Ford Sweeps Podium of 50th Rolex 24

Historic events are often filled with special moments, and the 50th anniversary of the Rolex 24 was no exception. Ford powered cars managed to sweep the podium of North America’s greatest endurance test at Daytona International Speedway on Sunday to kick off the 2012 season of the Grand-Am Rolex series.

Michael Shank Racing's No. 60 Daytona Prototype claimed the checkered flag, followed by Starworks Motorsport's No. 8 DP and the MSR No. 6 DP, giving the Blue Oval its first DP victory at Daytona since 2003, and its first overall victory in the 24-hour marathon event since 1999.

"I always feel like I have to prove myself, because I came from nothing," Michael Shank said. "I've had great relationships with people like Ozz Negri and John Pew that have taken our business to another level."

A.J. Allmendinger piloted across the finish line seconds ahead of pole winner Ryan Dalziel, and Filipe Nasr soon followed to complete the impressive feat.

"That Ford motor was the best, most powerful engine I've ever had," Allmendinger said, noting that when anyone challenged him during that final three-hour period, "the engine pulled like no other I've ever had. It was great."

Ford also swept the podium in 1966, one of four victories for the manufacturer in the 24-hour version of the race, which includes three overall victories -- 1966, 1997 and 1999.

"What a historic moment for all of Ford Motor Company and its fans around the world," Jamie Allison, director, Ford Racing, said. "In the hands of our long-time partners at Michael Shank Racing and our new friends at Starworks Motorsport, we are proud to have captured this special 1-2-3 finish at the 50th running of the iconic Rolex 24 at Daytona. Without so many people, a moment like this would never be possible. The support from Roush Yates, who support all of our teams in Grand-Am, under the leadership of John Maddux and Doug Yates is critical to our success."

The accomplishments of the weekend were also special for John Maddux of Roush Yates engines.

“We’ve had some really fast cars in the past, but we’ve never had it come together,” Maddux said. “We had two really strong teams and they put it all together there today. A huge thanks to Robert and Doug Yates and Jack Roush for believing in the fact that we could make a commercial business out of sports car racing. It’s been great.”

Each of the three Ford teams on the podium led at least one lap, including a race-best 295 by the No. 8 and 249 by the No. 60. The three teams combined to pace 545 of the 761 completed laps.

"A grueling 24-hour race is a culmination of team work, perseverance and flawless execution, and that came at the hands of all 12 of our Ford drivers," said Allison.

The No. 60 DP, piloted by Allmendinger, Ozz Negri, John Pew and Justin Wilson, and the No. 8 DP, manned by Dalziel, Lucas Luhr, Allan McNish, Alex Popow and Enzo Potolicchio, each showed long stints of dominance at various points in the race, and the crew of the No. 6 DP, driven by Jorge Goncalvez, Michael McDowell, Felipe Nasr, and Gustavo Yacaman, made critical strides to come back from a lap down in the late stages of the event.

Winning the Rolex 24 is a special victory, but claiming the checkered flag on the 50th anniversary of the event makes it a moment many will never forget.

"Being there for the weekend festivities to celebrate the history of this marquee event, with the leadership of Jim France and his team in Grand-Am, make this victory even sweeter," Allison said.

The Grand-Am Rolex season continues March 31, at Barber Motorsports Park.

TRANSCRIPT: Dale Earnhardt Jr. Talks to the Media at Pocono

(Dale Earnhardt Jr. Photo by Brandon W. Mudd)

DO YOU THINK YOU WILL RUN WELL HERE THIS WEEKEND? “I hope so. We’ll see. We’ve got a tricky little race track here and some new shifting rules. So we’ll be learning all day long hoping we’ll be able to get up to speed and be competitive.”

