3 FUSIONS FINISH TOP-10 IN DOVER SPRINT CUP RACE

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Greg Biffle had the lead late, but couldn't hold on as Jimmie Johnson and Tony Stewart passed him in the closing laps of Sunday's Autism Speaks 400 at Dover International Speedway. Biffle finished third, followed by Roush Fenway teammate Matt Kenseth in fourth and Carl Edwards in seventh.

GREG BIFFLE – NO. 16 NEXCARE/3M FORD FUSION (FINISHED THIRD)
“The Nexcare Ford Fusion car was really, really good and it’s unfortunate. We lost that race because of that caution flag and got stuck in the back. We had to work our way back up and really didn’t know how our car was and adjusted it and adjusted it out and then back again. Once I got out front, I was just way too loose there at the end and couldn’t hold off the 20 or the 48. If I would have been a little bit tighter, I know I would have been able to drive off pretty good, but, it’s unfortunate. We were back in traffic all day and had our car freed up and then we got out front and was just a little bit too loose. It was a good day—a top three. I’ve got to argue with the people that are critics of these cars that they put on good races.”

WHAT ABOUT THE CAR TODAY?
“We had a great setup from last fall that I think a lot of our cars ran here today. I know some guys had little bit different versions of it, but, overall, this was a good race track for us. I’m glad that we came back. I know we were all worried about coming here and running good.”

MATT KENSETH – NO. 17 DEWALT FORD FUSION (FINISHED FOURTH)
“It was a good run for the whole DeWalt team. We were kind of up and down all day. We didn’t have anything that could compete with Jimmie. He had everybody covered, but we had a pretty good car and came home fourth. We couldn’t quite get it right, but it was pretty decent.”

HOW WAS YOUR TIRE WEAR TODAY?
“It seemed all right. We ran a couple of full fuel runs it seemed like, so it didn’t seem like many people had problems. If you ran up high, where it was gray, we chorded a couple of right rears, but that’s kind of normal here, so I thought everything turned out pretty good.”

A BIG BOUNCEBACK FOR FORD AND ROUSH TODAY.
“Yeah, I don’t know how everybody else did, but we were able to be pretty solid and got a good finish. The last three or four weeks we’ve kind of been on the upswing a little bit. We had a top 10 at Charlotte and were maybe 10th at Darlington, so we’ve been doing a little bit better here. It was good for us to get a good finish.”

DO YOU FEEL THIS TEAM IS GETTING ON A ROLL?
“Yeah, we have all the tools there to win, it’s our job to figure out how to put it all together into a winning effort. We were closer today, but we were just a little off. I just couldn’t get it. Jimmie had everybody covered, kind of like the Roush cars did last fall here—they were just quite a bit better. We seemed to miss it just a little bit and this car is very, very sensitive and it’s easy to miss it by a little bit. It gets frustrating because you don’t know how to adjust it. One run you’re pretty good and you barely change it and you’re no good.”

DAVID RAGAN – NO. 6 UPS FORD FUSION (FINISHED 24TH)
“At times we made good adjustments and at times we didn’t. As a team we’ve got to build on the good ones that we made because at periods during the race I thought we were a top 15 car. We were never great, but our UPS Ford showed some promise. We just couldn’t make the right adjustments to keep it going fast.”

JAMIE MCMURRAY – NO. 26 CROWN ROYAL FORD FUSION (FINISHED 14TH)
DID THAT CAUTION WHEN YOU HAD PITTED UNDER GREEN SPOIL YOUR DAY?
“No, actually we had a really good car. When we got our lucky dog they all checked up getting on pit road and I tore the fender off of it and it pulled the splitter up and from there on out our car just was not very good. I really think we should have finished sixth or seventh, even after getting caught a lap down pitting too early. I thought I had a tire down is why we pitted, so it was just a tough day.”

SOME PROMISE WITH THE WAY THE CARS PERFORMED?
“I know that Greg and Carl and Matt—I don’t know how good the 6 was—but it looked like everybody else ran really good today. Our cars are good, we just have to put it together.”

GREG BIFFLE PRESS CONFERENCE
“We had a great car. What really probably screwed our day up was getting caught on pit road. We were running second and I was catching the 48 and we went through the green flag pit cycle and I ended up a lap down at the tail-end of the lead lap and the 48 was still the leader with four new tires. So I’m not sure how that all played out, but we spent the rest of the day getting back all the way to the front. We ran in traffic all day and once I got back toward the front, the car started getting loose and then once I got out front with two tires it was just so loose I couldn’t drive it. It was just really tough to drive out front. I saw the guys coming and I was just doing all I could do. I was afraid if Tony got up behind me in the corner that the car would probably spin out, so I figured my only hope was to go to the top, but I was so loose up there that I couldn’t get the gas down, either. I got a pretty good run at the top, but just needed a little adjustment and I think I would have made it more interesting. I think it would have been a three-way battle, possibly, instead of two. But, overall, a great day for us in the points and happy to come home third.”

DID YOUR HEART SINK WHEN THE 48 GOT PAST THE 1 AND 24 SO FAST?
“I couldn’t take my eyes off the road, so I didn’t see anything. If I would have looked anywhere but forward or out the side window I think I would have wrecked.”

