Ford drivers at Daytona:
DAVID RAGAN – No. 6 AAA Ford Fusion (Finished 5th) –
“I think a top-five finish is great. We want to be the top rookie, we want to be one of the top contending Roush cars week-in and week-out. It’s a pretty special day down here. It’s been an up-and-down week has been an understatement. All in all, it ended up a good day. We’ve still got a lot of hard work ahead. We’ve got to go to California.”
WHAT DID YOU LEARN OUT THERE TODAY? “You just can’t push the issue. And luck is really a lot here. There, a few times, I was on the outside and it really worked out good for me there, and at the bottom at the end. You know, we could’ve been Earnhardt, Jr., getting our hood ripped off with 10 laps to go, but it just worked out, and it makes me look like I did a little better job than I did.”
WERE YOU JUST HANGING BACK AND OBSERVING EARLY IN THE RACE? “I would’ve liked to go up there and race with them, but that’s per Jimmy Fennig and Jack Roush to cruise around a little bit. I really didn’t want to stay back that far. We almost got in trouble a couple of times on a green-flag pit stop, losing the draft, but all in all things just worked out. When you have a good day, you’ve got a little bit of luck and you do your job right and things look good at the end of the day.” HOW EXCITED ARE YOU ABOUT FINISHING IN FIFTH PLACE? “I probably won’t sleep a wink tonight. We’ve got to get back and I think we’re going to VIR tomorrow in the Busch car. Still got a lot of hard work. We’ll celebrate a little bit, and I’m sure we’ll smile, but there’s 35 more races and Martinsville pays the same amount of points that Daytona does, so we’ve got to keep digging.” THE CAR RAN TOWARD THE FRONT AND TOWARD THE BACK. OVERALL, HOW WAS THE CAR? “The car, driving-wise, handled perfect, but it just didn’t have enough speed.”
KEN SCHRADER – No. 21 Little Debbie Ford Fusion (Finished 35th) – WRONG PLACE, WRONG TIME? “Blaney came out of there pretty fast and couldn’t make a left. He needed a lot more race track and we were there.” WHAT DID YOU SEE? “I just saw Blaney come across the track. There was nothing I could do.” YOU HAD A COMPETITIVE CAR. “We were waiting. The Little Debbie car was good. All of the Fusions were pretty good, but it didn’t happen.” EVERYTHING WAS CALM FOR 160 LAPS AND NOW IT’S BREAKING LOOSE. “You need to look at the scoreboard. It’s not over yet.”
MATT KENSETH – No. 17 DeWalt Ford Fusion (Finished 27th) – “It looked like the 5 just lost control of his car and wiped us out.” THE LAST 30 LAPS WERE PRETTY CRAZY. “Yeah, I did the best I could. I wrecked Jamie and caused that big wreck. It gets crazy at the end. I mean, you try to do everything you can, but nobody’s perfect.” WHAT WERE YOUR THOUGHTS BETWEEN GREG AND MARK BATTLING AT THE END? “I was cheering for Greg Biffle or Mark Martin to win, obviously. Mark is my mentor and got me where I’m at. Obviously, I wanted him to win and if he couldn’t win, I wanted to Greg to win because he’s a teammate, but it didn’t work out that way. If there are cars on both sides, there’s only so much you can do. I was on the outside and Mark was on the inside, so I really couldn’t do anything.”
DAVID GILLILAND – No. 38 M&M’s Ford Fusion (Finished 8th) – “I thought we had it. Guys started wrecking and it kind of came away and we were going through the middle. I was in front of Harvick at the time and it just closed in on me at the end, but an eighth-place finish with all we went through today, we’ll take it.” ONCE YOU GOT BACK ON THE LEAD LAP DID YOU FEEL YOU HAD A CHANCE TO WIN? “Yeah, absolutely. Our M&M’s Ford Fusion has been strong since we unloaded. We had a great car. We had a little incident on pit road, but we never gave up and kept on fighting. I’m real proud of all the guys on the M&M’s team.” WITH A G-W-CH FINISH IT GETS PRETTY WILD. “Yeah, I kind of was defensive. I was trying to block the inside and the outside and Harvick got a run on me there. I tried to go up, but it was too late, and then the guys started wrecking in front of me so stuff happens. It’s Daytona and a green-white-checkered finish.” DOES THIS BUILD MOMENTUM? “Yeah, absolutely. This was a big step in the right direction for Robert Yates Racing, so we’re good and we’re excited.”
