Ford Racing Phoenix post-race quotes

ROBERT PRESSLEY --77-- Jasper Engines Taurus (Finished 42nd)
"I'm not sure what happened. We developed a miss a couple of laps before that and when I went down the back straightaway the thing just started popping and cracking. I guess Nadeau had a big run and he got in the side of us and that finished us off."

YOU STARTED FIFTH, BUT SEEMED TO STRUGGLE.
"It never really did get good. We tried and tried, hoping we would get it, but that was the best it had been right there at the end."

SO IT WASN'T A TIRE PROBLEM?
"No. Ryan said it looks like something big went through the radiator, so I don't know if it was a piece of rubber or what it was, but that busted the radiator and got the motor hot."

RYAN NEWMAN --02-- ALLTEL Taurus (Finished 40th)
"There was just a lot of traffic out there. We got really lucky there a couple times and had to race real hard -- not the way I wanted to -- to stay on the lead lap, but I don't know what happened. I don't know if somebody got crossed up or got spun out or lost it, but they were sideways in front of me. The next thing I saw was the 97 door coming straight on at me and there was just nowhere to go."

MIKE WALLACE --12-- Mobil 1 Taurus (Finished 2nd)
"That was a phenomenal run. I'm so thrilled with the Mobil 1 Penske team. My hat's off to Jeff Burton. He was the quicker car most of the day. We led for a while, but to finish second is wonderful. It's just absolutely wonderful. This is everything we've worked so hard for. It's my mom's birthday today, so I want to wish her a happy birthday. This is our fourth race out with this team and we've run in the top 10 everytime. My hat's off to Ricky Rudd also. He raced me awfully clean there and he knew I wanted to finish. This is great."

WHAT ABOUT THE TWO-TIRE STOP?
"It got us into position. We two-tire stopped all the previous races at the beginning and at the end we just needed a shot to go. I was tight on that run and Peter (Sospenzo) said that would loosen it up and it did. Jeff was just better than we were. Their team was good all day, but, man, second place, that's pretty cool."

RICKY RUDD --28-- Texaco Havoline Taurus (Finished 3rd)
"That was a lot better than I expected. We have just been off all week long since we've been here, but all these guys on this Texaco Havoline crew never gave up. They kept working on this race car. We had a good race car. We couldn't go very fast on the restart, it took us about 10 laps. I don't know if it was the air-pressure or what, but the car was real racy there at the end. I just got hung up there trying to get by Mike Wallace. Track position seemed to be everything. These Fords, they're disadvantaged to the Chevrolet and the Dodges with that front air dam. When you follow traffic, the car pushes real bad and we fought that all day long. I guess we were lucky to finish third. We thought we might have had a shot for second, but it just didn't work out."

MATT KENSETH --17-- DEWALT Power Tools Taurus (Finished 4th)
"We came from about last. Qualifying hasn't been our specialty, that's for sure. Everybody on the DEWALT team did a great job of rebounding from our poor qualifying effort on Friday. We had a car that handled pretty well in happy hour, we thought, along with a lot of help from Frankie Stoddard and Jeff Burton. I've got to thank them a lot. They ran good here and they helped us a lot with our setup. We had a consistent car all day. On the first pit stop we decided to get two tires and get some track position. After that, we got up in the top 10 and we just stayed on cycle with the leaders all day."

WHAT CHANGES DID YOU MAKE AFTER THE FIRST STOP?
"To tell you the truth, I didn't touch one bolt on the car all day. We started the run a little too tight and end the run a little too loose. I didn't really know what to do to fix that, so we just left it and raced it."

DALE JARRETT --88-- UPS Taurus (Finished 9th)
"It was a tough day for sure. We were terribly loose at the beginning of the race and we had no idea what it may do because we made so many changes before. They did a great job once again. We were fortunate to get some caution flags when we did. These guys worked and worked and worked and even though we never got it tightened up, we made it better and that allowed us to get back. To be honest, this is one of those days where a top 10 certainly feels like a good top five."

THIS IS A DAY WHERE YOU GET THE MOST OUT OF DAYS WHEN YOU'RE NOT THE BEST.
"That's right. This is one of those where you make the very most of it. You're not gonna have a chance at winning, so you get the most points you possibly can and finish as high as you can. As it turns out, with Sterling's misfortune we moved up one in the points, but we finished behind Ricky and Tony. Still, it could have been disastrous for us."

DO YOU GET CONCERNED WHEN YOU SEE TIRE PROBLEMS LIKE TODAY?
"Generally that comes from a tight race car and my car was never tight throughout the day, so I didn't have to worry about the right-front blowing out. Very seldom are you gonna be loose enough to blow the right-rear out like that, so I wasn't very concerned. Todd's very good that if we have a problem like that he'll tell me to lay off the brakes or something, but we never had a problem like that all day."

RUSTY WALLACE --2-- Miller Lite Taurus (Finished 15th)
"It's disappointing to say the least. To have a strong car like that, the strongest thing out there, and get bit by a tire deal, it really hurt. We got the lap back with about 50 to go and we were back in 30th. We made up all hte ground we could and finished 15th. That's about all there is to say. It's a shame because we had a car that could have won the thing."

RICK MAST --90-- Donlavey Racing Taurus (Finished 25th)
"It wasn't bad. We finished on the lead lap and kept working with the chassis. We never got it handling great, but it was okay a couple of times. A couple of times it wasn't okay, but we just hung in there all day. Most of the day the car was loose. All weekend long we had that and just couldn't quite get it fixed."

JEFF BURTON --99-- Citgo SUPERGARD Taurus -- VICTORY LANE INTERVIEW
"I thought the 2 car was better than we were most of the time and the 19 car was really good. We kept working and making our car better. We were way too loose early in the race. We just kept changing it and Frank and everybody did just such a great job making changes on the car. We actually got a little too tight there at the end. It would have been hard to beat the 2 there at the end probably, but my hat's off to my guys. This is an example of what hard work and not giving up on each other and believing in our program will do. It would have been real easy to quit this year, but none of our guys have. That means more to me than anything."

WHAT ABOUT YOUR SETUP?
"About the third run I ran with Rusty, I got away from him some and then he ran me down. We kind of rode with him for awhile, but I was still too loose. We tightened it up some more and went out the next run and was awfully loose. We backed up off of that change and made another change. From that point on we were pretty good. We just had to find the sweet spot. That's really been our trouble all year long, finding the sweet spot on what makes the car do what I want it to do. We struggled finding it, but the good thing was we started the race close enough and then we could fine tune it. It was just a matter of getting the right stuff under it."

DID YOU WANT TO PIT FOR TIRES THE LAST CAUTION?
"We were lying. I was trying to get other people to pit, but they're smarter than that. I thought we were better off with getting track position. I think the 19 and the 2 were good examples of that. When they got a lap down and pitted and got tires, it just didn't get them enough benefit. It's so hard to pass here and track position was the key."

WERE YOU CONCERNED ABOUT GETTING PAST MIKE WALLACE?
"Mike was fast and I knew he was gonna be fast. I said before the race that I thought the 12 car was gonna be hard to beat. My concern with the 12 car was that Mike has never won a Winston Cup race and he was willing to go and do almost anything to get it done. He's got a lot of things going for him and I knew he'd do almost anything to win. He did a great job. He ran me up close to getting in the wall a couple of times, but we never hit. I knew if I ever got side by side he couldn't do that because he would hit me and the wall and that wouldn't have benefited. He did a great job. He ran me really hard. We never touched. He ran me clean and he did what he was supposed to do."

-Ford Racing-