kenseth for winning. It was just a fun day. I had a blast. It was a fun race.” YOU RALLIED FROM DAYTONA. “Yeah, we had some bad luck in the 500, but every day is a new day and I tell you what, if anything, that was a motivator. To be 43rd in points and wake up on Monday and feel like, ‘Hey, we’ve got to do this.’ That’s a motivator and I think this team has enough depth and we’re capable of coming back. We just have to do it.”
CARL EDWARDS PRESS CONFERENCE – “I had a blast. We started 22nd and right out of the box the car was awesome. We marched right up to the top 10 on that first run and our car did the opposite of Jimmie’s, it would start out very loose and it would get tighter. It was such a big swing that I wasn’t sure what to tell my crew chief, but Bob did a really great job and I feel like we probably had a fifth to ninth place car and we ended up third, so for that I’m really excited. I think you’ve got to take those victories too, especially coming off of Daytona. I was just so happy to finish and be able to see the leader.” THOUGHTS ON THE FUSION COMPARED TO TAURUS LAST YEAR? “Our Fusion, I felt like, was really good. I’m really excited about Vegas because we didn’t make a huge step with our cars. This was more like last year’s car and I feel like we’ve got a better car for Vegas, so I felt very good about it. We did about what we thought it was gonna do – run hopefully in the top 10 – so I feel good about the new Fusion.” WHAT WAS THE MOOD AT ROUSH RACING COMING INTO THIS RACE? “My mood was good, but it was forced. I swore on Monday, I had such a terrible night Sunday night. I was flying home listening to Jimmie win that race over XM radio and I just couldn’t believe that we started out like that. But I believe, if anything, it didn’t get us down. It lit a fire under us a little bit. I think it might have even been good for us in a way. I’m really proud of my team and everybody at Roush Racing. So many people patted me on the back and said, ‘Don’t worry, Mark Martin has started 40th in points and he’s been able to make it.’ I’m sure Jimmie will agree, the deal now is just to make that chase. Once we get to that we’ll be OK, but we’ve got to get in that chase.” WITH NEXT WEEK OFF ARE YOU LOSING MOMENTUM? “We’re taking our Busch car and we’re gonna go race in Mexico. I can’t wait. He was telling me he might go snowboarding a little bit, so maybe on Monday or Tuesday I’ll go do a little bit of that, but sometimes a week off for me is good – do something different. Road racing will be a blast.” WHY IS ROUSH AND HENDRICK SO GOOD HERE? “These tracks require every aspect. The car has to be great and the engines – all of the things have to work together.”
JACK ROUSH, Car Owner – No. 17 DeWalt Ford Fusion – “I thought you’ve got to be careful when you go to these celebrations one time after another. It’s just awful hard to keep in your mind who really has it in for you and today it all just came together. First I got it from Robbie and then I got it a little later from Matt. It’s just such a pleasure to come to California. The idea of being able to win all three of these races with three different drivers has just been fantastic. I’m gonna put some of this in the bank. I’m not gonna use all of this equity up tonight and celebrate with it, hopefully help us keep going whenever we have more broken engines. We did break one engine today. I’m sure it was some part that couldn’t be avoided, but Daytona was such a hard race for us. We had such great expectations. They had worked so hard. There was nothing we could do to get better or more ready than we were at Daytona and it just turned to junk, but today the stars lined up and here we are.”
MATT KENSETH PRESS CONFERENCE – “We had a pretty decent, really, all weekend except for qualifying. We started the race pretty good. I think we drove up to 15th or something like that and then the track started tightening up, which isn’t usually normal for us at this place. So we just had to keep adjusting on it all day and we had some great pit stops. Of course with Greg’s problem and a great pit stop the last time down pit road kind of opened the door for us to have a shot at the win. Those guys on pit road are so awesome with a 12-second pit stop or whatever it was at the end. Those couple of positions made all the difference for us at the end of the race.”
ROBBIE REISER, Crew Chief – No. 17 DeWalt Ford Fusion – “We had a really good run last week and I was pretty excited with the way we ran at Daytona. The outcome wasn’t what I expected, but we ran really well there for the time we had a chance to run. For us to come back and have momentum coming into this race, the guys have worked really hard. After last year’s struggle for the first half of the season and the things that we went through to get ourselves in the chase and to come out of the box this year and run real well at Daytona and come back and win today, I can’t say enough for all the guys that work on our cars and work on our team and put all the effort towards it.”