HOW ABOUT THIS TRACK AND HOW YOU’VE RUN HERE IN THE PAST, DO YOU THINK THIS IS A PLACE WHERE YOU CAN END THE STREAK? “I don’t know. We’ve not been real successful here in the last several years. We’ve had a really good start when we first started coming here. We’ve had a lot of good runs but the last couple of years haven’t been that awesome. We’re taking it one week at a time and see how it goes.”

WHERE IS THE CONFIDENCE LEVEL RIGHT NOW? “It’s good. I’m still good. Just trying to be productive, show up on time, be ready to work, try to work hard. See how that works out for me. It’s been going so good so far. Wanna keep trying to get better too.”

HAVE YOU BEEN TRYING ANYTHING DIFFERENT THAT HAS LED TO THESE GOOD RESULTS? “Basically we changed everything. I’m in a new shop, new team, new crew chief. Everything has been changed. I don’t know what else different I can do. That’s a lot. We’ve made a lot of changes.”

AFTER THE LAST COUPLE OF WEEKS DO YOU TAKE THAT AS FRUSTRATION KIND OF FUELED THE FIRE FOR POCONO? “It’s great, it’s not frustrating. I’m running good.”

SO CLOSE TO FIRST LACE THOUGH? “Yeah, that’s great. That’s where you want to be. Close. If not winning, that’s better than running damn 25th and 30th every week I’ll tell you that.”

CAN YOU TALK ABOUT SHIFTING HERE AND IF YOU FEEL COMFORTABLE SHIFTING? “I don’t know. I’m going to try to find out. I haven’t shift here in a while. I think it’s unnecessary but they think the brakes are going to be better but it ain’t going to be no better.”

DO YOU THINK ANYBODY WILL HAVE A REMEMBERING ISSUE WITH IT? “Shifting is no big deal. Just hopefully you’ve got the gears all right and everything feels pretty comfortable. It should be fine.”

AS FAR AS THE RACING, WHAT DO YOU THINK WE ARE GOING TO SEE AS AN IMPACT OF THE SHIFTING? “It will be the same as it was last year. Take last year’s race and replay it and just imagine all the drivers are shifting.”

THERE IS RAIN IN THE FORECAST, HOW MUCH DOES THAT IMPACT HOW YOU APPROACH PRACTICE? “What are the rules if it rains out tomorrow?”

FASTEST IN FINAL PRACTICE I THINK. “If none of us know, I don’t know if we can answer that question. Steve will do all that, I just get in there and he’ll say man we’ve got to put a lap down lets go and I’ll go try to do it. If we do we do, if we don’t, we don’t. Mainly today we’re just going to focus on how the car gets through the corners, whether we’re comfortable, how we’re shifting. We’ve got a little bit of time today and just try to really get those things down and get that stuff comfortable so we can run a whole race on Sunday.”

WHAT DOES IT TAKE TO BE SUCCESSFUL AT MICHIGAN? “I don’t know. I feel like we’ve run pretty good there the last several times we’ve raced there. I really like the race track. It’s a real fun place to race. You’ve got to have a lot of motor and you can’t use a lot of gasoline. When we put a lot of gas in these cars to go fast you end up running short on the fuel mileage. A lot of times that is a fuel-mileage race. You do need a lot of motor though and we’re pretty good in that department.”

SPEAKING OF MOTOR, IF YOU COULD PICK BETWEEN POWER AND AERODYNAMICS WHICH ONE WOULD YOU PICK? “Aerodynamics probably. Matt Kenseth won a championship without any motor. Jack Roush will tell you they ain’t got any motor, they’ve got a pretty good one these days but back then they haven’t too much. Sometimes when you actually get down on power you go through the corner faster. Aerodynamics is always important.”

WHAT ARE YOUR THOUGHTS ON THE QUALIFYING CHANGES THIS WEEKEND? “I really don’t know what the changes are. I haven’t really paid much attention to it. I think first practice determines how we will qualify. I thought if it rained out we would start by points but I guess it could be the last practice speed. I don’t know. It will take me a couple of weeks to get this all sorted out. It sounds kind of confusing.”

