CARL EDWARDS -- No. 99 Office Depot Ford Fusion (Finished 43rd)
"I saw Mr. Green get turned around there in the Best Buy
car and I just have to apologize to Petty Enterprises and everybody on
the 45 car. I thought Green flipped over or something because we went in
the smoke, so I just dove to the bottom and Kyle came down. I should
have been more worried about stopping my car than people from behind
running into me and I ended up being the guy that got Kyle. It's a
terrible day. I hope the rest of the show is good. I just feel bad for
my whole crew and Kyle's crew."
WHAT HAPPENED? "I saw
the 66 car get sideways and go flying up the race track and I thought I
could do a good job of going underneath him and I ended up running into
the back of Kyle Petty. It's just a tough call. I was worried
about guys running over me and I ended up running over somebody.
I'm very frustrated and feel bad for those guys, too."
HAVE
YOU EVER BEEN ON ANOTHER CAR BEFORE? "No, I hadn't been in
that position before. I was hoping Kyle is OK. I still hope he's
alright, I haven't seen him yet."
HOW DISAPPOINTING IS IT?
"It's extremely disappointing. It's not how we wanted
to start our season, but we'll just have to work harder."
***
HERMIE SADLER -- No. 00 Aaron's Ford Fusion (Finished 40th)
"We were a little bit tight. We didn't have the car
driving as good as we needed to be as competitive as we wanted to be, but
we had a pretty good day going. We were still on the lead lap and still
adjusting on it. We were looking forward to the last couple of laps, but
something happened to the engine. If it weren't for Robert and
Doug Yates, and Jack Roush, we wouldn't be here in the first place,
so everybody chipped in and we had a great effort. Thanks to
Aaron's and everybody involved and even though we didn't
finish the race, it was a good momentum builder for us and we'll go
to California and try to keep getting better."
YOU FINALLY MADE
THIS RACE. HOW HAS THIS DAY BEEN OVERALL? "It's been like a
dream come true. Everybody who has ever raced, starting in go-karts like
I did all the way up to this level, always dreamed of being in the
Daytona 500 so we got that experience. Once the flag dropped we wanted
to be competitive and we were getting it better, but we just
weren't where we wanted to be. All in all it was a great day. We
can go back and work on this car and take it to Talladega and make it
even better. I also got a good day of working with my new guys.
Everybody on the team is brand new. I don't even know half of
their names yet, so we got a good day under our belt and we'll go
to California and try them again."
***
MARK MARTIN -- No. 6 AAA Ford Fusion (Finished 12th)
WERE YOU HAPPY WITH YOUR DAY? "No. We had a great car. That's a
shame. We kind of wasted it there, but you have problems and
unfortunately we just couldn't get back through the pack that
good. There was just a lot of traffic out there. We had a killer car.
I probably couldn't have won the race, but certainly could have
contended easily for a top five finish. We got back to 12th or 13th
anyway, but certainly had a lot better stuff than that. We ran around
the top five until we had our little problem, but you'll have
that. This is my last Daytona 500. I plan to be on the couch with a
remote control watching it next year."
WHAT HAPPENED WITH THE PIT
STOP? "I don't know. You'll have to ask the team. It
was something about the gas wouldn't go in."
***
MATT KENSETH -- No. 17 DeWalt Ford Fusion (Finished 15th)
WAS THE NEW RULE APPLIED CORRECTLY TODAY? "Well, Tony took me out
intentionally. There's no two ways about that. He was mad because
earlier in the race when I passed him he got loose, which I didn't
think I did anything wrong. I thought I left him plenty of room.
That's the same way he raced. I actually learned that from him
racing here close to people, so he wrecked me intentionally and got put
to the end of the longest line. I don't think that's too big
of a penalty at a drafting track, but that's just the way it is. I
thought Mike Helton did a great job this week explaining it in the
driver's meeting that it was about aggressive driving and not
necessarily bump drafting. I'm just really disappointed. Tony
went out and said all that stuff earlier in the week. If he's
worried about people's lives and everything, and then he's
gonna wreck you on purpose at 190, I wasn't too happy with that.
We'll just go on and try to do a good job next week and be happy
with where we finished. We'll go on to California and start
over."
***
JAMIE MCMURRAY -- No. 26 Crown Royal Ford Fusion (Finished 37th)
"First off, I need to apologize to Kurt. I got into him.
That was 100 percent my fault. I feel really bad because he had a car
capable of winning today and I kind of screwed that up for him. We had a
good car. I tried to make a move on the outside and I got hung out, and
then the 31, I don't think he could help it. He just got tight and
there wasn't a whole lot you could do from there."
***
DALE JARRETT -- No. 88 UPS Ford Fusion (Finished 10th)
"In parts of the race we were pretty good, but I needed more green
flag racing. We weren't as good and probably as aggressive as some
of them on the new tires, but there at the end I got my car pretty good
and was able to go and make up a few spots. But it was just about
surviving. There was a lot of running into each other and things like
that."
HOW WAS THE RACE IN GENERAL? "It was typical racing
out there, but I saw a lot of giving and taking. When you put cars that
close together and everybody is running the same speed you're gonna
see a lot of that. It seemed like everybody was doing a good job. At
the end of the race you expect everything to kind of break loose and
people just start getting as much as they can."
