Go to content Go to navigation Go to recent PR reports Go to search

Sunday Homestead-Miami Ford Post-Race Quotes, Carl Edwards Wins

Sunday November 16, 2008

 

EDWARDS CAPS OFF MEMORABLE SEASON WITH NINTH VICTORY
· Carl Edwards captured his 16th career NASCAR Sprint Cup Series win and ninth of the season with today’s win at Homestead-Miami Speedway.
· The last time a Ford driver won nine NSCS races in a season was when Richard Petty did it in 1969.
· The most NSCS races won by a Ford driver in the modern era is 11 by Bill Elliott in 1985.
· Edwards is only the seventh driver in Ford Racing history to win at least 9 NSCS races in season. The others are: Ned Jarrett and David Pearson (twice each), Dick Hutcherson, Junior Johnson, Richard Petty, and Bill Elliott. A complete breakdown follows below:

MOST NSCS FORD WINS IN A SEASON
16 by David Pearson in 1968
15 by Ned Jarrett in 1964
13 by Junior Johnson in 1965
13 by Ned Jarrett in 1965
11 by David Pearson in 1969
11 by Bill Elliott in 1985
9 by Carl Edwards in 2008
9 by Richard Petty in 1969
9 by Dick Hutcherson in 1965
Bold face denotes won championship that season

· Ford has now won 592 all-time NASCAR Sprint Cup Series races.
· Today’s win is the 11th of the season for Ford, tied for first among manufacturers. Chevrolet also had 11 wins while Toyota posted 10 this year. Dodge finished with four.
· This also marks the fifth straight season Roush Fenway Racing has won the Ford 400 (Biffle in 2004-06; Kenseth in 2007).
· Ford Racing is now 6-for-10 in NSCS races at Homestead-Miami Speedway.

MATT KENSETH – No. 17 DeWalt Ford Fusion (finished 25th) – “We just decided to try and make it on fuel, so we just went slow. We had a really fast car. We just messed up on our bump-stop gaps and couldn’t get it fixed until we got a caution in the middle of the race and then we had a good car, we just didn’t have enough gas.” WAS THIS RACE A MICROCOSM OF YOUR SEASON – NO GOOD LUCK WHEN YOU NEEDED IT. “Yeah, it doesn’t matter which way we roll it. If we would have run hard, we wouldn’t have won either. It just doesn’t seem like we can do anything right. The car performed really well today. I’m happy about that, but we just can’t seem to get things to go our way. The 99 can’t do anything wrong and we can’t do anything right. I don’t understand how he can make power and still get that much better fuel mileage than us. I had such a big lead I was just riding around.” RELIEVED TO GET THIS SEASON OVER? “Not really. I love racing. For a couple of weeks it’ll be alright and I’ll probably get bored and wish I was back at the track trying to get this thing better. We’ve got to get this back to championship form. We’re used to winning and running up front and we haven’t been doing that, so we’ve got to figure out how to fix that. I’m ready to work on that and try to be back at the track and try to get doing better.”

JAMIE McMURRAY – No. 26 Crown Royal Ford Fusion (finished 3rd) – “That was good. I’m just amazed that Carl was able to get that kind of fuel mileage. That’s incredible to have one of the fastest cars and get the best fuel mileage, a really good combination for him. But, it was a good night for our Crown Royal Ford Fusion. We had fast car, but the way the pit sequence worked out, we got shuffled back, and it wasn’t because we had bad pit stops or because we did anything wrong, it’s just the way it worked out.” HOW CLOSE WERE YOU ON FUEL? “We were still two laps short and I ran that whole last lap letting off, like, halfway down the straightaway. I’m just amazed that the 99 is able to get that good of mileage and still be one of the fastest cars on the track. It’s incredible that they’re able to do that. So, congratulations to him, and to Jimmie on winning the championship. I’m excited to have three third-place finishes in a row. That’s very good for our tram.” CAN YOU TALK ABOUT THE IMPORTANCE OF ENDING THE SEASON WITH BACK-TO-BACK-TO-BACK THIRD-PLACE FINISHES? “It’s makes you feel like you’re going to start the next year the same way, and I don’t think that ever in my career I had three top-fives in a row, so I’m really excited. It’s the best I’ve probably ever run.” WHEN YOU’RE ON A RUN LIKE THIS, WOULD YOU RATHER RACE AGAIN NEXT WEEK, OR ARE YOU READY FOR A BREAK? “You want to race again – and I am, I’m going to race my go-kart in Vegas this weekend. I don’t know. On one hand I’d like to keep going because we’re doing so well, but it will make for a solid winter.” ON CREW CHIEF LARRY CARTER. “Larry has just done an incredible job. He’s what got us here tonight, because the way the pit sequence worked out, we got shuffled back, but he’s done a great job.”

