DAVID RAGAN – No. 6 UPS Ford Fusion (finished 38th) – “From our point of view, they were wrecking in front of us, and our spotter did a good job and he told us to just go high, and I just tried not to run into the guy in front of me, and I think it was [Jeff] Burton, maybe, who came back up the track. I just didn’t have anywhere to go. Hindsight is always 20-20, and maybe I would’ve checked up more, but I thought that the top of the track was clear, and as soon as I can see light, all of a sudden it wasn’t clear.”
Ford Racing
BEFORE THAT, HOW WAS THE RACING? IT LOOKED LIKE YOU COULD RUN SIDE-BY-SIDE, BUT IT ALSO LOOKED LIKE IT WAS DIFFICULT TO PASS. “It’s very tough to pass here. I felt like our UPS Ford was getting better. We got back to probably as low as 35th or 40th, but then when we were up in the top 20 we could hang with everybody. So, yeah, very, very hard to pass, but that’s just the double-file restarts and everyone running hard for all they could get.”
DO YOU THINK THERE WILL BE MORE OF THAT AS DRIVERS GET MORE COMFORTABLE WITH THE DOUBLE-FILE RESTARTS AND, PERHAPS, BECOME MORE AGGRESSIVE? “I mean there’s always going to be a lot of give-and-take at some tracks, but New Hampshire is one of these tracks where everyone fights for that ideal spot. The second groove is not perfect, the bottom groove is not perfect – we all try to split the difference. Everyone said the double-file restarts would cause some action, and when people don’t give-and-take, that’s what happens.”
WHAT HAPPENED ON THAT RESTART? “Our spotter did a great job. He said people were checking up in front of me, and all I try to do in a situation like that is just try not to run over the guy in front of me, sop I just stayed off the bumper of, I think, one of the Red Bull cars in front of me, and I thought we were clear. I thought we were good, and then all of a sudden a white car came from the bottom and just ran over our left front. So, in a situation like that, as long as you don’t pile-drive the person in front of you and cause more of a wreck, that’s all you can do.”
GREG BIFFLE – No. 16 3M Ford Fusion (finished 18th) – “We had a pretty good car, we just lost our track position there. We decided to pit just for safety, check the fenders and all that, there wasn’t anything wrong with the car, I shouldn’t have pitted, but more importantly, we didn’t have the setup quite right. I moved the track bar with five minutes to go in practice, got a false reading, and it’s kind of unfortunate, you know? This rain just isn’t good. We get screwed every time the rain comes out. These rain races – there’s six, eight guys up there that hadn’t pitted yet, we were running 10th, 11th, 12th, in there, and we finished 18th.”
WHETHER YOU WERE RUNNING NEAR THE TOP 10 OR TOP 20, IT LOOKED LIKE YOU COULDN’T PASS. WAS IT TOUGH TO PASS? “Oh, yeah. You can’t pass with these cars. It’s really tough, and it’s been like that forever. You’ve just got to be in the right position. You know, there was some passing going on, but not a whole lot.”
BOBBY LABONTE – No. 96 Ask.com Ford Fusion (finished 21st) – “We just missed a little bit, and you’re off a little bit. We were off a little bit more, but we had several laps on our left-side tires – we needed four tires; we would’ve been a little bit better. It would’ve helped us out in that middle run where we got a lap down. Fortunately, we got back on the lead lap. We got tires on it, and it was okay. We were a little bit better, but just not good enough.”
YOU DID MANAGE TO LEAD NINE LAPS DURING GREEN-FLAG PIT STOPS. HOW DID YOUR CAR RUN OUT IN CLEANER AIR? “It was all right. We just stayed out trying to catch a caution, and it didn’t come out. We pitted, and several laps later the caution comes out and some of the guys were on a different sequence for some reason or another. It’s frustrating, but overall, I think, we were a little better than we had been.”
- PCGCampbell for Ford Racing, Press Release