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| Ford Race Notes: California
02-26-2005 |
RICK CRAWFORD-14-Circle Bar Truck Corral Ford F-150 (Finished 14th) - "My 200th race, not too much different than the first race. I finished 11th in the first race and finished 14th tonight. The competition is a lot stiffer in the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series, and I think tonight is about what we needed. We needed a race under our belt and we fought back from adversity with overheating because of a tear-off across the grille and had to pit before we melted the motor down. The Yates-Roush engine makes a lot of steam and we didn't want it to escape. Me and Cowboy will get this Circle Bar team back going, but we needed this race under our belt. There's not a scratch on it and we'll be for Atlanta." ARE YOU COMFORTABLE WITH THE NEW FORMAT THIS YEAR WITH QUALIFYING ON THE SAME DAY AS THE RACE? "I'm good with that. I qualified about the same with or without the impound. I'm pretty good with that. I just hate that we had a truck two-thirds of the way and the last third it was tough to drive and I couldn't be as aggressive as I was the first two-thirds, but we'll get it checked out and figured out." TERRY COOK-10-Power Stroke Diesel by Int'l Ford F-150 (Finished 15th) - "It was just not as good in race trim as we thought it would be. We just never gave up and it's not a bad race when you do that. The race doesn't end on lap 75 and we were fortunate enough that we were able to get our lap back, but we weren't able to make the right adjustments to get the truck where we needed it. We had that first caution and then we had that extremely long green-flag run, and, of course, we pitted under green and got a lap down and that put us behind right there." DID THE SOFTER COMPOUND TIRE HAVE AN IMPACT ON THE RACING TONIGHT? "I don't think so. We just chased the balance back and forth. I don't see where the tires had much of an issue as far as being too soft or too hard. We just weren't on tonight. We just need to our homework, so we don't have anybody to blame but ourselves." RICKY CRAVEN-99-Superchips Ford F-150 (Finished 3rd) - "It was a lot of fun. This is two weeks in a row that I've had a lot of fun. The Superchips crew came through at the end and they had their best stop when we needed it. I'm really happy for Steve; that's pretty cool. It was a good points day for us." TODD KLUEVER-50-Shell Rotella T Ford F-150 (Finished 4th) - "It feels so good. My guys are jumping around like we won the race and that's cool. There are a lot of guys back a the shop right now, all of the guys in the fab shop and the body shop and the truck shop, there are so many people working real hard right now because Daytona went so bad for us, and hopefully this is a little bit of sweet medicine or whatever you want to call it for them - third and fourth. Our trucks are always the same and that is really cool. I can't say enough about those guys. We were running really well here and that makes my job so much easier when I can concentrate on learning the race track and not set up the truck." DID YOU FEEL A BUMP FROM MUSGRAVE AS YOU CROSSED THE FINISH LINE? "That's cool, though. I don't want them to give them to me, I want to earn their respect and hopefully I'm doing that. I want to get out there and not run into anybody and I try to make as many friends as possible. I hope this is a permanent thing and hope we're going to be running up front all of the time, so I need to be make as many friends as I can." RICKY CRAVEN PRESS CONFERENCE: "I enjoyed it. It was a lot of fun. I'm still trying to figure out how to drive these things, and what I can get away with and what I can't. All in all, it was a great effort by the team. They were awesome on and off of pit road. I've got a group of 23 and 24-year-olds that are a lot of fun to be around, and to combine that Mike Beam, that brings the average age to about 40. It's all working. It's interesting. The last two weeks I see Bobby, he's sort of a master at this. He won the championship for a reason. He's crafty and he just rolls along, and it gets down to 20 and there he goes. I'm just going to pay attention because it's two good runs; I like the way he did that. These trucks are fun, and like Bobby said we went off three or four wide a few times and I really didn't think we were coming back. The drivers should be commended. Everyone did a good job." "This is such a legitimate series, and to be clear, part of the reason I decided to race Craftsman Truck was because of Bobby Hamilton and Ted Musgrave, two guys that I raced on the Cup side and as good as anybody I've raced with. Sometimes the numbers do lie. The fact is Bobby had four or five cup wins and Ted never had any, which is pitiful because he certainly deserves a few. My point is to see the success Bobby has had and Ted, and even Dennis Setzer - all in their 40s - this appears to be a series that rewards experience, and Bobby is proving that again this year. But the sport itself is interesting. NASCAR has gotten so much more attention in the last five years. It's become clear to me that if you're a racer you want a part of the action, the NASCAR action, and the fact is that there just isn't room enough in the Cup level. There isn't room enough in Busch, so the truck series is an alternative. Between the three series you're looking at a 120 positions and that still is not very many. That's the equivalent of two football teams or a half dozen basketball teams. The fact is that this is still a very exclusive group and anybody that races an automobile has a certain affection for NASCAR racing now. It's the hottest game in town. The other thing is that from my seat, working with a guy like Mike Beam makes me look awfully good. He's got a ton of experience and I'm just concentrating on driving these trucks. That's all I'm doing and he's making that part of it easier for me." "This will be big for him (Park) personally. To clear a hurdle - and this should give him some momentum - this is a personal victory. But, I'm very happy. I grew up with Steve and he raced Modifieds and I raced a series called the American-Canadian Tour and then Busch North, and we would cross paths. I spent a lot of time with him and it was cool when we both got to the Cup level. When he came to the Craftsman Truck Series he knew what he wanted out of it and I don't think last year met his expectations because he didn't win, but I've got to tell you, when I looked at the series last year and I saw the drivers that didn't win, it really got my attention. There are no gimmes over here, so this is big deal for him to win." TODD KLUEVER PRESS CONFERENCE: "It was a great night for us. We unloaded our truck and it was really good right off of the trailer. My Shell Rotella T guys did an awesome job all night with it. It's so much easier for me as a rookie coming into a new place - we never tested here and I've never seen the place until we got here - and if you unload good it makes it so much easier as a driver. You can just worry about driving the race track and figuring out where you need to be and where the line is, instead of worrying about what you need to do to make your truck really good. Hat's off to my guys, and John Monsam was right on the ball with his setup. I'm excited because right after Daytona I was pretty down and not really able to look the guys in the shop in the eye and I just felt terrible. Hopefully with Ricky running third and me running fourth, that will be something that they can hang their hat on and we can build some momentum for the rest of the season." "I've been in stock car racing since the last half of 1999, but I've been racing since I've been 13. Daytona was obviously a disaster for us. We were there for two weeks and had a really good car in the ARCA race and that went bad for us with two laps to go, flipping down the back straightaway, and then got in a mishap in practice and lost our primary truck ands unloaded the backup truck and got caught up in the accident on lap 49, so I was 100 percent on my crash rate with the three vehicles they brought there for me to drive. I was just disappointed. I didn't think any of them were my doing, but I'm just excited to come here and come back. When I got back to the shop the guys were really excited, and I felt terrible for them. They've been working six, seven days a week all winter long trying to get us ready to go, and then, of course, I go out and have a God-awful weekend like that. I was really disappointed and felt terrible for those guys knowing that they were seeing the light at the end of the tunnel for the six- or seven-days-a-week thing and I completely put it out for them. But, they were right behind me and told me that I was running good and not to worry about it because none of it was my fault and they were behind me as long as I'm running at the front, and they'll fix whatever I break. They were so supportive, so for us to come out and have a good run like this is so awesome."
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