BILL ELLIOTT – No. 21 Motorcraft Ford Fusion (finished 12th) – “I’m proud for these guys. They did an awesome job today. We had a great car, made the right calls. Everything went well. We had a decent night, stayed out of trouble. We got a little off there once, but we kept fighting back and got it better and it was still off just a little bit. I mean, all in all, we had a good night.” ON GETTING A GOOD FINISH AFTER RUNNING WELL THROUGHOUT THE RACE. “It’s important to these guys, especially where they’re at, fighting for sponsorship and stuff. And it goes to show you that racing can turn around, and things can get better. I’m just proud for these guys. They deserve better. We had a decent night, and we’ll take it and get out of here.”

GREG BIFFLE – No. 16 3M Ford Fusion (finished 18th) – “It wasn’t really any fun. It seems like we’ve got to get the tire to have just a little bit more grip and make it a little racier, but we did pretty good with our car. Unfortunately, we’re still not getting the fuel mileage that we need to be getting, so we had to stop like everybody else and get fuel. We thought about ducking in and getting a little gas there, but we worked so hard to get track position all day that we hardly wanted to give it up at the end and come in for a splash of gas. We figured there would be another caution and we’d be racing with two tires or something, but there was no caution. There were a lot of green-flag runs today. We ended up third in the points, so we’re excited about that and we’ll look forward to next year.” WERE YOU ON THE SAME STRATEGY AS THE 99? “We were on the same strategy as the 99 and we were seven laps short and the 99 made it. We were eight laps short at Texas and the 99 made it, so they just get a little bit better gas mileage than we get and we’re gonna work this winter on trying to analyze a little bit on why they’re getting a little better mileage than we are. Hopefully, next year we’ll be getting a little better mileage.” THIRD IN POINTS THOUGH. “Yeah, you can’t complain about that. The guys did a great job and 3M stuck with us all season and are on board for three more years with a new contract, so we’re excited. We’re gonna build on this 16 team and keep going.” WHAT ABOUT THE 48 WINNING THREE STRAIGHT? “It’s impressive. That organization, you could see them today, they were down and then they were back and then they were down. They’ve really got it figured out through hard work and they’re at the right place at the right time.”

DAVID RAGAN – No. 6 AAA Ford Fusion (finished 24th) – “We just ran out of gas coming to take the white. We had a winning car tonight. Our AAA Ford was fast. We had a little bobble on our last pit stop and lost some track position, but were able to drive back up into the top seven or eight, but it was just one of those things. We had 13th locked up and we went for it and were about a half-gallon short.” YOU FEEL GOOD ABOUT YOUR YEAR? “Yeah, we made a lot of progress as a driver and a team. A lot of that credit goes to Jimmy Fennig and Jack Roush for putting together a good group of guys. We’ve had solid pit stops all year. Our race cars have been fast and nothing has fallen off of them, so it’s just been a good, solid year. We look forward to improving that much more in 2009 for UPS.” YOU FINISHED MORE LAPS THAN ANYONE THIS YEAR. “Yeah, that’s a cool little stat and that just goes to show you we’ve got good engines from Roush Yates Engines with no mechanical failure and just trying to be smart and fast. We qualified better, so we feel like we’ve picked it up some, but we still have a bit more work to do before we get to where we want to be every week.”

TRAVIS KVAPIL – No. 28 All Sport Ford Fusion (finished 7th) – “We had a good car, but started off really loose. We qualified 19th, which wasn’t a bad start for us, but at the start of the race we were just too loose and it took us half the race to get it to where we needed. We got a lap down and got the lucky dog and the run before we got that, the car came around good. The guys did a great job in the pits making the right adjustments and it kind of worked out for us. We were at the tail-end of the lead lap and we were really close to making it, so we topped off and were able to get it to the end. Even saving gas we passed a few cars right at the end, so it was a good car. We’re really proud of our Yates team for the whole year.” A GOOD FEELING GOING INTO THE OFF SEASON? “Yeah, you always hate to end the year on a disappointing finish or a wreck, so now we’ve got all winter to build on it. This is a solid finish and it’s the best run we’ve had in a long time, so it feels great.”