YOU SEEMED REALLY HAPPY AFTER LAST WEEKS RACE. “Yeah, I feel like it’s a good relationship and going pretty good. Just trying to protect it and keep it going that way. Hopefully everybody on the team is enjoying what we’re doing. We’re not satisfied, we want to win races and I know that those guys are itching to win and get in victory lane and if we work hard we’ll get rewarded with that. I hope everybody on the team is enjoying what’s going on this year. I certainly am. I’m certainly having a good time.”

HOW MUCH HAS BORIS SAID HELPED ELEVATE ROAD RACING IN THIS ENTIRE SERIES WITH THE NUMBER OF PEOPLE HE HAS WORKED WITH? “Well he’s definitely very helpful. He’s helped me with setup ideas, knowledge about road course set up, how to set a car up for road courses and obviously helped me with driving, helped a lot of drivers with driving. Him and Ron Fellows both, any time any of those guys come in and are fast they elevate the standard of competition and elevate the level of speed and what you need to change to be good always gets tougher. They definitely made us all faster whether it be by tutoring us or by raising the stakes by showing up.”

WHAT ARE YOUR PLANS FOR YOUR NATIONWIDE CARS WITH DANICA AND SOMEONE ELSE NEXT YEAR? “We haven’t really talked about it. We’re waiting on Danica to make her decision and we can start to plan what we want to do. It would be a lot of fun to try to go full time. We definitely would like to be part of that opportunity. We’ll just have to see how it goes.”

WHAT IMPACT DOES FUEL STRATEGY HAVE ON THIS PARTICULAR TRACK? SOMETIMES CIRCUMSTANCES LIKE CAUTIONS PLAY A ROLE AS WELL? “Yeah, that’s what really causes it from the get go. If the caution comes out, if you’re car is going to go sixty laps on fuel and the caution comes out with 65 laps to go then you’re in a little bit of a pickle. That’s just the way it happens sometimes.”

WITH ALL THE CHANGES COMING INTO THIS RACE, THE SHIFTING AND QUALIFYING, EVERY WEEK IT’S A WIDE OPEN RACE FOR EVERYBODY, DOES THAT MAKE IT ANY DIFFERENT COMING INTO THE WEEKEND? “Not really. I think it will be pretty similar to how it was last year. Racing here has always kind of been the same.”

ARE YOU CONFIDENT AT THIS RACE TRACK? “I like this place. It’s real tough to get around. It’s a pretty tough race track with all three corners being really different. The car wants to drive different through all three corners. Hopefully you kind of got a good balance across the board. But I feel good. Feel like we just are going to try to come here and do a good job, put together a good weekend just like we’ve been doing every week.”

DO YOU THINK THERE SHOULD BE A RULE IN PLACE FOR A DRIVER, IF YOU DO DAMAGE TO ANOTHER CAR AFTER THE CHECKERED FLAG YOU SHOULD HAVE TO PAY FOR THE DAMAGES? “I don’t know if that would have made a difference. I don’t know. The way it was handled and I was reading some of Brian’s comments about Darlington and he was saying and I may be wrong but as far as I remember he was saying where he had a problem was the extracurricular stuff that went on outside of the flag. Everything in between the green flag and the checkered flag was fine but what happened after the checkered flag they felt was a problem. And then in Kansas it wasn’t a problem. So that was the only thing that stuck out to me, when is it okay to hit a guy after the race and when is it not okay. What Kyle did in Kansas we do all the time. I didn’t really think that was too big of a deal. Obviously it upset Richard but we run into each other all the time after a race but really a lot of it never gets caught on television or seen by anybody. Sometimes it’s because you’re happy for somebody and sometimes it’s because you’re mad at somebody. We end up sorting those things out ourselves someway and somehow. I guess there is a certain level of contact that doesn’t need to happen after the race. I can totally understand. I’m not calling Brian out or anything I’m just saying I wish I knew everything and I don’t.”

