GATORADE DUEL #1Bill Elliott, driver of the No. 21 Little Debbie Ford Fusion, finished 16th – and fifth among teams that didn’t finish last season in the top 35 in points – in the Gatorade Duel #1 on Thursday, failing to qualify for Sunday’s Daytona 500. The Wood Brothers had competed in 47 of the previous 49 Daytona 500s, including the very first one in 1959. The Woods won the The Great American Race in 1963, ’68, ’72 and ’76. Elliott won the Daytona 500 in 1985 and ’87.
BILL ELLIOTT – No. 21 Little Debbie Ford Fusion (Finished 16th) – “I don’t think there are words that can describe it, but that’s life. There will be days like this.”
DID THE LAST CAUTION, LATE IN THE RACE, HELP OR HURT? OR, DID IT NOT MATTER? “I don’t know. I’m just bummed out.”
EDDIE WOOD – co-owner, No. 21 Little Debbie Ford Fusion – “Let’s say there are 10 things you do that you shouldn’t do, but you’re going to do them because if you don’t, you still get beat. Let’s say nine out of 10 work and one didn’t, that’s what kind of started it. You know, it is what it is. Everybody talks about the top 35 and what they need to do, but if I was running this show, I don’t know what I’d do about it. I’m not saying anything against it. I was always brought up to say, ‘If you can’t make it any better, don’t say anything.’ I wouldn’t know what to say or how to change it or make it any different than what it is. So, that being said, it is what it is, and here we are. I’m really proud of my guys, the whole group. Our race team is better than it was last year, by far. We don’t have the results. Our practice times and everything we did this week were better than what we’ve had in the past. It’s hard being a single-car team like we are. We didn’t make the Daytona 500, but we were here to attempt to make the Daytona 500, and there are a lot of people that can’t say that. All the sponsors I have and all that, are very loyal to us, to continue to sponsor us this year – knowing full well when they signed on that we were out of the top 35. And that makes you feel good that they’ve got confidence in you that you can turn your stuff around, and we’re going to turn our stuff around. We’ve been doing this too long not to. Like I said, it is what it is. I don’t know another word for it.”
HOW DIFFICULT IS IT TO KNOW THAT YOU’RE NOT GOING TO BE HERE ON SUNDAY? “I’m going to be here. The car won’t be. I don’t know what that’ll feel like. I’m sure it’s going to be bad.”
DO YOU FEEL WORSE ABOUT MISSING THE DAYTONA 500 OR THAT THIS PUTS YOU BEHIND IN YOUR QUEST TO GET BACK IN THE TOP 35 IN POINTS? “Both. One’s just as bad as the other. That top-35 thing is just a night-and-day fight, day-in and day-out. This starts it. But, we won’t be alone. There’s going to be company with us. You can’t let it get the best of you because it will. It will eat you alive. You just have to stand up and continue to do what you’re doing because the worst thing you can do is panic. If you panic, you’re done. You’ve got to keep doing what you’re doing, and we’ve come a long way with what we’ve got going. Like I said, we don’t have any results to prove that; you’ll just have to take my word for it. It is a lot better, and it’s going to be better. So, we’ll just continue on.”
CAN YOU PUT MISSING THIS RACE IN PERSPECTIVE? “The Daytona 500 is just not another race. It is the Daytona 500. To me, it’s bigger than the Indy 500 and all that. We’re still a part of it. We’re not going to be there Sunday. I’m going to tell you a story. The Tuesday that we had off, you know the lighthouse down at the other end? Where they used to turn left on the beach? I went down there. I walked up it, which I won’t do again. As I was leaving, I went through the little gift shop and they had some DVDs of old ’50s and ’60s racing, and I had to buy it. I left there, and the lighthouse is kind of inland a little bit, a couple of blocks. So, I was sitting there in the street and I knew that they turned left there and went across and came back up the other side, and I didn’t which street it was, so I called my dad [Glen Wood]. I said, ‘Which street was it that was turn one?’ And he said, ‘It was Peach Street.’ I looked up, and that’s where I was. I left there, and I’m getting ready to pull out, and I look over, and there’s Richard Petty. He was there, too. That’s what the Daytona 500 is.”
WHAT DID BILL ELLIOTT SAY AFTER THE RACE? “He’s down. But, he’s been through hard stuff in his career, too. Bill doesn’t have to help us. He didn’t have to come back and do what’s he’s doing, but I think he wants to help us rebuild. It’s not about the money, or this or that. Bill wants to help. And he has. That, to me, is big.”
LEN WOOD – co-owner, No. 21 Little Debbie Ford Fusion – DID THE LATE CAUTION HELP OR HURT. OR DID IT NOT MATTER? “I think I would’ve liked to have it, but about five laps extra, not just a couple laps shootout. Enough to get a line straight going, a line to choose, but it didn’t work out.”
BORIS SAID – No. 60 7-Eleven Ford Fusion (Finished 19th) – “We had a really, really good car. We should have been in the top two, but we had a tire go and we had to pit a little early. I just couldn’t get anyone to help me. Carl Edwards was the only guy that ever helped me. It’s disappointing to me. I had so many runs and everytime I pulled out, I just got hung out but I couldn’t just sit there in line. I had to keep trying, but I just kept getting hung out. It’s real disappointing after we had such a good car.”
DID YOU THINK THE CAUTION WITH FIVE TO GO WAS WHAT YOU NEEDED? “There was definitely a shot. Our car was really good on old tires, but it’s just disappointing because it’s the Daytona 500.”