RICKY RUDD – No. 88 Snickers Ford Fusion (Finished 26th) – “At the end we just got in that mess. They were bouncing off each other and off the walls. I don’t know who finished the race without any scrapes, but what a day. I was really pleased with the pit stops. Our car was really good on long runs. Right there at the end some of the guys were putting on two tires and no tires and that jumbled it up. You had guys at the front of the pack that didn’t really need to be there and guys at the back that needed to try to come to the front and it was just jammed up. You couldn’t go anywhere.” DID YOU EXPECT THE LAST TWO LAPS TO BE THAT WILD? “Yeah, you expect that. We came out of here banged up, but the other side of it was the pit stops were excellent today. I think we got up to second or third one time just by the way the stops worked out. We didn’t two-tire it or anything to do that, we just did it with four tires and got up there, so I’m really optimistic about what I’m seeing.”
GREG BIFFLE – No. 16 Ameriquest Ford Fusion (Finished 25th) – WHAT HAPPENED AT THE END? “I have no idea. It looked like the 5 got loose. The 5 got loose and then we all wrecked.” THE RACING SEEMED PRETTY MUNDANE AND THEN GOT WILD AT THE END. “It was a 200-mile, the biggest race of the year. You wait until there’s 10 to go, and you go. That’s what I did. I just took care of my car all day and when it came time I put the pressure on it. It was a good race car. I don’t know if I could’ve won, but I wish I wouldn’t have got wrecked.” THERE WERE TIMES DURING THE RACE THAT YOUR CAR WAS VERY STRONG. “Yeah, we worked a lot on it. It took us a while, but we got it where I liked it, and we got it going good and fast.”
BORIS SAID – No. 60 SoBe No Fear Ford Fusion (Finished 14th) – ON HIS RACE. “I thought it was awesome. I spun early and went all the way to the back, I was fortunate we didn’t hit anything. This is the first time I’ve really been racing with these guys really hard. It was a great run for the SoBe No Fear Ford . It was only my third or fourth restrictor-plate race, and we ran all day and finished 14th. I’m really happy with it. It was a blast.” YOU RAN IN THE TOP 15 AT DIFFERENT TIMES. “Yeah, we were really close. We were fast enough to be there, but the cautions hurt at the end. We had a really good car and I’m really proud of what we’ve put together with this team with Frank Stoddard leading the way. It’s just really gratifying to see it all come to fruition.”
ROBERT YATES – owner No. 38 M&M’s Ford Fusion – ON DAVID GILLILAND’S DAY. “He did an awesome job. With all that was going on he was just as calm and cool as a cucumber. When he was running there by himself, he said, ‘That gets you going. That’s good.’ He was cool and did a great job. The team did a good job. It was pretty much just shut your eyes and stand on the gas kind of racing at the end, so I guess coming out eighth was not the worst thing that could happen.”
JACK ROUSH, Co-Owner – Roush Fenway Racing Ford Fusions – “Restrictor plate racing has not been a strong suit of my organization and it hasn’t been a strong suit of Mark. You get yourself all pumped up and you go do it four times a year, but we really enjoy the mile-and-a-half tracks and Michigan and Fontana – the mile-and-a-half and two-mile race tracks are really the meat and the heart of the schedule and that’s what we race for.” WILL YOU GO TALK TO HIM? “I’ll congratulate him and commiserate with him for the fact that he didn’t have the result that he wanted, but I didn’t have a great evening either (smiling).” MARK SAID HE WOULD HAVE WON IF THEY THREW THE CAUTION WHEN THE WRECK HAPPENED. “And, of course, that’s NASCAR’s discretion is to decide when to end the race and they kept it going for probably longer – certainly longer than they could have for the best result for Mark, but they wanted to see it go as long as it could and throwing a caution wouldn’t have affected the number of cars that had been wrecked and what happened at the end, so I can see NASCAR’s position. But there was a dynamic that was taking place and Mark was a loser again with regard to when they did throw the caution.” HOW BAD HAS HE WANTED TO WIN THIS RACE? “He would like to win here I’m sure, but, like I said, we haven’t focused – you have to go run the biggest race of the year with all the enthusiasm that it deserves at that time, but we haven’t waited and dreamed about going to Daytona. We wait and dream about going to Michigan and Fontana and all the mile-and-a-half race tracks and all those other places where the team and the driver can make a much bigger effect on the result than Daytona and Talladega. With half the horsepower you have the other places, you’re caught up in the draft and the effect of what other people do more effects your outcome and what you can do as either an owner or as a crew chief or as a driver.”
DAVID RAGAN RAYBESTOS ROOKIE OF THE YEAR PRESS CONFERENCE – “We’ve had an up-and-down week here and certainly to come out with a top-five finish was remarkable for everyone at AAA and Roush Fenway Racing. We just too it easy the first 250 miles, a little too easy at times because I could hear Jimmy Fennig get mad in the pits and he told us to get with it with about 40 to go and it just worked out perfect. When I was on the top line, it was moving. When I was on the bottom line, the bottom line was moving. It was nothing that I did, my crew and everyone put me in great position to go out and I just tried to hang on and with help, Mike Wallace stuck through the race with me through thick and thin. I’ve got to give a little credit to him and we had a great top-five finish for the AAA Ford Fusion. We’re just ready to go to California.”
