MARK MARTIN-6-Scotts Ford F-150 (Finished 1st)
"I just want to thank
everybody, especially the Roush Racing guys, and Scotts for supporting
this thing and coming on board. Those Ford drivers were awesome out
there. Driver X Erik Darnell did a fabulous job and he got a chance to
lead the race. We got a lot of help from the Ford drivers. I was really
sweating there at the end because I was afraid they were going to gang
up on us, the other brand. But, I had a little bit of help there at the
end and everything just worked out. Mike Beam and everybody at Roush
Racing has done their homework and it really showed today."
WHAT COULD
YOU HAVE DONE IF THE RESTART WENT GREEN TILL THE END? "You know Todd was
really strong and he ran a really smart race. I just had to make sure
that I kept him behind me and I didn't have to do that long because the
caution came back out. Like I say, I had a lot of help from my friends
out there, and these guys made my job a little bit easier with a great
truck."
YOUR THOUGHTS ON THE TRUCK SERIES. "I loved it before, but I
love it more now."
***
ERIK DARNELL-99-Woolrich Ford F-150 (Finished 6th)
"This is just
incredible tonight for the whole Roush Racing team. We've got a great
sponsor on board tonight, Woolrich, and we're hoping to get them for
the rest of the season. I know that whole family is back home watching.
Man, we had a great truck. We came from a lap down. John Quinn and Chris
Becker spotting for us, and all of the help I got from Mark out there on
the track getting back to the front is just incredible."
***
RICK CRAWFORD-14-Circle Bar Truck Corral Ford F-150 (Finished 8th)
"Congratulations to Mark Martin and especially Roush-Yates engines; they
gave us something under the hood. We had an opportunity to win this
race, but I hope that Mark thinks we helped him win. We worked together
for Ford, and the F-150 did a good job tonight with a top-10 effort. I
told the guys on the radio that that's 28 spots better than we did last
year, so I'm very pleased with the outcome. I wish we would have been
in Victory Lane, but it didn't play our way."
WHAT IS YOUR OPINION ON
THE FINAL RESTART AND THE WAY THE WAY ENDED? "You know going in what the
rule is and you have one shot at a green-white-checkered finish, and
that's what happened. It's no fault of anybody's. I would have liked for
it to stay green, but you know going in what the rule is and you have
to stick with it. And, it's a good rule. You've got one shot and let it
be."
***
STACY COMPTON-21-Kingsford Ford F-150 (Finished 25th)
"The guys gave
me a truck that could have possibly won the race. I wonder if Mark's
going to split his purse with me, though, because even at the end I
pushed him up trough there twice. Just an awesome truck. Gary Gogswell,
Fatback, Andretti, all of the guys worked hard on this thing. Just our
luck, we got a tear-off on the grille the first thing and it got hot and
we lost two laps. With this configuration, you just can't get them back.
We had a good enough truck that we could get up there, but we couldn't
get our lap back. It's disappointing, but I'm pretty pumped for the guys
to let them know that they can build a truck that can run that good."
WAS IT THE RIGHT CALL TO DROP BACK AT THE START OF THE RACE? "I think
our call was the right call if we wouldn't have gotten that tear-off on
the grille. We still could run as fast as the leaders with just three
of us together. No doubt it was still the right move. In hindsight it's
pretty easy to do, but I think if we had it to do again we would have
done the same thing. We had to get in the show, and we got in the show.
We had a great a race truck and things just didn't work out. It was
a good feeling to know we had a truck capable of wining and a truck
capable of running with Mark all night long. I think that says worlds
for the first time these guys have built a truck and doing what they
did."
***
JON WOOD-20-U.S. Air Force Ford F-150 (Finished 16th)
"We had some
trash on the grille early on and that pretty much set the pace for the
entire race. Right when we redeemed ourselves from that I lost third
gear, then second gear, then first gear, and all I had was fourth. All
in all, it was a day where hopefully we got all of the bugs out for when
we go to California."
YOU OPTED TO FALL BACK AT THE START OF THE RACE.
WAS THAT THE RIGHT CHOICE? "It was the right decision, I don't question
that one bit. The only thing that was in question was how we got the
trash on the grille and how we broke third gear."
***
BRAD KESELOWSKI-29-Melling Ford F-150 (Finished 34th)
WHAT HAPPENED?
"A guy got in the wall up there and there was nowhere to go. The group
in front of me tried to check up and they just ran over each other from
what I could tell. It's a self-cleaning race track and I couldn't find
anywhere to hide from it. I think Joey Miller came down in front of
our Melling Ford. It's unfortunate, but that's the way that this goes.
Hopefully we'll be able to make it to California, sponsor pending."
***
TERRY COOK-10-Ford Power Stroke Diesel by Int'l F-150 (Finished
10th)
"I'm disappointed in that finish. NASCAR does a great
job with everything they do but when they finally took away the
green-white-checkered finish from the truck series indefinitely. In
other words, they gave us one shot at it, and that to me is wrong.
You've robbed the fans here, and you rob the fans wherever you're at.
We're all professional drivers, and if it takes us 15 times to get a
green-white-checkered finish in then that's what we need to do. We had
a freak occurrence two years ago at Gateway where we had a situation
where we tore up some trucks, but we need to figure it out because I
think we were all robbed tonight. I'm pleased that we got a top-10 in
the first start of the season with a new crew chief. The truck was just
not perfect tonight. It was good, but it wasn't perfect. We did our best
and avoided all of the wrecks. We said we were going to ride until the
end of the race and I ended up driving to the front and we were pretty
pleased with the truck. I know we were pretty pleased with the truck and
unfortunately I think what got us into trouble was we had a right-rear
tire going down and we didn't know it at the time and made a lot of
adjustments to compensate for it, and unlimitedly ended the race pretty
much right where we started the race from. Overall, I'm very pleased
with the effort, but I'm kind of disappointed that we couldn't end this
thing under green."
-ford racing-