CARL EDWARDS – No. 99 Office Depot Ford Fusion (Finished 5th) – “We’ve got a really good car for Sunday. It’s gonna be fun. I had a good time.”
HOW WERE YOUR TIRES? DID YOU HAVE ANY PROBLEMS? “The tires are at a premium. It’s gonna be an interesting race. It’s gonna be really neat.”
WHAT’S THE MOST INTERESTING DYNAMIC ABOUT SUNDAY’S RACE? “The tires are gonna fall off and then there are gonna be people that get tires, so it’s gonna be a real strategy race. It’s gonna be a lot of fun. I’m really happy about my car. It’s good.”
GATORADE DUEL #2
JAMIE MCMURRAY – No. 26 Crown Royal Ford Fusion (Finished 24th) – “I’m not sure what happened. The 27 car just kind of lost it on his own. He corrected and went back across the track. I avoided him and someone ran into the back of me. It’s just unfortunate.”
THIS IS THE SECOND WRECK YOU’VE BEEN CAUGHT UP IN. CAN YOU AVOID IT SUNDAY? “Hopefully, since we’ve wrecked in the twin and the shootout we’ll make it through the 500. I was really trying to be careful and just kind of ride around until you have like 20 to go, but the cars move around a lot more than the past. The 27 car had been loose from the get-go, so it finally went around on him.”
WHAT HAPPENED? “The 27 car lost it on its own. I had him cleared. He went back across the track and whoever was behind me just didn’t get slowed down in time and ran into the back of me. You’re just kind of along for the ride after that, so it’s very unfortunate. We were just kind of riding around there. We wrecked a car in the shootout and really couldn’t afford to lose another car, so our practice will probably be minimal now. Hopefully, we’ll have a good car for the 500.”
SO YOU’LL NEED ANOTHER BACKUP? “Oh, yeah. That was a pretty good hit. With the car of tomorrow, they have to build the cars so light now that it doesn’t take much of a hit to pretty much junk one. I’d say that one is done.”
TRAVIS KVAPIL – No. 28 K&N Filters Ford Fusion (Finished 14th) – “We definitely learned that where we’re at is not very good. We’ve got to work on a setup that doesn’t just blow through the tires and abuse the tires. It seems 10 laps into the run it’s sliding all over the place and you’re just barely hanging on, so we’ve got to figure something out. I know these cars are different and everybody is complaining about kind of the same stuff, but we’ve got to just work on our handling package a lot and see what we can do to get some grip in the long run and help our tire wear. We just need a better handling race car.”
DAVID GILLILAND – No. 38 freecreditreport.com Ford Fusion (Finished 17th) – “We’ve been real concerned about tires. That put us out of the shootout and we had a little bit of tire trouble today. We’re not the only ones. It seems like a lot of people are having tire trouble, but we’re gonna go to work hard on our freecreditreport.com Ford Fusion and make the necessary adjustments to try and get a little more speed out of it. But even more than speed right now, we just need to be able to be a little bit easier on tires, so we’ve got a little bit of work to do.”
IS THERE ENOUGH TIME IN PRACTICE TO FIND SOMETHING NEW? “Yeah, because we’ve tried a lot of stuff up until now so we’ve got notes on all that stuff. We’re just gonna have to mix and match on some of the setup stuff we tried and come up with something, so the good thing is that we do have tomorrow.”
DAVID RAGAN – No. 6 AAA Ford Fusion (Finished 8th) – “That was a lot of fun, just to have one stop and we had a full fuel run on the last set of tires. That was a true testament to how well the balance was on the AAA Ford Fusion. I don’t think we had any tire trouble all day, so it was a fun race. I can only imagine what 500 miles driving that hard is gonna be like, but we had a lot of teammates in that race and got a lot of help from the 17 and 16 at different times. It was just a lot of fun. We’ll try to make our race car just a little bit better and go from there.”
THIS WAS YOUR FIRST RACE IN THIS CAR ON A SUPERSPEEDWAY. WHAT DO YOU EXPECT IN THE 500? “The speeds are pretty high and the tires wear out pretty fast, so I think you’re gonna see some single-file runs late into the run, but with new tires on these things drive like a dream. I think the racing is gonna be good for a few laps and then we’ll ride a little bit, but a lot of things can happen in 500 miles. The biggest thing is we’ve just got to be there at the end. We’ve got a good group on this AAA Roush Fenway, so if we can have good pit stops and stay out of trouble, certainly that was a lot of fun for 150 miles. Now we’ve just got to do it about three times that long.”
GREG BIFFLE – No. 16 3M Ford Fusion (Finished 10th) – “I think we learned a little bit. Our car ran pretty good. It was just a little too tight, but I think we definitely learned something for Sunday. I’m excited. I think I’ve got a pretty good car.”
ANY TIRE ISSUES FOR YOU? “We had cords on the tires. I don’t know which ones, but when we changed we definitely had some tire issues.”
MATT KENSETH – No. 17 DeWalt Ford Fusion (Finished 15th) – “We learned a lot. Our car had a lot of speed, actually, and had ourselves, I thought, in pretty good position, and did a pretty good job on pit road. We just had some handling issues. So, we think we know what we’ve got to work on tomorrow to get better in practice tomorrow.”
HAVE YOU HAD TIRE ISSUES HERE? “Yeah, but if everybody’s experiencing them then you’ve just got to working on the car and get it handling better. We were really off on our handling today. We could only run about 10 laps very good and then it didn’t handle well, and we were tearing up tires and everything. We just kept getting our car too loose. We were just a step behind, so we’ll keep working on it tomorrow and we’ll have it good by Sunday.”
