Catchfence

Ford Racing

• Greg Biffle won his 15th career NASCAR Sprint Cup Series race and first since winning at Dover in September of 2008 (64 races).
• This marks the first points race win for Ford’s FR9 engine.  Kasey Kahne won his Gatorade Duel 150 non-points race at Daytona earlier this season.
• The win was the 117^th all-time NSCS win for Roush Fenway Racing.
• Today’s win was the 596^th all-time NASCAR Sprint Cup Series win for Ford Racing.
• Ford’s win today was its 20^th NSCS victory at Pocono Raceway.

GREG BIFFLE – No. 16 3M Ford Fusion – VICTORY LANE INTERVIEW – YOU WEREN’T HAPPY WITH YOUR CAR EARLY.  HOW WERE YOU ABLE TO WIN?  “Greg Erwin and those guys just never gave up.  This 3M Ford Fusion, it was mostly engine.  This engine ran so good.  I abused the crap out of it all day and this one is for Jack.  We know he’s watching and we’re thinking about him.  I need to thank Sprint and the fans and 3M and everybody for not giving up on this team.  We’ve been really tough and answered all the questions about the Ford and there it is.  Ford is running really good.  I just wish I would have won last week, too.”

WHAT HAS IT BEEN LIKE TO TRY AND GET THIS CAR BACK IN THE WINNER’S CIRCLE?  “It’s been really tough. We’ve worked so hard.  RPM and all the guys over there have helped us and it’s been a team effort.  The guys at the shop, everybody has been working really hard on these cars.  We had a great run at Chicago, a great run at Indy and we came here and won.  It’s a lot of everybody’s hard work paying off right now.”

HOW BIG IS THIS FOR YOU?  “I forgot what to do.  This is big.  I was really excited to see Elliott Sadler win yesterday in the Truck Series and I kind of feel the same right now.  We know we have a great team and I know I can do it behind the wheel and we were able to prove it today.”

ELLIOTT SADLER – No. 19 U.S. Air Force Ford Fusion – “I’m fine. I’m okay.  I’m a little sore, I think, from where the belts grabbed me.  It knocked the breath out of me pretty good, but it’s definitely the hardest hit I’ve ever had in a race car.  These new cars are built to be safer and if I can get out of that and walk through that, I think it did its job.  I’m not sure what happened.  I know some guys got spun out or moved around up in front of us, and I saw some smoke.  Everybody started checking up and I checked up, but whoever was behind did not and ran in the back of us and knocked me down through the grass.  It’s not the day we wanted to have with the U.S. Air Force Ford.  It’s just a tough day.”

AFTER WINNING YESTERDAY HOW DO YOU PUT THIS IN PERSPECTIVE?  “Yesterday was a great day and it’s still a great weekend.  It was so cool.  All my guys on my 19 car and everybody at the U.S. Air Force and Stanley and Coca-Cola and everybody called me and congratulated me.  That was a great win for us.  I messed up today.  I spun out on the frontstretch, but my team didn’t give up.  We were fighting our way back through it and just didn’t make it to the end.  I’m just glad I’m okay.  I’m glad my team at home does a good job of building safe race cars.”

ARE YOU OKAY?  “Yeah, I’m okay.  I’m a little sore.  The breath definitely got knocked out of me.  It was probably the hardest hit I’ve ever had in a race car, but I’ve got to thank all my guys back at home that put these things together.  It knocked the engine out of it.  I know it knocked the swaybar tube and the whole swaybar out of it and the whole left-front wheel assembly, but I’m still in one piece so it did its job.  The way it hit the guardrail back there was pretty tough.  It’s not the run we wanted to have with U.S. Air Force car, but we’ll go get ‘em next week.”

WHAT DID YOU SEE?  “I saw smoke and some cars sideways up in front of me.  I didn’t know what happened until I just saw a replay in the infield care center, but they started stacking up in front of us and everybody started slowing down and I started slowing down too, and somebody ran in the back of me.  I have no idea.  I haven’t seen the replay, but somebody just ran into the back of  us and turned us inside through the wet grass into the guardrail, so I was along for the ride.  It was a very hard hit.   I’m a little sore through my chest and my stomach, but that’s from where the seatbelts did their job and grabbed me and kept me in the car, so I’m thankful for that.”

DAVID RAGAN – No. 6 UPS Ford Fusion (Finished 14^th) – “I think we were gonna finish about 15^th to 20^th.  Our car had speed, but wherever you came out of the pits is kind of where you ran.  We got kind of beat up there for the first couple of laps. Everybody else had a little fresher tires than we did, but once we evened out we were okay.  Donnie Wingo made a good call there at the end.  It’s not a win, but it’s good to see Biffle in Victory Lane.  That’s a win for the team.  We always want a little bit more, but that’s a lot better than we ran in June, so we’ll build on that.”  \

SOME RFR GUYS TALKED ABOUT TAKING MORE CHANCES IN THE RACES.  WAS THAT SOMETHING YOU PUT INTO ACTION ON THAT LAST STOP?  “Where we’re at in the season we’ve got to be risky and I think that we’ve learned from watching some of these other teams.  They take a lot of chances and they put themselves in position, so I think that’s something we’ve got to continue to work on and it’s fun to race like that.  When we have a car that’s somewhat decent to drive, you can take a chance like that.”