KYLE SAID HE DIDN’T REALIZE HE CAUSED THAT MUCH DAMAGE, YOU SAID YOU GUYS DO IT ALL THE TIME, AT WHAT LEVEL DO YOU DO IT ALL THE TIME? “If you’re mad at somebody you’re not thinking about nothing but what you’re mad about. You’re not worried about nothing but what pissed you off. Sometimes you make mistakes, sometimes you handle it just right and sometimes you don’t do nothing. It just depends, it’s all circumstantial. I don’t have much concern in it and I don’t think it’s that big of a deal. It was a big deal. What Richard did obviously drew tons of attention but what Kyle did wasn’t that big of a deal in the grand scheme of things. When you just see it on TV you go oh man that happens all the time. I’ve seen that a million times before.”

IF SOMEONE HAD DONE LIKE $10,000 DOLLARS DAMAGE TO YOUR NATIONWIDE CAR? “I’d get mad. Heck yeah. When Denny and Brad were being idiots at Charlotte that one race and banging into each other’s fenders and stuff it really upset me. I was in another car and I went up there and ran into Denny.”

AFTER THE RACE OR DURING? “During. We were all like hey don’t hit that car. It was just really stupid all of us and then there was that big fight afterwards between the two teams. Not my team but the other two teams. It was just silly. That happens all the time and yeah you get mad. That damn Beuscher kid wrecked Danica in California for no freaking reason at all so he’s on the list. He’s got his coming one day.”

TRANSCRIPT: Carl Edwards Press Conference at Michigan

(Carl Edwards waves to the crowd during pre-race of last weekend's Federated Auto Parts 300 at Nashville Superspeedway. He finished second behind NASCAR Nationwide Series points leader Brad Keselowski. Photo by Brandon W. Mudd)

Earlier today, Columbia, Mo.-native and two-time Gateway International Raceway winner Carl Edwards spoke to the media at Michigan International Speedway regarding his struggles on the track, conflict resolution in racing, and who wears the firesuit in his family.

Carl Edwards is the most recent Ford driver to claim victory at Michigan International Speedway with his 2008 3M 400 win. That victory was the historic 11th owner win for Jack Roush, tying him with the Wood Brothers for the most by any car owner at MIS.  Edwards meet with the media Friday to discuss where he feels his team is headed, driver interaction, the new FR9 engine and more.

TALK ABOUT YOUR PRACTICE RUN - “We worked hard on race trim and Bob tried a couple things, then we made two qualifying runs … now we are watching it rain. I am not sure if we will get qualifying in or not, so we felt like we balanced our practice pretty well either way.” 

HOW CLOSE DO YOU FEEL YOU ARE TO REALLY BEING COMPETITIVE AND UP FRONT? “If you take the best car at each of our races, including the RPM guys, we have been very close. If you look at one individual car and look at how we’ve run through all the races, we are still pretty far off. I guess that is what we have to hope for in having all these teams to lean on, taking the best car in each race and looking at that to apply it the next time.  I am hopeful that we are close, but I can’t quite tell. Our best race was Richmond and I felt we had a top two or three car. Our team hasn’t been that fast, but our teammates have at times. I just don’t know, but I hope we are close to figure something out.” 

WHEN DID YOU DISCOVER THAT THERE WAS AN ISSUE WITH DATA SIMULATION?  “I don’t know that there is ever a time where you say, ‘Oh, we discovered an issue’.  The evidence is the performance. That is where we are focusing our energy because Jack feels like that is the issue. I am not the person to say here are the procedural problems we have. What we are doing is not working as well as some of the other guys and considering we don’t have the opportunity to go test makes simulations hugely important. We’ve got that and a bunch of other things, that if they were better, we would be faster.” 

WHO WEARS THE FIRE SUIT IN YOUR FAMILY? (Laughter) “I’m wearing it.” 

