ROUSH DRIVER LEADS FORD 1-2-3

BY TEAM FORD RACING CORRESPONDENT

Brooklyn, Mich. — Ford dominated the Michigan International Speedway event just like yesteryear on the 2.0-mile speedway. It was difficult not to think back to the days of Bill Elliott and Melling Racing duking out the win with Robert Yates and the Wood Brothers.

But today’s story gave Ford the opportunity to simply kick the cans of all comers. It was dominance — simple dominance delivered the sweep of the top-three positions, and six of the top-10 positions.

Best of the best today was Greg Biffle, who notched his second win in the Irish Hills of Michigan. The performance was superb, leading to Biffle’s milestone of earning the five bonus points for most laps led of the event.

“My car was really, really fast right when the green fell and I started moving up real fast,” said the man who started 24th

“It took me a while to work my way through there. Actually, it didn't take very long. I think we were in 13th when the first caution came out and the car was just so fast.”

Making the job easier for Biffle was the strength of his Ford, not only under the hood but also in the chassis. Set to perfection, the nose worked perfectly horizontal to the track surfaced and sucked to the asphalt as if there was a magnate under the track pulling his Taurus deeper into the pavement.

“The Ford Taurus body is something we've come a long way with and our guys have worked really hard on it. Our engine program is unbelievable,” raved Biffle. “Our engine program has come so far. I lost the timing belt last week and probably got some debris in it. The engines have run flawless all season for us. We've had a little bit of trouble, but today everything worked perfect.

“Doug [Richert, crew chief] gave me a great race car,” the Washington state native said. “I just can't say enough about Doug. Doug has done a fine job for us with our whole team - personnel and everything. He doesn't miss a lot. He executes really well and stays calm, and I don't, which is good for me to have somebody like him. It really worked out for us today, but we've been coming. We were fourth at Pocono, sixth at Indy. We've run like that. We were running fourth at Texas - just all over the place. We were leading California when we had a transmission problem, so we've been coming but we just hadn't got there yet."

Biffle added, “The guys did a great job in the pits and I didn't make any mistakes, which is pretty unusual for me to race an entire day and not make any mistakes, but I managed to do that today.”

The day wasn’t without incident, of course, as Biffle had a hurdle to overcome to nail down the spoils of war.

“Those cautions at the beginning we good for us, because I got to adjust on the race car and make pit stops,” noted the pilot of the No.16 Ford. “Unfortunately, we had radio trouble today and I lost radio communication during the first part of the race. I could hear them, but they couldn't hear me talking. I had to switch to my second radio, which just has an antenna on it that's inside the car, so I could only talk to them on the frontstretch. It made it difficult, because I couldn't talk about what we were gonna do when we pit because I'm driving down pit road already. The track is so big we don't get one time by before the pits are open, so I can't discuss the changes I'm gonna make to the race car.

“That's why I got off a little bit. Mark [Martin] was faster than me. I was running third, fourth, and the car was really loose. Finally, we got some communication and got the car tightened back up again.”

As Biffle noted, he didn’t have the fastest car of the day, that’s an honor that went to teammate, Martin. Driver of the No. 6 Taurus was well on his way to nabbing the five point bonus for leading the most laps, then trouble on pit road struck.

That trouble came during a routine stop of fuel and tires under caution. NASCAR brought Martin’s car back to pit road for what they believed was a missing lugnut. The call sent Martin’s crew chief, Pat Tryson, through the roof as he believes in his heart that there was no problem with the lugnut.

"My opinion is [the lugnut] was there when it left and that's all it had to be,” fired Tryson. “[The rear tire changer] flipped it and put it on there and that's all it had to be,” Tryson added. “When we came [back] in it was still there. In my opinion [NASCAR] blew the call and it's just a shame. There's nothing we can do about it. We finished second and that's the way it goes. That's racin'.”

Car owner, Jack Roush explained the results of his investigation on the matter by saying, “I was residing with Doug Richert trying to make sure we didn't miss strategy on Greg, as far as when we could stop for fuel and that sort of thing. As soon as we got that down and we agreed on our options, I went down and the inspector wanted to tell me what had happened from his point of view. It was noisy and I said, 'I don't need to hear right now.'”

Continuing Roush added, “I went up and rubbed Pat down and tried to say, 'Alright, now you need to think about the next stop and figure out what we can do to save this thing.' As it went on and eventually the team members came to me and whispered in my ear that there was a lugnut that they didn't get tight. They said it had fallen off and got it back, but didn't get it tight. The inspector said that it wasn't on the wheel. I talked to Pat and he assured me it was on the wheel. I don't think he was down there where he could see exactly what was going on, but he was sure it was on the wheel. I talked to the tire changer and he said it was on the wheel when it came back. He said that all he had to do was straighten it with his hand. I guess the glue was holding it or something, but he said he straightened it with his hand and hit it with the wrench. But the inspector said to me that it was not on there.

