Catchfence

Ford Racing

YOU TALKED ABOUT THIS RACE BEING HELPFUL FOR FRONT ROW MOTORSPORTS. WHAT DID YOU LEARN FOR NEXT WEEK? “Well, it is but this is our backup car, so now we’re in a tight space.”

KASEY KAHNE – No. 9 Budweiser Ford Fusion (Finished 2nd) – ARE YOU GLAD YOU DIDN’T PIT WITH THAT WRECK HAPPENING BEHIND YOU? “Yeah, that actually worked out great for us. We had a great Budweiser Ford the entire race. I was having a blast out there. The racing was good, it was side-by-side, and there was a lot going on. We were right there. Even on the restart there, Harvick got in front of me and I was pushing him and I was right on the white line. I was like, ‘Man, the tires aren’t too bad.’ So I was happy. The Roush Yates Ford engine is definitely an improvement. That’s nice to have.”

A GOOD FINISH. “I’m pretty happy with that. My car was really good all night. We were sliding around a lot and bouncing off the track. It was doing some things we didn’t exactly want it to do, but it handled awesome and was really fast. The Roush Yates Ford engine was unbelievable for me. I loved it, so I can’t wait for next week. We’ll just keep working on the car and keep trying to get better and, hopefully, we’ll have a good shot in the 150 and the 500 as well.”

MATT KENSETH – No. 17 Crown Royal Ford Fusion (Finished 16th) – “You don’t expect it because you know that you can wreck anytime at a plate race, but you don’t really expect it. When you’re behind Jeff Gordon, who is one of the sport’s best, and the 16 was on old tires. I don’t know, one of them got into each other and lost it or something.”

CARL EDWARDS – No. 99 Scotts Ford Fusion (Finished 17th) – “I didn’t see what happened, but they all started wrecking there. I saw Biffle get real sideways, but I had a lot of fun. We led a bunch of laps and it’s just too bad it ended that way. That was coming for a long time. Guys did a really good job, everybody did, the whole day or racing pretty clean.”

WHAT DID YOU LEARN FOR NEXT WEEK? “My pit crew is really good. That’s good.”

KASEY KAHNE PRESS CONFERENCE – “I thought it was a great race. I really enjoyed it. From the time it went green, we started 19th, and just kind of marched our way right up to the top three or four cars and raced there for the majority of the race. It was a lot of fun to have a Budweiser Ford that fast and the Roush Yates engine, the way it comes up through the gears, the way it races, the way you can get pushes and push other cars was something that was new to me and I enjoyed it. I thought it was pretty awesome.”

DID IT FEEL ANY DIFFERENT OUT THERE WITH THE WAY THE CARS RACED? “To me, my car slid around a lot, but it always turned. You can’t really push off these corners because it kills your straightaway speed, to me. So the way ours was, it slid around a lot but it was fast that way, and I thought it was some pretty exciting racing. I was on edge from the time it went green. Even in the first 25. In intros there were guys saying, ‘Should we take it easy? Should we do this? Should we do that?’ And I felt like it was on from the time the green flag came out tonight.”

DID YOU RECEIVE MORE BUMP DRAFTING THAN NORMAL? “I was getting hit and I was hitting cars, but I thought it was pretty similar at times the way the packs get caught up. I think the biggest thing is you can just get some huge bursts of speed and get some big pushes, but more bump drafting or any of that, I don’t know, I thought it was probably pretty similar to how it’s been.”

WHAT COULD YOU TELL FROM THE ROUSH YATES HORSEPOWER AND HOW IT COMPARED TO WHAT YOU HAVE BEEN DRIVING? “The way the car handled was fairly similar to what we’ve done in the past. I still have the same team, so we’re still doing a lot of the same things, which is really nice. I understand how our cars feel and the way they’re set up. The biggest difference was just the engine and from the time it goes green, up through the gears, second, third, fourth, it just pulls hard. I can bump a little bit and get bumped a lot, so that, to me, was really good. I was pleased. I was really happy with it. You come down here and you always see how well the Roush Yates engines run in the past. They’ve won a lot of races at this track over the years, so I feel like it was something to look forward to and I was real happy with it and look forward to next week. I think it’s gonna be a great week for us.”

IS THERE ANYTHING YOU CAN DO WITH THIS PACKAGE YOU COULDN’T DO WITH THE PREVIOUS ONE? “That’s kind of tough for me because my engine is so much different and my car runs so much different than it has in the past, so it’s hard to say it was this that made you feel that way, was it the plate or the end plates? There were a lot of changes for myself at this type of a track. I like everything that’s been changed. I think it’s more exciting. Definitely in the car tonight I was excited the whole time and there was a lot of times we were on edge, so I think the changes were good.”

DID THE RACING TURN OUT LIKE YOU EXPECTED? “I was a little bit nervous because I saw one stay. You would think that more would stay out and, I mean, the whole field came in, so, yeah, I was definitely nervous. But my car handled good on the bottom, I just needed to kind of stay in front of cars. When we got one lap to go, who knows what was gonna happen. It would have been pretty wild, but we made it. It worked out well for us. I don’t know about the rest. I think it was good and pretty exciting. I liked the way the cars handled tonight.”

DOES THIS GIVE YOU SOME MOMENTUM FOR NEXT WEEK? “I think it goes away, but this is a great night for us. We run well in the Bud Shootout. We were up there all night with our Budweiser car and we have some things that we learned tonight. We didn’t get a whole lot of practice. We didn’t run that second practice because I got a fender bender a little bit in the wreck with Kurt, so we didn’t run a whole lot there, but tonight in the race I felt like I learned a lot. Talking to Kenny, there are some things we’re gonna be able to make our Daytona 500 car even better than it was tonight, hopefully, and have just as fast of a car throughout the whole week.”

WOULD YOU HAVE LIKED TO SEE THE RACE END UNDER GREEN? “I’m happy I’m right here. I don’t know. I thought it was green-white-checkered, and if it doesn’t happen, it doesn’t happen. In the driver’s meeting they did say one attempt at a two-lap green-white-checkered. That’s what I understood the way it ended was normal.”

HOW COMPETITIVE WAS THE RACING? “I thought it was really competitive. Like I said earlier, when it went green, I was two to three wide for 75 laps. I thought throughout most of the race there was action, at least where I was, and I felt like I was in the mix and had runs going. I just felt like there was a lot going on and it was exciting. I thought it was a little more than usual and I was happy with it.”

CAN YOU PLAY WITH THE THROTTLE MORE WITH THE PLATE CHANGE? “I agree. I drive like Jamie, I guess, we do similar work with our feet, but there are guys out there – I’ve always known of Harvick to lift. You hear him lifting a lot. He was lifting tonight and he was lifting three years ago, so I think it’s just a driving style and however you learn to race these types of tracks. But he’s (Jamie) definitely right on the plate. You can get speed up quicker than what you could in the past.”

- PCGCampbell for Ford Racing, Press Release