Kenseth and Ford drivers talk about Texas qualifying

GREG BIFFLE, No. 16 Filtrete Ford – “That was all she had in her. It was just a hair too loose. I wasn’t sure what it was going to be like down there in three and four with all the wind. I backed out of the throttle when it got a little yawed out but I shouldn’t have. The car was under me and I was being a little protective. We have a great car for tomorrow night so I am pretty excited about that.”

Matt Kenseth, Roush Fenway Racing Ford

Photo by: Action Sports Photography

MATT KENSETH, No. 17 Best Buy Ford – “That was good. I just would feel better if I got beat by more I guess. I felt like I got it all out of there and we just missed it a little bit. Our car has a lot of speed we just don’t have it driving exactly right yet. I had a couple different issues. A little bit of everything. It was a little too loose, but I had some other problems too.”

CARL EDWARDS, No. 99 Fastenal Ford – “We were just a little bit loose, looser than I expected. I think we will race fine though. We have 500 miles and a very fast race car so I think we should be good.”

TREVOR BAYNE, No. 21 Motorcraft/Quick Lane Ford – “I feel like it was okay. I just couldn’t get the gas down on exit. I was trying to roll to it but I kept having to back off and pump it. That slowed us down. Any time you can’t be on the gas wide open you are going slower. I feel really happy with our run and I think we will be around the top-15. It is getting cooler and these guys will go faster but I am content with where we are at right here.” YOU GUYS WERE FAST IN HAPPY HOUR TOO. “Yeah, unfortunately it doesn’t pay to win practice but it builds your confidence and makes your guys feel better and shows we have a good race car. Hopefully it will be on top when it matters tomorrow night.”

DAVID RAGAN, No. 34 Scorpion Truck Bed Liners Ford – “It wasn’t bad. We made some gains here on our race car throughout practice and I feel like we’ve got a pretty good car for the race weekend. We didn’t make many qualifying runs and I was happy with that. It was a decent pick up and hopefully that will be there in the top-20 or 25. I feel like we have one of the better cars we have had at the 1.5-mile races this year. We are just still trying to improve and work on things.”

DAVID GILLILAND, No. 38 Mod Space Ford – “I thought that was really good and a huge improvement for us as a team and myself. We have struggled this weekend really bad and right at the very end of the last practice session we got some stuff to get our car better and get it underneath me and we made some good changes so I am pretty happy.”

MATT KENSETH & GREG BIFFLE PRESS CONFERENCES

MATT KENSETH, No. 17 Best Buy Ford Fusion – THIS HAS BEEN KIND OF A CRAZY SCHEDULE. HOW HAS THAT AFFECTED YOU? “The schedules have been really different this year and even last year they did a lot of this qualifying like this. I kind of like if it is a Sunday race to have Friday afternoon be a hour-and-a-half of practice, qualify and then usually we would always try to do some race practice, some qualifying practice, qualify and then have something to think about overnight before finishing up race practice Saturday morning. It is the same for everybody. They line you up by your first practice speed and everybody knew it would be important to go out late because the track should get better. Most people did half race runs and half qualifying runs in the first practice yesterday. We chose not to do anymore qualifying practice until right now. It is a different schedule but the same for everyone.”

HOW MUCH HAVE SPONSORSHIP ISSUES AFFECTED YOUR PERFORMANCE? “I don’t think it has affected our performance. I think our performance has been good so far this year and our cars have all had paint jobs every race. It is something I don’t really concern myself with too much. I do the best job I can do on the race track and the best job I can off the race track representing the sponsors I have and I let the sales department handle the rest of it.”

GREG BIFFLE, No. 16 Filtrete Ford Fusion - MARTIN TRUEX JR. IS ON THE POLE. DO YOU VIEW HIM AND MWR RACING ANY DIFFERENTLY THAN YOU DID MAYBE A YEAR AGO OR EVEN SIX MONTHS AGO? “Well, certainly this year we’ve been paying attention to him being that they have been running good all season. I’ve talked to Martin a little bit and I know that they’ve worked hard over the winter and obviously they’ve picked their program up tremendously because Mark (Martin) is running good and the 56 car is running good. I think you pay attention to whoever you are racing with each week. I would say yes.”

I HEARD YOU SAY UP THERE THAT YOU MISSED IT IN THREE AND FOUR. IS THAT WHERE YOUR LAP WENT WRONG? “You know, I have to say that normally you can come back and say you should have done this or that different but I think our lap was pretty good. In one and two I couldn’t have done any better down there. In three and four maybe I drove in a little light because of the wind and I was worried about getting it on the bottom. That means I got on the gas super early and the car started stepping out a little bit. I wasn’t sure I could push it all the way down so I kind of feathered back on the gas and pushed it back down and felt it step out. I feathered the gas two brief times and then held it down. I probably should have rode it up the track a little bit and that might have been a tick faster, I don’t know. I was pretty close to getting all there was there and if I had held it down I don’t know if I would have went faster or not but it would have been close because we were all so close anyway.”