MATT KENSETH CONTINUED – YOU FLEW THROUGH THE INFIELD LAST WEEK AND IT WASN’T WHAT YOU WANTED. HOW GRATIFYING TO WIN TODAY? “I got to fly through the infield again, but it was after the race this week (laughter). Sometimes it feels like there is justice in the world, so that feels good because I felt last week we had a car that could have won. Usually I go away from the plate stuff and don’t feel like I’m very good at it and usually aren’t in position to win and we had a real fast car and felt like we did all the right things last week and I thought we were gonna be in position to win, so it was disappointing although we still got a good finish – better than it could have been. We could have finished last and somebody could have hit me. Last week was last week. Our Vegas test went good. Everybody has worked really hard on these cars this winter. Robbie has done a great job on the body stuff and our engineers have been working hard on making this stuff better and everybody has been working really well together. Our pit stop stuff has been going good, so it just feels incredibly good to come to the track and have everything kind of go right and all the stars align for us and to be here in Victory Lane. We haven’t won a ton of races the last three years – one or two a year – and whenever you can win it feels good. Hopefully this will carry some momentum and we’ll be able to get to Victory Lane a few more times this year.”
JACK ROUSH CONTINUED – A SWEEP MUST MAKE YOU SMILE INSIDE. “I can’t remember when we’ve had a sweep like this before. My people told me yesterday when I looked toward the prospect that maybe we could win on Sunday – as improbable as that was – and they said ‘we’ve done that before,’ but they’re going to have to remind me when because I don’t remember. This is really a great weekend to be able to have three of our different drivers win all three races, especially that truck race on Friday night. That’s the one that we couldn’t get close to last year based on where our truck was, but Ford gave us a new F-150 package and Mark Martin is leading the charge on that deal.”
MATT KENSETH CONTINUED – THE 48 LAID BACK ON THE RESTART. WERE YOU WORRIED? “That’s always real concerning. NASCAR, you can’t blame the guy in second for doing it, but they try to make a rule on you’re not supposed to lay back more than a car length, but it’s real inviting to do so. If you can get a run on the leader. If he would have gotten up along side me he very well could have beat me. It’s hard to get anything done in two laps, so I saw him holding back and I saw him getting a run on me and I actually waited until I was 10 or 15 feet past the restart point until he slowed his momentum up before I got in the gas. I just tried to watch him to make sure we sort of took off at the same time. If I would have taken off right at the point he had a run on me, he was probably already going three or four or five miles an hour faster than me and that would have put him up alongside of me getting into one. That certainly is something you’ve got to watch and also all day we’ve been restarting on new tires, so restarting on used tires it’s easy to spin the tires and we did spin the tires just a little bit. So that’s the most nerve-wracking part. If you can get through one and two and you’re still a full car ahead, you feel a little bit better about it.”
WHEN THE 16 AND 20 WERE AS STRONG AS THEY WERE AND YOU’RE AROUND 11TH, DO YOU REMIND YOURSELF THAT ANYTHING CAN HAPPEN? “Yeah. In the middle of this race we kind of got running anywhere from third to sixth and that’s about what we had. Then we made the right adjustments to get it better, but, yeah, we’ve had those days and it feels good to pop out and win this one when we maybe didn’t have the most dominant car. When we came here our rookie year we had the dominant car and led almost all day and at the end got beat on two tires, so we’ve had those days where we’ve dominated. Chicago last year we ran good and got beat at the end, so you never know. Anything can happen. There can be that caution at any time where maybe you get beat on a restart or pit strategy or whatever it could be. You’ll have more days where you don’t have the outcome that you want than you do the ones that pop up and surprise you and you have it. So when you have a chance to win at the end it definitely feels good no matter how it comes.”
JACK ROUSH CONTINUED – HOW SURPRISING IS IT THAT YOU’RE STILL THE TEAM TO BEAT ON THESE AERO TRACKS? “When NASCAR changed the rules last year and cut an inch off the spoiler, they played right into Matt Kenseth’s hands and Mark Martin’s and Carl Edwards’ and Kurt Busch at the time and Greg Biffle’s. They all like to drive real loose race cars. They’re not intimidated by it. They’ve got enough experience on enough different race tracks and race cars getting here that it’s not uneasy for them. From what I see, a lot of the drivers just don’t like to drive the cars as loose as they have to be and that’s really made it good for us. On the matter of the race track size, we decided a long time ago that we really need to be good on mile-and-a-half and two-mile race tracks. That’s where the heart of the schedule is. That’s where if you’re not good at those race tracks you’re just really not going to have much of a chance to do all of your business on real short track or on the restricted tracks.
We’ve seen teams that were dominant at Martinsville and Richmond and Bristol and couldn’t really get out of their own way on mile-and-a-half tracks, but the engineering and the focus that we put on testing and the things that we try to remember and focus mostly on our cars is to make them good for these big wide-open race tracks. The other thing is you go to Martinsville and you’ve got one level of mania that comes on and the drivers basically, a lot of times, can’t do anything about the situation that he finds himself in. Certainly at Daytona and Talladega it’s that way, but big wide race tracks – Michigan and Fontana being the absolute best – you can run three-wide and if a driver winds up in the fence – and I don’t think any of them got in the fence today – it’s probably their own fault. It’s not the fact that they got caught in somebody else’s problem. To be able to go to a race track and, like Robbie says, you’ve worked hard on your cars and you’ve got them right and Matt feels like he’s got himself ready to go do his business and then to be able to hold it in your own hand and control the outcome is a really wonderful thing and we like racing those tracks.”