JAMIE MCMURRAY PRESS CONFERENCE – “We had another really good car tonight and the way the pit sequences worked out where some guys would pit and some guys would put two on, and then we kept having all those short cautions, we got shuffled back to 14th or 15th and when it gets late in the race, it becomes a lot harder to pass than it does those first few runs because everybody gets their car better. So Larry just made a wonderful decision to go ahead and pit at the end and then just try to save gas to get the best finish we could, so I ran the last 55 laps – about 10 of them hard – and then I just kind of pedaled it the remainder of the race so we could make sure to make it to the end.” WHAT’S THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THE CHASE AND YOUR SEASON BEFORE THE CHASE? “There’s really not anything different. If you really looked back and paid attention to our team, for the last three months we’ve had just really fast cars and just didn’t really have much to show for it, and for the last two months we’ve had things just kind of go our way and then, obviously, the last month has just been incredible. Even when I was with Ganassi and could contend to make the chase, I didn’t run as well as I am right now. It’s by far the best I’ve run in my career. It just seems like every week you have a chance to win, so it’s a lot of fun to get to run that well, but the same thing when the season started – everybody was asking me what was wrong and I’m not doing anything different now. I think I’m able to communicate with the crew chief and the engineer better to make better adjustments and when the race starts, the cars are just faster. I tell you, if we could have qualified for the five or six races that rained out, we would have qualified well and we would have raced better in those races, but when you have to start back in the twenties, it takes forever to get to the front and you just have to race differently.” THIS ISN’T EASY TO DO IS IT. “No, and we got shuffled back to 12th or 14th, whatever it was, and that made the decision all that easier to go ahead and pit. Larry said that we were like two laps short on fuel and I was like, ‘Man, I’ll save you two laps of fuel. I believe I can do that.’ So that makes it easier, I think, when you’re further back. I pedaled it half-throttle for 30 laps and I really thought the 29 was gonna be the car to beat. I saw the 18 and the 6 run out and when we took the white I wasn’t sure how much Kevin was saving, so I was like, ‘I don’t really care if I run out now,’ when you think you’re racing for a win it’s worth it to take the chance to maybe run out. But I’ve got to say, what Carl is able to do – to have not only one of the fastest cars on the track but to be able to get the fuel mileage he does – I think that’s something a lot of drivers are gonna look into of how they can try to get better mileage because, obviously, I drive for the same team and we have the same carburetors and the same guys tuning them. It’s not like he has a bigger gas tank or a leaner engine, but he always gets better fuel mileage than everybody and the rest of us tend to get similar fuel mileage, but not as good as Carl, so we have to look at that and try to make that better as a whole.”

CARL EDWARDS PRESS CONFERENCE (finished 1st) – “I’m sure glad we won today’s race because it will make it a little bit easier to deal with the off-season and coming so close to that championship. We ran really well this season and it’s something I wanted to make sure my guys understood is they did their jobs. They did a great job and there were two races where we lost points. One was my mistake and one was a complete coincidence or freak accident with the ignition system, so my guys performed well enough to win a championship this season, and considering how well Jimmie performed, I don’t think that’s a small feat. So tonight was a lot of fun. I’m glad that we won the race so that we can go into the off-season knowing we won more races than anyone else in this series. I think that’s a big accomplishment, especially considering how well Jimmie and Kyle both ran all season, so that feels good and knowing how well we ran. That gives me a lot of confidence for next season, so it was a good weekend. Second in both series is not first, but it’s definitely not something to be ashamed of. I’m proud of what we did this year.”

BOB OSBORNE, Crew Chief – “I was very happy to see, actually, how well they came together. We started out with a lot of new guys at the beginning of the season so it took a little while. The last thing that always seems to come together sometimes is that pit crew and the boys put their best effort forward and took it upon themselves to get good enough to be able to compete on pit road with the top-notch teams and I believe they did that quite well the second half of the season and it shows. A lot of that has to do with everyone getting to know each other and understanding everyone’s traits and things like that so you’re comfortable around them at all times, not just in working situations, but that personal relationship matters a lot too in our business because we spend so much time together.”

