WELCOME BACK. IT HAS BEEN AWHILE SINCE YOU MADE THIS TRIP TO VICTORY LANE. “Yeah but I know right where it is at. I have been here before. I tell you what, these guys did a great job in the pits and adjusting on the car all day. I can’t thank everybody enough for sticking behind the 3M 16 car. The fans that have supported us all the way. It is so exciting to get Ford and 3M and everybody that has been such a supporter back here to victory lane.”

WHAT DID YOU FIND IN THAT LAST RUN WHEN YOU BLEW PAST JOHNSON? “I just dug deep. I knew I had to do it and I kept trying and trying and trying. I knew the team would forgive me if I wrecked it trying to beat him so I just gave it all I had.”

HOW SATISFYING IS IT TO PICK UP THIS SECOND COWBOY HAT? “Very satisfying. I cannot wait and I am so excited about what Texas Motor Speedway does for the fans and drivers here in the celebration.”

MATT KENSETH, No. 17 Best Buy Ford

WERE YOU ABOUT ONE OR TWO ADJUSTMENTS AWAY FROM MAKING THE CAR A WINNING RACE CAR? “No. I don’t think so. We couldn’t quite figure it out with our Best Buy Ford. We ran pretty good in the beginning. There were a couple of runs that I was better than Greg and passed him and I could see he was loose. He got his car fixed and we could never fix ours. We could never get it right, I was just hanging on there.” HOW SURPRISED WERE YOU WE ONLY HAD TWO CAUTIONS TONIGHT? “Not shocked. We get a lot of green flag racing here. It didn’t shock me. It was hard to drive a car by yourself. It is pretty slick out there.”

CARL EDWARDS, No. 99 Fastenal Ford

YOU GOT AN 8TH PLACE FINISH OUT OF THAT – “Did we have a caution after we had that lug nut problem? I don’t think there was another caution was there? First off, congrats to Greg Biffle and 3M. A Ford in victory lane is huge. That is kind of fun racing like that. I don’t know what it is like to watch but as a race car driver that is neat to run the whole race. A caution would have helped us. We had a very fast race car. An eighth place finish after having to go to the end of the field, from the back to eighth under green I am proud of that. I am excited to go to Kansas.”

WHAT WAS THE WIND LIKE OUT THERE? “The car handles a little different on each lap with the wind blowing like that. It made it interesting and made you think a lot. Hopefully we can get a victory at Kansas for Fastenal and for our Ford team. These Fords are fast right now. It is pretty cool to see these cars running this well.”

DID YOU HAVE TO THINK A LOT ABOUT WHERE TO RUN ON THE TRACK BECAUSE OF THE WIND? “It is interesting. You drive down in the corner and you are worried about the car and balance and all this stuff and you feel a gust of wind but you never really know if it is the wind. I had to ask Jason if the wind was blowing harder or gusting. It was another variable. It was fun. This is a fun race track. Sliding around like that and having to manhandle the car like that for 500 miles was a blast.”

ARIC ALMIROLA, No. 43 Smithfield Ford (Finished 22nd)

“We were loose in all night. The car was really loose, but we got better in the middle of the race. Then it went back to loose. We just couldn’t get the car the way we needed it, but it wasn’t too bad. Just not as good as we needed tonight.”

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