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This Week In Ford Racing

Wednesday March 26, 2008

 

David Gilliland, driver of the No. 38 freecreditreport.com Ford Fusion, is coming off his first top-10 finish of the season with a ninth-place run at Bristol last week. Gilliland recently spoke about going to Martinsville for Sunday's NASCAR Sprint Cup Series event.

DAVID GILLILAND - No. 38 freecreditreport.com Ford Fusion — HOW DO YOU FEEL HAVING BACK-TO-BACK SHORT TRACK RACES? "We run so many mile-and-a-half tracks that the short tracks being back-to-back is a good thing for the teams because everybody's mindset is on short-track racing. It's a little bit easier on the teams and drivers going back-to-back, but Martinsville is a great place. I've really enjoyed racing there. It's short-track racing. That's where I came from and where I cut my teeth and that's where I grew up loving what I do."

BRISTOL AND MARTINSVILLE ARE SO DIFFERENT PHYSICALLY. WHAT'S IT FEEL LIKE BEHIND THE WHEEL? "It's definitely different. It feels like you're going about a quarter as fast at Martinsville. Bristol is just so fast with the banking. I was trying to explain it to my dad. I said, ‘You get out there and you feel like that airplane on the end of the string that you're just whipping around and just going.' It's a lot of fun, though. It's a challenging track and Martinsville is equally as challenging but just in a different way. It's a flat track and it seems like everybody is a little bit closer at Martinsville. It's just a little bit tighter quarters, but they're both a lot of fun. They're both very, very important to Yates Racing and it will be important to have a solid finish at Martinsville."

THE BUMPERS ON THESE NEW CARS LINE UP SO WELL. IS THAT THE BIGGEST DIFFERENCE IN THE STYLE OF RACING WE SEE ON SHORT TRACKS? THE BUMP-AND-RUN IS A BIT TOUGHER TO EXECUTE. "Yeah, I think so. I think the way the bumpers line up is much better at short tracks because you are gonna bump a little bit. The way the bumpers were before, it would just pick your rear wheels off the ground if you were the guy in front and odds are you were gonna wreck, so that's not a good deal. Now you can get around and you can really bump somebody and move them up out of the way. With the way the bumpers are aligned now, it's much better, especially at a short track."

Colin Braun, driver of the No. 6 Con-way Freight Ford F-150, returns to Martinsville Speedway with confidence after the mid-March testing session. Braun debuted in the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series at the fall Martinsville race in 2007, where he started 22nd and finished 34th after a flat tire sent him into wall.

COLIN BRAUN - No. 6 Con-way Freight Ford F-150 -TALK ABOUT RETURNING TO MARTINSVILLE, THE SITE OF YOUR NASCAR CRAFTSMAN TRUCK SERIES DEBUT. "I'm excited to go back to Martinsville. We had a great test down there a couple of weeks ago. The Con-way Freight Ford F-150 was super fast in testing and we were in the top two or three almost every session. We were really pleased with that. We had a lot of good things accomplished that week and we learned a lot. We went back to the shop and looked through all the notes we had. I think were going to go to the track with a truck that is going to be pretty darn fast right off the truck. We had a good run last year. We were just kind of cruising around there. Certainly, I have a little bit faster truck this year going back. I think we'll be a little bit more of a threat and I have to balance the abuse the veteran guys are going to give me and also give it back a little bit. We'll see how things go."

LAST WEEK YOU RACED IN NASHVILLE, CAN YOU APPLY ANYTHING FROM THE NATIONWIDE SERIES TO THE TRUCK SERIES? "For me, every lap that I do in any kind of stock car helps. The more laps I can do, the more comfortable I feel. I don't know if Nashville has a lot of similarities to Martinsville, but I'm getting more and more comfortable in stock cars. Things like getting more used to getting on and off pit road, doing pit stops and those sort of things is always helpful for me getting more comfortable in the whole environment. Every time we race, I get more comfortable in the truck. In Atlanta, I felt comfortable and unfortunately we had a few things that didn't go our way. We had a fast truck. The crew chiefs, both Mike Beam in the truck and Eddie Pardue in the Nationwide car, have taught me a lot over the last few weeks."

DO YOU HAVE ANY EXPECTATIONS HEADING INTO MARTINSVILLE? "I think that we've showed that we are pretty fast in the truck. We haven't quite had the finishes that we wanted to have. All the pieces are there for us to be successful; we just have to put everything together and we'll have good results."

WHAT ARE YOU GOALS FOR THIS WEEKEND? "This week in Martinsville, our goal is to finish. Obviously, being a rookie, it is going to be tough. We have a fast truck, so I think people are going to have to respect it just because it's fast. If we were going to anywhere other than Martinsville, I'd say our goal would be a top-15 or top-10 run. But going to Martinsville, anything can happen. I think being a rookie, I'm going to be one of the first guys to get used up. The goal at Martinsville is try to finish and try to figure out how to not get wrecked and not get punted around."

DO YOU THINK MARTINSVILLE IS A PLACE WHERE TRACK POSITION OR HANDLING IS IMPORTANT? "I think, for us, it's a bit of track position and a bit of handling. It's really 50-50 there. We have a fast truck and we worked real hard on doing some qualifying runs there. I think we did more qualifying runs than anybody else, just to get me comfortable doing that. I think that will pay off in the long run."