JACK ROUSH, Car Owner – “It’s good to win in front of the home crowd and this is Ford Championship Weekend. I was out in one of the pavilions today and had the best time that I think I’ve ever had at an appearance at one of these events, but all of the people come down to celebrate not only NASCAR but particularly here the history of Ford Motor Company. It’s a great credit to the engineering support they’ve given us. This has become less of an art and more of a science in terms of the way these cars are run and for Carl to rely on Bob and Bob to rely on the information he’s getting from Ford, and for me to have the confidence to carry back to my partner to invest in all of that is really something. This team really came together. I didn’t see what the finishing order was of all of our cars, but Robbie Reiser and all the guys back at the shop have done a great job this year organizing the build programs and organizing the test program and organizing all the pit crews and everything to realize their potential. We’re a promote-from-within company more than any other NASCAR race organization that I’m aware of. We hire more junior folks and give them their first shot and then advance them as they’re able to take more responsibility and that’s one of the reasons sometimes why our pit crews are a little slower to develop as we’d like them to is the fact that we’ve got an average of people with a little less experience as they’re looking for a foothold in trying to get involved in this sport. But Ford did a great job. I was wrong again tonight. I apologized to Bob. I went down there and I was sure that he was gonna get what he deserved at Texas – he was gonna run Carl out of gas – but he didn’t do that. And then Carl, I’m not sure if Bob and I were hearing things imagined or not, but I distinctly heard him say after he slowed down and he was coming to pit road and I thought that it wasn’t running, and, sure enough, he drove by pit road and made one more lap and managed to stay in front of the 29 and, there it was, he was able to close the deal, but it was amazing that Doug Yates and the guys have been able to find the fuel economy in the engines. The Ford Fusion is one of the mileage leaders for Ford Motor Company with its four-cylinder engine in the full-size car class and to be able to get that kind of fuel mileage and have people be able to talk about that is wonderful. I’m real proud of it.”

CARL EDWARDS continued – WHEN YOU GET HOME, YOU’RE GOING TO HEAR ABOUT THE HENDRICK DYNASTY. HAVE YOU CLSED THE GAP FOR NEXT YEAR? “I think that, I mean, we won more races than Jimmie, and we ran with him when he won. I personally feel like we closed a big gap this season. I feel we ran very well at the road courses, at Martinsville, at some of these tracks that haven’t sometimes been able to keep up with them. So, yeah, hopefully, I know they’ll enjoy this championship, but they knew we were here. You know what I’m saying? That’s good.”

JACK ROUSH continued – One of the things that’s most satisfying to me is fact that the guys with all the preparation, with the way they interact with the other crew chiefs and the car chiefs, is that if you look at the way that our entire group of cars run, it’s better than most of the multi-team organizations in the garage. To be able to have Jamie showing the promise that he’s had and David Ragan to do what’s he’s done, Matt led a bunch of laps, he didn’t manage to win this year, he won last here last year, but I surely thought that that he was going to have a shot at it there, and except for the fuel mileage on Carl’s car being better, Matt might’ve won tonight. That’s what Carl thought was going to happen. He talked to me about it. He thought that Matt was going to be able to go and then he was going to be able to go, but he wasn’t going to be able to catch him, Matt ran out of gas and he thought that Carl might run out of gas, too. We’ve had a really great exchange of information between the guys. I think the crew chiefs all approve of one other, and the drivers all approve of one another, they like one another, they’re friends, and to be able to be a part of that is a great joy for me.”

BOB OSBORNE continued – TWENTY-THREE LAPS INTO THE RACE AND HE WAS ALREADY ASKING WHERE THE 48 WAS. HOW DO YOU SAY, “OKAY, CARL, WE’VE GOT A LONG WAY TO GO. JUST HANG TIGHT.” “Basically, that’s it. I think what’s about what I told him. I said, ‘He’s in such-and-such spot. Don’t worry about that, just focus on what we had to do at the time and I’ll keep you updated as things change for us.’ That’s basically where we left it. He never asked again – he might’ve asked one more time under caution, I think. But for the most part, he didn’t really ask, and I’d just update him when I had to chance to focus on where the 48 was.”

