Mark Martin, No. 6 Scotts Ford F-150, finished second and led 33 laps in the Craftsman Truck Series Con-way Freight 200 at Michigan International Speedway. Martin moved to 13th in the standings and now has six top-five finishes this year in the seven races he's run.
Mark Martin No. 6 Scotts Ford F-150 (Finished 2nd):
It looks like cautions kind of did you in and was the story of the race for you today. "I take nothing away from Johnny Benson and his team, they did an awesome job today, he was really fast, especially on short runs. And the chance we had was a long run and that was where we were strong with our Scotts F-150. And we did it at the end, but golly, you know things have gone our way a lot this year and we had our run at the end."
Mark, that was a heck of a dual there down in the last few laps. "Well I would have liked to make it more exciting, when I was standing up in the seat and straight up as I could. You know congratulations to Johnny and his team; they were on it all day, strong. They were really, their strong suit was the shorter run and our strong suit was the longer run, and we didn't get it in the end. We've had a lot of things go our way this year, and things didn't fall you know just right for us, but we fought hard and we made a good race out of it and Johnny certainly earned his win."
Earlier you seemed to be stronger on the bottom and at the end you were on the top, was that your choice or was it Johnny? "Johnny was all over and he was pretty much on the bottom, you know I had my chance to make the pass and it was going to be on top, but he wasn't much going to give the inside lane up, so you know I had to try and make the top work, which was my second choice. You know, so it made it a chore and Johnny as strong as he was down low."
Rick Crawford, No. 14 Circle Bar Truck Corral Ford F-150, finished sixth in the Con-way Freight 200 at Michigan International Speedway. Crawford earned his fourth top 10 finish at MIS and moved up to sixth in the Craftsman Truck Series standings.
Rick Crawford No. 14 Circle Bar Truck Corral Ford F-150 (Finished 6th)
You hung right around the top five and top ten all day, with a sixth place finish today, the truck must have been running really good. "Yeah it ran real good. We made some adjustments during stops on our Circle Bar Truck Corral Ford F-150 and she [the truck] came around real good. I knew we had a good truck for 'em at the end, we just had to wait around for the end after all of the cautions."
When the caution came out at the end and you were looking at a green, white, checker finish, did you think you had enough to charge up to the front? "I never say it's over till it's over. I was going to give 'em a charge and I did give them one there in Turn 3. But then Labonte got me on the outside. It's wild when they get a run on you here at Michigan. It was a good day for our team, I'm really proud of those guys. We had great pit stops all day and gained some positions in the pits. It was a super day for us, a good points day."
Terry Cook, No. 10 Ford Power Stroke Diesel by International F-150, finished ninth at Michigan International Speedway in the Con-way Freight 200. Running in the top ten for most of the day and leading two laps, Cook maintains his 11th place in the Craftsman Truck Series standings.
Terry Cook No. 10 Ford Power Stroke Diesel by Int'l F-150 (Finished 9th)
With another top 10 finish here today at Michigan, how would you summarize your day with a long stretch of green flag racing and then a lot of short spurts of racing due to cautions. "The caution at the end definitely killed us, we were just unbelievably fast. We were a little too loose, but we ran about three, four or five around the first stretch of the race. Then, my crew put me out in the lead and did just a phenomenal job today."
"Unfortunately, during one of our stops, we got a scuff set of tires on the truck, which we did intend, because we wanted to save our stickers for the end of the race. Unfortunately, that set of scuffs were out of control. Occasionally, you get a bad set of tires, and in my mind, we got a bad set of tires. We persevered through those runs and made some adjustments during caution runs. We got ourselves on a sticker set of tires and drove ourselves back up through the field, I think up to ninth. The truck was great when we had great tires on it. It was just that one set of tires, and we were just kind of hanging on."