MATT KENSETH CONTINUED – WILL YOU HAVE A PEP TALK WITH GREG? HE’S 38TH NOW. “I think Greg’s smart enough to know that. Greg was a threat to win more times than not last year. I think he won five or six races and probably could have won 10. I today have no doubt that Greg’s gonna make the chase. There is a lot of racing to do. He dominated the race today and just had something break. That’s just part of it. If he had a 300-point lead two months from now and broke, nobody would think anything of it. Every race pays the same amount of points and there is a lot of racing to go and he’s gonna be just fine. He’s gonna be one of the guys to beat all year again.”
JACK ROUSH CONTINUED – “Greg is a real pro. Like Matt, Matt and Greg have in common the fact that they were both 28 years old when they got started here with Roush, but Matt had already been with Robbie and he’d been back east racing these stock cars. For Greg, he was 28 when he got a chance to start, so he’s been really impatient to get caught up on his income, to get caught up on success and recognition and all the rest of it. This will be a setback for him, but the big picture is that our engines have been reliable and our cars have been good. Everything we pull out of the truck runs really good and he’ll have a chance to recover from that. I’ve got to go back to the shop and be sure that this risk reward or risk opportunity thing that we stay on the conservative side of it for him. We just can’t take a chance on breaking another part for doing some risk, so we’ll put some margin back in his program – a little less ignition timing, maybe a little richer on the carburetor, maybe less rocker arm or something in order to be able to make certain that his is not the next one that breaks if there is some part in there that we don’t know about. I’m sure the thing that broke was just some vendored part the was a manufacturing variability thing that wouldn’t break in the next 10 that we’d run just like it.”
MATT KENSETH CONTINUED – ANY COMMENT ON QUALIFYING LIKE POINTS FOR WINNING THE POLE? “Heck no. Are you crazy? (laughing). No points for poles. I loved the impound thing. I thought that was a great thing, even though in the big scheme of things it probably didn’t save a lot of money, but it still probably had to save a little bit of money in tires and whatever. I like coming to the race track and working on race setup. I think today is the day that pays all the money. They’re 500-mile races and if you have the best car, you should be able to start anywhere in the field and get to the front in 500 miles. If you can’t, then there either have been no cautions or you’ve probably done something wrong. I don’t like to handicap us and qualify that bad, and our qualifying has been a lot better except for Friday, but we just totally missed it. We worked on our race setup most of the time and tried to do a bunch of stuff to qualify and I gave them the wrong feedback and loosened the car up way too much and couldn’t go anywhere. But even on the non-impounds last year our qualifying has been a little bit better with this rules package and we certainly try hard to qualify, but with the new testing policy and stuff we try harder to race. When we go to the race track every week, we’re gonna go to the race track every week in race trim and make the car drive good for Sunday before we worry about our starting position.”
ROBBIE REISER CONTINUED – HOW GOOD IS THIS TEAM? “It’s very good. Obviously watching today and the car they brought here and the way they operated on pit road, they’re here to race and they’re here to win races and the championship this year. I think they’re determined to do that with what they showed up with at Daytona and what they had here today is championship caliber. Hopefully we can keep that momentum and keep doing what we’re doing.”
JACK ROUSH CONTINUED – HOW DOES THIS TRACK COMPARE TO THE VEGAS TRACK? “It’s obviously a half-mile shorter at Vegas. It’s very similar in terms of the car that they would use. I think that Greg has made the decision to take his same car. They’ve got two weeks to turn it around. I think they’ll take his same car. The Busch cars we ran last night, we’re gonna take a number of those cars back again to the next race. Las Vegas is very similar. We didn’t test as well as I’d hope to based on the way we ran last year here and there. I hoped to go out to Las Vegas and be dominant with the cars and we weren’t. We were just competitive. It didn’t look like we gained any on our competition. In fact, it looked like they gained on us, but when the green flag drops it may look a little better. We think we’ll be really competitive, but I’m not as optimistic about Las Vegas as I am about the prospect of coming back here in the fall.”
IS THIS WEEKEND A TESTAMENT THAT YOUR ORGANIZATION HAS NEVER BEEN STRONGER? “We finished last year the strongest we’ve ever been. Ford gave us a new Fusion and a new F-150. Looking at all three races the new F-150 configuration on the nose for 2006, the hardware has never been better. We by and large got our crews intact.