CARL EDWARDS continued – WHAT ABOUT THE BIRD? “I was going down the front straightaway – you know when you’re driving down the road or whatever and a bird just barely misses your car? This bird, I saw it out of the corner of my eye, and it turned and went right by window and it almost came through the window net. I thought to myself, ‘If that bird would’ve come through the gap in the window net and hit me in the chest, I don’t know what I’d have done.’ That surprised me. It got my attention.” WAS IT THE AFLAC DUCK? “It wasn’t a duck. We don’t eat duck. We treat ducks nice around here.”

BOB OSBORNE continued – TWO VICTORIES THIS WEEKEND. DO YOU CELEBRATE? I’m going to celebrate, I can tell you that.”

CARL EDWARDS continued – “He’ll probably celebrate for me. We’re going to fly home. Knowing that we had such a big gap to close coming in here, the only way I knew that we could be satisfied, if we did what we did tonight, that we could feel like we gave it our best effort, so I don’t know if it’s cause for celebration so much as just feeling good about what we did.” KNOWING THAT YOU GAVE ALL YOU GAVE, YOU THREE OUT OF THE LAST FOUR RACES AFTER YOUR PROBLEM. OTHER TEAMS WOULD’VE FOLDED, BUT YOURS NEVER GAVE UP. IS THAT 100 PERCENT THAT YOU’VE TALKED ABOUT? “Yeah. It’s one of the toughest things to do is to just keep your head up, do the best you can and take what you get, and that’s why I’m so excited about the years to come because I feel like this team can do it, regardless of the odds, or whatever. It would’ve been real easy for all of the guys to get lax and not pay attention to all of the detail they do at the shop, for Bob not to take the gambles or spend the time that he spends on the race car. So, yeah, it’s cool to be a with a group of guys like that. These two guys sitting next to me, they’re as tough and determined as anyone. It’s just cool to be a part of it.”

JACK ROUSH continued – YOU KNOW AS AN OWNER HOW TOUGH IT IS TO WIN A CHAMPIONSHIP. RICK HENDRICK HAS NOW WON EIFGHT OF THE LAST 14. HOW IMPRESSIVE IS THAT TO YOU, AND WHAT DOES IT TAKE TO GET NTO THAT LEVEL? “Well, I won one of the first 18, I remember that. That was my record. I’d been to Daytona about eight times with my road-race cars before I went to Daytona with a stock car, and every time I had been there I had always won – in fact, the road-racing we’d done, for 14 years, we won almost 48 percent of the races we entered, and virtually all of the championships that were in front of us – so it really came as a real shot of cold water, a dose of reality, to figure out how hard it is to do this, that Rick has built a strong organization, that’s he’s got a great balance, his identification of and development of able drivers like Jimmie and Jeff Gordon, and he certainly set a high bar there for us. I don’t know if anybody, with the nature of this new car, I don’t know that any owner will win as many races in the near term as he has in the recent past. I just focus on next year and I know as I looked at last year, we started last year with a testing deficit, the Car of Tomorrow, we got that fixed toward the end of the year, we finished the year with a real high note, we won here and felt like we had a chance to make a run for it next year. I don’t have a major concern toward next year in terms of trying to fix a technical problem or trying to fix a team problem. The teams are functioning well, the technical side is great, I just hope we can maintain our pace and our position on all those things, and maybe next year somebody will have two ignition boxes that fail. Carl talked about his ignition box problem – we had two brand-new ignition boxes that had never been in a race car before that you expect to be as reliable as shotgun shells that you put in your gun in hunting season, and both ignition boxes failed at the same time on the same lap on the race track, and you just don’t get any unluckier than that. And when that’s going against you, you can’t recover from that in a 10-race deal. We had the wreck at Talladega, that was unfortunate, but to have a second thing happen that you couldn’t have stopped or couldn’t have predicted, I just hope that we can do as well as we can, the engine guys, Doug and the guys, will do a nice job with the engines so that they’ll be as good as they were this year, and we’re just going to try to keep it going.”

CARL EDWARDS continued – OVER THE WINTER, ARE YOU GOING TO THINK MORE ABOUT WHAT DID GO RIGHT THIS YEAR, OR WHAT DIDN’T GO RIGHT? “Definitely the things that did go right. The thing about this sport is that you make decisions in the heat of the battle and that’s the decision you made and you’ve got to move on and learn from them. I’m really proud of what we did this season and how we were close but it is what it is. Next season we get to start fresh, to go apply the things we learned and keep doing the things we’ve been doing, and yeah, I’d say in that respect I’m definitely an optimist.”