VEGAS ROLLERCOASTER RIDE

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Team Ford Racing had one of those frustratingly inconsistent days in the Shelby 427 at Las Vegas Motor Speedway. Three Ford Fusions drivers were among the top-10 in the 285-lap, 427-mile Sprint Cup race. Two others had heartbreaking problems in the final laps that cost them dearly, and two others finished near the bottom of the 43-car scorecard.

Bobby Labonte of Yates Racing carried the TFR banner with a solid fifth-place run. Greg Biffle of Roush Fenway Racing backed his Saturday victory in the Nationwide Series race with a seventh-place on Sunday afternoon. And Jamie McMurray continued his strong early-season showing with a ninth for Roush Fenway Racing.

But the late-race heartbreaks for TFR were heartbreaking, indeed. Carl Edwards, winner of this event last year for Roush Fenway, was running top-10 when the engine in his Fusion lost power on the next-to-last lap. He coasted around to a 17th-place finish, the last driver on the lead lap. A few laps earlier, Paul Menard of Yates Racing had crashed out while running in the top-15, with a top-10 possibly within reach. Earlier in the race, Roush Fenway drivers Matt Kenseth and David Ragan had fallen out with engine issues.

Hometown favorite Kyle Busch won the race ahead of Clint Bowyer, Jeff Burton, David Reutimann and Labonte. The rest of the top-10: Jeff Gordon, Biffle, Brian Vickers, McMurray and Dale Earnhardt Jr.

The spate of engine problems brought this reaction from team owner Jack Roush: “I think we misjudged how fast this tire was gonna be, and the engines turned more,” he said after the race. “I had great confidence in this engine because it wasn’t something new or experimental. It’s the same specs we had all of last year. The tire didn’t fall off as much as we expected and we just over-revved the engines. We also chose the wrong axle ratio because it was 200 RPMs more than the other would have been. But if you win the races we did last year and make the Chase and do what we did (last weekend) at Fontana, there’s no reason to be nervous. The fact that [the RPMs] crept up a little didn’t raise the alarms it should have.”

Roush said it appeared Kenseth’s early-race DNF was from a broken valve and Ragan’s from a broken valve spring. He let his teams know that RPMs were an issue, and things held together nicely until the final laps, when Edwards’s engine went. “When it comes down to that, with Carl, you have to go for it,” Roush said. “You try to win the race and do the best you can. You run as close to the limit as you can and as hard as the guys try; you have to squeeze every ounce out of every component in the car. We just went over the edge with the RPM. It’s unfortunate, but that’s what we did.”

Matt Kenseth Wins the Daytona 500

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VICTORY LANE INTERVIEWS: “It’s gonna be really wet out here because I’m crying like a baby, but I’ve just got to thank my team and thank the Lord for giving me this opportunity first of all. I’ve had a lot of great opportunities in my life – from my family getting me in racing and really DeWalt, Ford, Carhartt, USG Sheetrock, R&L Carriers, all the sponsors that we have that have stuck by us and made this happen in an up and down economy. Man, I don’t know. Winning the Daytona 500 is definitely a dream moment. It’s just an unbelievable feeling.”

WHAT DOES THIS WIN MEAN TO YOU? “After last year, winning a race means a lot to me. I’m really proud of these guys. It’s Drew’s first race as a Cup crew chief, that’s pretty cool, and Chip for sticking in here with us and really going through the deal and trying to make the team stronger – putting egos aside and making the team as strong as we can – and these guys have been fired up and working hard. It’s just unbelievable.”

WHAT DID YOU THINK WHEN YOU WENT TO BED LAST NIGHT? “You just never know what’s gonna happen. We’ve had some really fast cars on the speedways in the past and I’ve just never been able to figure out how to do the right thing and today we were able to make the right moves. We got some weather, but yet we did race 400-and-some miles and we were able to pull it off. I was pretty miserable some nights because we just couldn’t make our car handle and this backup car is actually way better than the 500 car. I felt pretty good going into this morning, but I didn’t dream we were gonna win.”

YOU ARE A DAYTONA 500 WINNER. “That’s unbelievable. I’ve just really got to thank my team first of all for all the work they did this week. I put them in a hole wrecking on Thursday and they did just a tremendous job and had a great pit stop when we really needed it. I mean, that was a killer pit stop and it gave us the track position to be in position to win this thing.”

YOU SEEM TO HAVE A LOT OF EMOTION. “Yeah. Just to win a race after our year last year. I didn’t know if I was ever gonna do that again and then to pull off the Daytona 500, it’s just unbelievable. I’m just unbelievably thankful and humbled right now for all the opportunities I’ve had, really.”

WHAT ABOUT THE PASS FOR THE LEAD? “I was a little nervous because it was Elliott and then Reed and Allmendinger and all the teammates lined up there and I was able to get outside Elliott a little bit, and our car was honestly a fair amount quicker than his and I was able to get a run on him and get by him.”

WERE YOU RACING HARDER BECAUSE YOU KNEW THE RAIN WAS COMING? “Man, we raced hard all day. Thanks to all the fans that came out to watch us. It’s a great pleasure to race in front of the greatest race fans in the world. We just raced hard the whole time. You knew it was down to crunch time, but to be honest with you, you’re almost a little more careful with your moves with the rain coming, so I didn’t want to make the wrong move and get hung out and finish in the back, either. So I felt like I had a good enough run there and Dale Jr. and Ryan Newman and a couple of those lapped cars were real fast when they were on the bottom, so I felt pretty good about getting down in front of them.”