“Even though I didn't tell Pat he couldn't go protest the result, I will go with the inspector.”

Martin, naturally, was non-plussed at the things he doesn’t control from the cockpit of his Viagra Ford.

“I didn't have time to worry about it. It wasn't my deal to sort out for them. What I had to do was my job, which was to come from the back of the pack and try to win the race. That's what a team does. I don't know. I don't question,” said Martin of the pit road incident that took him from the lead to 32nd with just 20 laps to go. “I know everybody wants to know that, but leave me out of it. I don't know. I didn't ask. I focused on the job at hand and I think we did a good job to come from the back and run second. I tried real hard to lead one of those laps when we came out with Biffle, but we just couldn't do it. It seemed like there was a caution every five laps all race long and then just when we could have used just one caution, we didn't get it."

"Yes, I'm disappointed,” Martin replied when asked if he felt bad about the issue on pit road. “No doubt, but you know what, it would have been fun. Greg ran fantastic all day. I'm disappointed that I didn't get to make him work for it. That's the only thing. I'm not a total hog. I don't have to win everything, but I like to make it interesting anyway. Those guys were awesome today. I'm very happy with the performance of my team and I am disappointed with the way it turned out, but I love Pat Tryson and I love every guy on my team. I've told them that almost every race this year and nothing is gonna change that.

“We'll just go next week and try to get us another one."

Dale Jarrett heaped the praise for his third-place finish on his crew, who he says has made the difference not only today, but for the year.

“I think that this credit needs to go to Mike Ford,” noted Jarrett. “He'd be the first to tell you that he stepped into a situation and a job that was way more of an undertaking than what he envisioned at the beginning. He's done a terrific job of getting us to this point to where we can be this competitive. I told the TV and radio people outside that whenever we come in here, and not be at our best, and finish third says a lot about how far this team has come. Earlier in the year, and certainly last year when we wouldn't be at our best, we couldn't finish in the top 15 basically. So we have come a long way.”

Arguably the story of the day, other than the Ford sweep of the top-three spots, is the outstanding job that Carl Edwards did in his Cup début. Edwards took his ride from its 23rd-place starting position and improved on it until he was running 10th when the checkers fell.

"I'm very fortunate to be in the ride that I'm in,” Edwards beamed after his run. “Jeff Burton and this team has done a lot of work this year to make these [cars] this good. I think it speaks for itself that I'm the last Roush car in the field and I'm 10th. These cars are great. It's great equipment. Bob Osborne, the transition from my Truck crew chief, Cowboy [Kevin Starland], to Bob Osborne has been seamless. I've got two different teams at Roush Racing and both of them have great personnel."

Asked about the differences between what he’s raced before and his inaugural Cup outing Edwards replied, "It's just a different intensity level the whole day. Everyone races a lot harder. We were running around 20th most of the day and racing with Dale [Earnhardt] Jr. and Kevin Harvick and Jeff Burton and those guys. I raced harder for 20th there than I have for most wins ever in my life. It's just a lot of fun."

“We were real careful with Carl in practice,” noted car owner, Roush. “We kept him in a car that was tight to the point of bringing tears to his eyes and then we started feeding that back and giving him a little relief from it when we thought that maybe he had enough feeling for it that he wouldn't let the back end come out from underneath him.

“He got the wall once today I understand. I've got to look at the tapes and understand how that happened, but here we had a situation where the track tended to be looser in [Turns] 1 and 2 than it was in 3 and 4, and, of course, it starts off looser than it finishes. So if you started off where you should be, at least that 99 car, it was deathly loose in one and two to start with. Bob Osborne struggled with him trying to understand what he was saying and they did a great job. They kept him in a car that was reasonably fast, that he was able to keep under him and that will be the challenge going on to Fontana and some of the other places we go to for the rest of the year."

Elliott Sadler offered the Ford camp its biggest disappointment of the day when a cut tire tore the left front fender off his car. “First time for this M&M's team behind the wall this year,” said Sadler. “I'm disappointed, but proud of my team for changing the radiator and fixing all that damage in 20 laps. We hope to get a better finish at Bristol, but this is very, very disappointing."

Sadler had been running top-five and top-10 until the problem, so his disappointment is more than understandable.