YOU SEEMED WELL BACK AND THEN FLEW THROUGH THE FIELD. “I was running 10th with the green-white-checkered. I would have paid money to have it over right then (laughing).
MARK MARTIN INTEJECTS – “You and me both. (laughter)”
RAGAN CONTINUES – “I would be happy with that. That was our game plan. We almost lost the draft through that one round of green flag pit stops. We lost a couple of cars and, like I said, I could hear Jimmy on the pit box starting to get mad. It just worked out. We got a caution the time we needed and our car was handling great the last part of the race. When I was on the top line it was moving. We had a restart there with about 20 to go and things just worked out great. I had a few guys stick with me through thick and thin and nothing that I did on purpose, but it certainly helps to have a lot of luck here.”
WHAT DID IT LOOK LIKE WITH ALL THE WRECKS AND HOW DID IT CHANGE THE RACE? “I saw a few of them start to happen. I really had a good look when the 48 got loose. I guess he just got loose in the middle of three-wide and they start chasing it up the hill down the track and things just get tight. It just worked out perfect, where the cars behind me checked up and no one ran into me. I got checked up in plenty of time where I didn’t cave the nose in on our Ford Fusion, so it just worked out great. On the last lap, I saw Kyle Busch run off the apron coming off of four and I just kind of stood my ground and stayed straight and kept my eye on the start-finish line and that’s where I was trying to get to.”
CAN YOU TALK ABOUT JIMMY FENNIG? “I would put him up against any crew chief in the garage. My father has always preached that it’s good to have – I don’t want to call him old – but it’s good to have some veteran leadership on the team. Jimmy’s got that veteran leadership. He’s not afraid to get on the guys. He keeps us walking a chalk line and if you check when the garage opens at 6 a.m., the AAA team is there at 5:30. We’re always early. We’re here to race and nothing else and he stays on me very hard to try to do the best job I can, and, at the same time, he doesn’t slack off any either. He’s a great combination from the veteran leadership skills that the guys had back in the eighties and nineties and certainly now. He’s smart. He knows what wind tunnel numbers we’re looking for. He understands the race car and the only thing I keep preaching to him is, ‘Jimmy, don’t take anything for granted that I might know. Tell me everything.’ There are a few things that I might know and a few things that I don’t, so I tell him, ‘Don’t be afraid to talk.’ If you’ve ever been around Jimmy Fennig much, he’s pretty much a straightforward guy. He doesn’t like to talk a lot, but I tell him, ‘Tell me everything you know, Jimmy, and that will help us all.”
CAN YOU TALK ABOUT THE REDEMPTION FROM THURSDAY? “Certainly that was a big disappointment to us and something that could have been prevented by myself. We had the bad luck of getting a flat right-rear tire, which that happens a lot of times, and it’s up to myself as a race car driver to be smart and get slowed down quick enough. Well, I honestly thought I could slow down 30 miles an hour and still hang on to it and I needed to slow down 70 miles an hour and I didn’t get it slowed down quick enough and eventually couldn’t hang on anymore. We got our back-up car, the same one we tested here in January. Again, all the hard work and effort that the guys back in Concord at the race shop and Roush-Yates Engines put into this Daytona program means so much. They’re working on next year’s Daytona 500 over the next month or two, so it’s really tough when you wreck your primary car, but we had a great AAA Ford Fusion for our back-up. We’re very fortunate we had two practice sessions between the 150s and today’s race and we got it driving extremely well and with a few adjustments for today. It drove well, but it just wasn’t that great of a pusher. I always needed some help. I didn’t have the pure speed that it might have needed to pull out and make a pass with no help, so it was tough right there but that might have been a good thing for me because that really taught me how to stay in line and not push the issue.”
HOW PROUD ARE YOU TO BE THE STANDARD BEARER FOR ROUSH FENWAY RACING IN ITS DEBUT? “To get down to the truth, I probably don’t deserve it. Certainly Greg Biffle and Matt Kenseth, they’re the smart race car drivers on our team and they were running up front the whole day. I saw the scoreboard. I usually don’t look at that stuff. Jimmy tells me to stay focused and we had that red flag and we looked up and the 01 was up there and the other Roush teammates and, man, that was cool. I was definitely pulling for you, Mark. I wanted our teammates to win, but you could have been the next-best thing to win and I really mean that. It was a long day for us and we came out on the top side of things, but, certainly, week-in and week-out, Greg Biffle and Matt Kenseth are gonna show you why they’re the champions.”
WAS THAT THE WILDEST FINISH TO A RACE YOU’VE EVER BEEN IN? “I was just trying to stay in line and stay out of the way and try to finish this thing, but, certainly it was wild. The first part was pretty easy and a little too calm, I guess, and we had a chance to work on our cars and everybody had good handling cars there at the end and was giving it all they had.”