CARL EDWARDS CONTINUED – DO YOU RELISH THE ROLE OF BEING THE GUY EXPECTED TO BEST JIMMIE? “I hope I am. I guess Jimmie has a chance to make some real history next season. I would be glad to be the guy to deny him that chance. I don’t know if it really matters what’s written or what’s said. I learned that this season that so many things got built up and everybody thought things were going one way and then they’d go another way and it evaded everyone what was going to happen, so, yeah, I’ll try not to get caught up in that, but hopefully we can live up to the expectation that not only we have, but that fans and our sponsors have.” IT’S A MAJOR FEAT TO FINISH SECOND IN BOTH SERIES. “Thanks, I appreciate that. It feels good. It’s neat to be able to race both of them. It’s very enjoyable. I really appreciate Jack giving me the opportunity to do it and the guys that he’s put with me. Right now, Drew Blickensderfer, he already told me. He looked me square in the eye and he said, ‘Man, we are going to be better next year. We are going out to win every single race,’ so I know he’s got the killer mindset right now. I’m sure Bob feels the exact same way and I do too, so, yeah, it’s a good year. Second in both is an accomplishment. It’s great, but we hope we can do a little better next season.”

JACK ROUSH CONTINUED – “The thing that’s there about the two championships is they’re not at the same place and all the trips that Carl made back and forth across the country – of course David Ragan and Clint Bowyer and a number of others did the same thing – but those trips, that’s a young man’s game to be able to travel all night and race and get in a race car that you haven’t been in in some cases and drive it to great effect and trust what people have done when you weren’t there. It’s amazing. As a young man, I don’t think I could have done what they’re doing and I suspect that most couldn’t.” CARL INTERJECTS – “You’re being too nice. You’d do it right now.” JACK CONTINUES – “I can’t do a lot of the things right now that I could have done younger and when I was younger I couldn’t have done what you do.” HOW MUCH HARDER IS IT FOR JIMMIE TO WIN THREE THAN CALE DID. CAN YOU COMPARE? “When I started in 1988 it was 90 percent are – this whole business was – and it was five percent science and somewhere in between was the crew chief’s luck. But now the guy’s – Bob and all the crew chiefs have got to come to the race track with a really good plan. There’s not enough test time to run all the things through the car that could be relevant and the drivers have got to believe in that. I know I was talking to Rusty Wallace over the weekend, we were together at a little engagement, and he was saying how much he liked picking the spring. Well, that would be the very wrong thing today. A driver cannot pick the spring for his car. He’s got to tell the crew and let the crew tell the engineer and let the engineer talk to the computer about what the car is doing and what a particular change – what effect it would have – and then they have to believe in that and go forward with it. I know if we looked at the progress of all of our teams this year, they’ve not all been at the best of their ability a lot of the time and a lot of that had to do with the fact that they didn’t believe in the information that the engineers were telling them about what was gonna be right and wrong, but it’s a real tough thing, particularly with Matt and with Greg and with Jeff Gordon and all the senior guys that have been used to having art be the bigger factor in determining what they would run to saying, ‘Now, I’ve really got to step back and let somebody else tell me what’s good for me,’ and believe in it enough to go drive it off into turn one with great speed.”

JACK ROUSH CONTINUED — THOUGHTS ON NO TESTING? “My big interest is trying to let all the anxiety that goes into our broader economy and not really impact the business of entertaining folks in NASCAR stock car racing here. I’m a proponent of the race tracks reducing the ticket prices if they have to to fill up the stands so that the sponsors and everybody that supports the thing can get their value from having the maximum number of people exposed to what we do. I’m interested if the manufacturers continue to have the challenge that they’ve got – the automobile manufacturers – and seeing to it that not one manufacturer is forced to drop out and the teams that they’re associated with are forced to not be as competitive as they were, so I am in support for the broader reasons of not having the testing program, not having the testing program that we discussed and was almost agreed upon before this last turn in the economy, and I’m also a proponent of saying that I don’t want to go testing anyplace. If everybody would agree, if all the teams will agree that we won’t go to the skid pads, we won’t go to Pikes Peak, we won’t go to the other places we could go outside of NASCAR’s supervision, I don’t want to do that either. I want to try to make the racing as affordable as it can be for the sponsors and as interesting and affordable as it can be for the fans. The fact is, nobody that’s there – nobody that’s in the top 35 needs to have the number of tests that we had last year and we can certainly go on a diet and not have them next year.”