JEFF GREEN BLAMED
YOU FOR THAT ACCIDENT EARLY IN THE RACE. "I don't know how
he's blaming me because I was on the bumper of the car in front of
me and just hit him. Jeff was coming up. I don't know if he was
trying to get air on that or what and he touched the left-front of my
car. He's got to know that somebody else is there, too."
***
GREG BIFFLE -- No. 16 National Guard Ford Fusion (Finished 31st)
"I just blew a right-rear tire. It's kind of
unfortunate, but I'm kind of happy because we still got a decent
finish out of it. After I spun everybody stopped and I got going again
and beat everybody to the start-finish line. It worked out for me. We
had a good car until the 09 started driving in the middle. He'd
drive in the middle and would go nowhere and get passed back. Finally he
ran somebody into the wall and they slammed in the side of me and my car
wouldn't run after that. It just bent the steering."
HOW
WAS THE RACING TODAY? "I think it was calmer than it could have
been. I was pretty happy with what I saw."
***
ELLIOTT SADLER -- No. 38 M&M's Fusion (Finished 4th)
"Man, this is a great finish. It's a great way to get the
season started off. You know what? We wanted to win, but to come back
from all the adversity today and finish fourth, it's a great day
for us. My guys never gave up, awesome pit stops all day, they're
the ones that kept me pumped up, kept me in the ballgame and Tommy made
some great calls. Good, good finish for us. This is great."
GREAT
WEEK FOR YOU... "Yeah, we got a win on Thursday and got a
top-five here this weekend. This is a good shot in the arm that we need
as a race team. We got a great leader now, we got a great bunch of guys,
I got the best pit crew on pit road and I'm going to have a lot of
fun driving this car this year."
WHAT DID YOU THINK WHEN YOU SAW
THE 8 CAR IN YOUR REARVIEW MIRROR TOWARD THE END AND AGAIN FOR THAT
GREEN-WHITE-CHECKERED FINISH? "Me and the 8 wanted to work
together, but his car worked better on the top and mine worked better on
the bottom, so it was hard for us to work together. But, you know,
he's always going to have a good push going to the front, we just
weren't able to help each other today. I do got to thank Clint
Bowyer, he helped me a tremendous amount today. And I had a lot of fun.
It was a great Daytona 500."
YOU WIN A DUEL AND FINISH FOURTH
TODAY. THAT'S A GOOD WEEK FOR ANYBODY. "I think there's
about 40 teams out here that would want to trade this week with us.
It's been a great week. We qualified good, we finished good, the
car's in one piece, we've got a good car for Talladega. It
was a great weekend."
YOU WERE IN THE MIDDLE OF THE PACK FOR MOST
OF THE RACE.
WHAT HAPPENED NEAR THE END THAT COULD GET YOU NEAR THE
FRONT? "We just made the right decisions and Tommy made some great
adjustments on the car and got it where I could run on the bottom or run
up high. Everything went well. Just being in the right place at the right
time. This is a 200-mile-per-hour chess game, and for once I made all the
right decisions."
AND YOUR TEAMMATE, DALE JARRETT, JUST MISSED A
TOP 10. "Oh, did he? That's great. I hadn't seen him
the whole race, so it's good that he came out and finished 11th, so
that's a great start for him, and a great start for the whole Yates
team to come here and run as good as it did, it was fun."
***
KEVIN LEPAGE -- No. 61 AMP Energy Drink Ford (Finished 25th)
"It's a finish. You know, we have AMP Energy Drink that came
aboard this weekend and what we wanted to do was finish the 500 for them.
We led a few laps there, got some bonus points. We're in the top 25
in points right now going into California and that's what
we've got to do, we've got to try and keep in the top 25, so
we don't have to race our way in every week."
CAN YOU USE
THIS RACE AS A SPRINGBOARD FOR THE REST OF THE SEASON? "Yeah.
It's an old car. We knew we were going to be behind the 8 ball
coming here but Greg Conner and all the guys got it in the show and now
we're just getting ready for California."
***
KEN SCHRADER -- No. 21 Little Debbie/Motorcraft/USAF Fusion (Finished 9th)
NOT A BAD WAY TO START THE SEASON, IS IT?
"No, we'll take it, for sure. A top 10 at Daytona."
HOW
DID THE RACE GO FOR YOU? "Well, I hovered toward the back, but not
intentionally. Then I messed up the nose of the car, and how the motor
held together, I don't know. Then they fixed it. Then those 10 guys
peeled in and I said, 'I'll take 10 spots here and see what
happens later.' Earlier, when we were the highest up we were today
on a set of six- or seven-lappers we stayed out. Then, we just got in the
right lane. We had to make a lot of adjustments, the weather change got
us pretty severely. It's a good way to start '06."
ON
THE NEAR-MISS ON PIT ROAD. "Listen, I'll go to the back any
time, before I tear my fenders off. I knew I had to turn to keep from
tearing my fenders off but then I saw the pit right there, so I thought
I'd still hook a left. Just kind of slung it around, put on four
tires, backed up, took off."
-ford racing