PAUL MENARD – No. 98 CertainTeed/Menards Ford Fusion (Finished 13^th) – “Track position was big.  We fought that all day, so we took two tires at the end and that was probably the best the car had been all day.   That decision really had more to do with the rain and track position was pretty big.”

CARL EDWARDS – No. 99 Aflac Ford Fusion (Finished 3^rd) – HOW WOULD YOU SUM UP TODAY?  “It’s a long day, but that’s a Ford in Victory Lane.  Ford makes the best cars on the road and here at Roush Fenway Racing we’ve been working really hard on these Fords and it’s cool to see Greg get that victory.  That’s a good run for us, that’s a great points run.  I’ve got to thank Aflac and Scotts and all these fans for sticking around, but Aflac always has me under their wing.  It’s cool they’ve been sticking behind us and, hopefully, we can make a run for this Chase and maybe we can get the next win.  But that’s good for all of us.  Get well, Jack.”

CARL EDWARDS PRESS CONFERENCE – “That’s a few weeks in a row we’ve run really well.  That’s what we needed.  It’s cool to see a Ford in Victory Lane, especially with everything that happened this week.  I spoke with Jack this morning and he kind of put out the message that he wanted to talk to all of us before we got in the race cars.  It’s pretty cool to say the least to have a race win for him and two cars in the top three.  I feel like we’re building a little bit of momentum towards the Chase and that’s what we need.  We haven’t run the way we’ve run in the last month for a long time, so it’s a good day for us.”

HOW WOULD YOU ASSESS THE SAFETY SITUATION AT THIS TRACK WITH SADLER’S ACCIDENT?  “No, I didn’t see the hit.  I don’t know what happened.  From my standpoint, though, this is a fine race track.  I feel safe driving on it, but I didn’t see that hit.”

HOW WAS JACK THIS MORNING?  “He was Jack.  ‘Don’t mess anything up.  Don’t wreck.’  ‘I hope I don’t break any parts for you and I’ll see you soon.’  He was excited for the race today.  I could hear it in his voice.  He’s been through a lot this last week.  He needed a race today.  I wish he could be here, but he really needed that victory.  That’s pretty cool.  I’m sure he is very hard to handle for all those nurses right now in the hospital.”

WITH 80 TO GO YOU WERE 10^TH AND THEN IT LOOKED LIKE ALL OF YOU GUYS WERE SHOT OUT OF A CANNON.  WHAT HAPPENED?  “I felt like it was kind of a lottery.  I started one time, I don’t know if it was that restart, but one of them all of a sudden I was like, ‘Oh, there are two guys in front of me.  There must be more out there.’  And I was like, ‘No, I’m running third for a second.’  I couldn’t believe how much ground I made up on one of the restarts and then on one of them I went back to 15^th or 16^th, so here on those first couple of laps after the restarts it really depends how everything shuffles out and the lane you pick and how you draft with everyone.  There was no big adjustment, we just got lucky on that last one.”

HOW DID YOU DEAL WITH ALL THE STOPS AND STARTS?  “The hard part is wondering if you’re gonna go racing or not.  I think we’ve all done this long enough that you just don’t want to let those thoughts kind of creep in, so you just focus and imagine you’re gonna run the  thing to the end no matter what and keep your eyes on what’s important.  But we’re in the same boat as you guys.  We don’t really know what’s going on, at least I didn’t.  You just, for me personally, you’ve just got to keep focused and, until they call it and you’re out of the car and they announce the finish, you’ve got to keep racing.”

JAMIE ALLISON, Director, Ford North America Motorsports – “Greg Biffle earned it.  That was no fluke.  I just talked to Jack on the phone and there’s no question this is a great, feel good moment for him that takes away a little of the physical pain he’s been feeling this week.  So this win is for Jack first and Ford second.

“I’ve said all along that the road to victory is paved with second and third place finishes, and we’ve had plenty of those the last five weeks. We knew we were getting better.   We could see it, and we had to be running good enough to be in position to win.  That victory today was made possible, though, through great teamwork between the Wood Brothers, RPM, Roush Fenway and Roush Yates Engines.  Everyone has played a part of getting us here by working together to make the program better.  It has truly been a One Ford effort at the root of it all, but there’s a lot of Jack Roush’s spirit behind it all as well.”

NOTE – Ford also won the World Rally Championship event in Finland and won two gold medals at the X Games.

- PCGCampbell for Ford Racing, Press Release