Robert Hight, driver of the Auto Club of Southern California Ford Mustang, is the NHRA POWERade Funny Car points leader heading into this weekend's 21st Annual O'Reilly Spring Nationals at Houston Raceway Park. Hight scored his first career victory at Houston in 2005. He has a victory and two finals appearances through the first three races this year.

ROBERT HIGHT - Auto Club of Southern California Ford Mustang - YOUR FIRST CAREER VICTORY HAPPENED AT HOUSTON. WHAT DO REMEMBER MOST ABOUT THAT DAY? "It just seemed to go on and on and on forever. It took, like, forever, to get to the final. You know, it's strange. You only race for under five seconds and you only have 75 minutes between rounds and four rounds to get to the final - but it just seemed like it took forever. I raced John [Force] in one of the rounds and beat him. I think I had only won one round, maybe two, before that. That was my fourth race, and it just hardly seemed real, how I could keep winning and doing this. I can tell you one thing: Dale Armstrong called me after that race - and I really look up to him a lot, I have a lot of respect for him - and he told me that I'll always remember the first one more than I will any of the other ones, and he's right. It was very special."

AFTER YOU WIN IN THE SERIES, DO PEOPLE TREAT YOU ANY DIFFERENTLY? "They congratulate you on the win, and, especially because you're a rookie, there's a lot of doubt, and honestly, I had a lot of doubt about myself. And, once you win one, it gives you a little more confidence that you can do it. You know what you're doing, still learning, but you just know that you can do it. You did it once, so you can do it again. And that's kind of the way I always looked at it. But, until you do it, you don't know if you can or not. Are you going to crack under pressure? What's going to happen? I raced Cruz Pedregon in the final, and he's a great racer. I had tough rounds all day long. It was one I'll never forget, that's for sure."

YOU ARE STILL THE POINTS LEADER. DO YOU APPROACH A RACE WEEKEND ANY DIFFERENTLY WHETHER YOU'RE FIRST, FIFTH OR 10TH IN THE STANDINGS? "No, I go off of how we're running at the time. I think Don Garlits always said, ‘You're only as good as your last run.' And, trust me, there's a lot of truth to that, and the only way you're going to maintain being on top is to continue to do good and out-perform everybody else. So, that's the approach I take. I guess if you had a huge lead and you're way out in front, you might have a different outlook on how you approach the next race, but right now it's less than a round - and by losing the championship last year by less than a round, I know how important every single round is, and I want every round win I can get, even if it's early like this."

After his No. 60 and No. 6 teams placed first and third, respectively, on the timesheet in testing at Homestead-Miami Speedway last month, team owner Michael Shank talks about his expectations for a strong showing at this weekend's GAINSCO Grand Prix of Miami, and the support that his team is receiving from Ford Racing.

MICHAEL SHANK - Owner, No. 6 and 60 Ford Riley Daytona Prototypes - BOTH OF YOUR CARS WERE VERY STRONG IN DAYTONA. "Yes, they were. This transition from Toyota to Ford was a big deal for us, and after Daytona we could kind of see that both of our cars are super strong. We qualified both of them on the front row, which has probably only happened four or five times over the past 50 years at that speedway, and then to lead about 165 laps combined and not be able to win was kind of tough to take, but we did take some good results out of it. Sixth and ninth is not the end of the world, but certainly not as good as we're capable of. So, we went to Homestead a couple of weeks ago and did the official series testing down there and we were first and third on the speed charts. It looks like our package - provided that they don't change the rules or anything on us - our package is going to be really, really good."

You were challenging the lead into the 21st hour of the 24-hour race in Daytona. This weekend's race is just TWO hours and 45 minutes. Are both of your teams entering this race with a lot of confidence? "Yeah, absolutely. We have a unique situation with our driver arrangement. We have what we call a pro-am driver combination, meaning we have one pro driver that is a paid professional and one of them is what I call a semi-pro, like a triple-A baseball player type of thing - and those guys only have to attempt to qualify the car and then they'll run the first stints, which by the rules they have to do that, and then we put our pros in. As long as we do well while our semi-pros are in there, do decently and stay in the top 10, then we have a real shot of doing very well, result-wise."

With the two months off and some testing, are youR TEAMS just excited to get back to racing? "Oh, yeah. It feels like we've been off for two years, let alone two months. In fact, it's a little ridiculous how much time we're off. But soon enough we'll get what we ask for here because we go into a real busy time. We've used this time - I tell you, the Ford Racing engineers have done so much for my business that it's hard to describe on paper what they've done to help us. They help us understand the car better, just helping us with all things engineering related-wise. It's something that Dan Davis had offered us when we did our deal with Ford Racing and I really didn't know what extent that would go to, and it's truly unbelievable. People don't believe me when I tell them. I tell you, it's just remarkable what they've done for our team at this point."

You were very happy with the package that was used during the first race. You've had two months since then, have you done any fine-tuning to the package at all? "We tried to make it better. We've absolutely come up with what we think are some gains and we're anxious to get them out on the track and try them. We have a very strict testing policy at Grand-Am, so we can't go out and test like we'd like to. Based on what we learned at Daytona, we're making some changes that we think will help us at all the tracks coming up."

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This report was provided by an outside PR source and posted by Kim DeHaven.

 

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