CARL EDWARDS CONTINUED – CAN YOU TALK ABOUT HOW YOU GET SUCH GOOD FUEL MILEAGE? DO YOU HAVE A HYBRID UNDER THE HOOD? “There are a couple of things. First of all, it was neat that a Hybrid Fusion did pace the field and that a Ford won with fuel mileage. I thought that was neat. I used to have this little junk car that I drove around and I would take my trips to Charlotte and I could make it on one stop if I was really, really good with the pedal. So I used to drive this car for 12 hours and you could go the first six and then the second six without stopping, and it would be about 10 or 20 miles short if you drove it like you wanted, so I did a lot of those trips. I don’t know if that really makes a difference. I think it’s just how I drive and I can tell you one thing, Bob was telling me to go slower than I was going and I just new Matt was gonna make it, so I was really nervous that Matt was gonna make it and he was gonna be in front of me, so I went a little faster than I should have, and when Matt ran out with three to go I thought, ‘Man, I have screwed this up big-time. This is bad.’ So it made me really nervous and I’m glad we made it, though. I don’t know what that’s about, Bob, exactly, but I’m glad we’re getting good fuel mileage.” CAN YOU TALK ABOUT WINNING THE LAST RACE FOR OFFICE DEPOT? “Office Depot came on board when really me and what I was gonna do or what we were gonna do with that 99 team, there was no guarantee that we were gonna go out and run as well as we did, and they came on board. It’s been great to be a representative for them. They do a lot in the communities. They’ve given away, I believe, a million backpacks to kids that need them. They’ve included me in that and I’ve been able to hand those backpacks to the organizations and the kids and we went down to Hattiesburg, Mississippi. Those people had been devastated by a hurricane down there and we gave a school, I can’t remember exactly how much it was, but I think it was $100,000 worth of stuff. Overall, it’s been things like that that I’ve been proud to be involved with Office Depot. So it’s a little bittersweet to win the final race with them that we’re in, but I think this is a great way to end it. I’m excited that they’re staying in the sport. I think Tony will do a great job for them and it’ll be neat to race against that Office Depot car next year.”

JACK ROUSH CONTINUED — ON MONDAY LAYOFFS ARE EXPECTED. WHAT ARE YOUR THOUGHTS ABOUT THE FUTURE? “The real risk is race teams folding. As long as we’ve got 48 or 50 entries for the Cup Series for 43 spots, there’s lots of jobs out there. In our case, we haven’t had a lot of extra people. We’ve got a model for how we run our teams and build our cars and it is fairly frugal. We don’t have a reduction planned for any of our programs that have got the same activity level as they did last year, but there has been some economies of the car of tomorrow. If you looked at where we were a year ago, we were running two different kinds of cars, so that required a staffing increase for most of the teams that enabled or justified a reduction on that account. Most of our reduction was in the area of car building and that’s already behind us as far as Roush Fenway is concerned. At this point, we’ve only got two truck teams planned with sponsorship for 2009 and we’ve had an adjustment there. There may be a little more to that with some of the road crew next week, but, by and large, 95 percent of our staff is in place and is not subject to a dislocation. But the bigger concern I’ve got is we keep the racing affordable, the race teams affordable for the sponsors, and we’re able to keep these other race teams in business. That’s where the jeopardy is for job loss.”

FRONTSTRETCH LIVE AT THE TRACK THIS WEEKEND AT LOUDON!
Popular writer Amy Henderson will be tracking all the action at New Hampshire from inside the garage, giving you the stories you’re looking for with a special edition of our Newsletter planned over the weekend. It all culminates on Sunday with her special participation in our LIVE blog during the Lenox Industrial Tools 301, paired with our usual panel of expert analysts! It’s three days of going the extra mile for you … so we hope you enjoy it!

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

 

©2000 - 2008 Kim DeHaven and Frontstetch.com. Thanks for visiting the Frontstretch!