“We’ve already proven we can win races … not right now we can’t, but we have in the past. I know what it is like to win more races than anybody in a season. I know what that feels like and I know we can do it, so for us the important thing is to be in the Chase.  If on Sunday we had to take a huge risk to try to win the race, or we could be guaranteed a third place finish, we would have to take the third place finish so that we can be in the Chase to try to win a championship. I don’t want those types of choices, but that is where we are at.” 

IS IT MORE IMPORTANT FOR YOU TO TRY TO WIN A RACE TO PROVE YOU GUYS CAN DO IT, OR ARE YOU MORE CONCERNED WITH TRYING TO STAY IN THE TOP-12? IF YOU WERE KEVIN HARVICK, WOULD YOU EXPECT TO GET ONE FROM JOEY LOGANO, AND IF YOU WERE JOEY, WHAT WOULD YOU DO? “I am not either one of them. It is just racing. What is going on between them isn’t for me to comment on, it is between them.”

JACK SAID EARLIER THIS WEEK THAT THE NEW ENGINES ARE MARGINALLY BETTER, WHAT IS YOUR TAKE ON THAT? “Here is the deal, everyone at Roush Yates Engines works very hard and they are doing a very good job. It would be nice for us to have an engine that everybody else is trying to catch up to, instead of us trying to catch up to them. I think one of the things we have been trying to do is not to think of how we can catch up to everyone because that is not going to work. We have to figure out how to be the guys everyone is trying to catch. It is a lot easier when you are in that position. The new engine seems to be very reliable and makes great power. I can only hope that the future is that it will produce more power and we can run more tape and the rest of the guys will be complaining that we have too much motor.”

YOU LEFT OUT THE WORD FAST. YOU SAID POWERFUL, BUT IS THE NEW ENGINE NOT AS FAST AS IT NEEDS TO BE? “I didn’t leave out the word fast because an engine isn’t fast. It produces power so that the car can be fast. It seems to be powerful, maybe even a little bit more than our other engine.  That is a separate thing.  A lot of people come up to us and talk about how the new engine is coming and you are going to be faster, but the problem isn’t our engines. The problem is how fast the car can go through the center of the corner and the balance. The engine is a separate thing. Right now it looks like it is as good as or better than the old engine. We are all hoping that in the next couple of months that we can gain 10 or 15 horsepower. That would be great. Then we would be faster for sure, regardless of if we fix our handling problems.”

CAN YOU LOOK AHEAD FOR US TO NEW HAMPSHIRE? “I like New Hampshire. I almost won my first time there in the trucks. I have won Nationwide there, maybe two. I felt like we were going to win the race when we had the Red Sox car. I enjoy that race track. It has been one of those tracks that we have struggled with as a group. That and Phoenix have not been our strong points. I am optimistic because we ran well at Richmond and I think that some of that thinking could be good at New Hampshire. It is a little flatter, but it is smooth and has smiliar speed as Richmond. For us as a team, having Fenway Park right up the road, there is a lot of pride for us to run well there.”

DOES THE RAIN TODAY IMPACT YOUR DOUBLE-DUTY SCHEDULE? “I have no clue what my schedule is going to be. We always try to figure it out about two weeks in advance but I can’t make a decision to be honest. I was going to ride with Joey, but we go out 45th and he goes out fourth, so he said we have to figure out our own way to get there. It frustrates Angela, my assistant, because I can’t make a decision what I want to do.”

I UNDERSTAND YOUR PHILOSOPHY OF NOT TRYING TO CATCH-UP, BUT TRYING TO GET AHEAD. DO YOU HAVE TO LOOK AT WHAT OTHER TEAMS ARE DOING? “Yeah, I am not saying we aren’t trying to catch up. We are looking at other teams. If we could go copy the fastest car we would. What I am saying is that within our team, our culture, you don’t think about being as fast as the others because it won’t make you faster. A couple of years ago when Jack figured out the axle housing, that got us ahead … and that was nice. When we were that fast, we still didn’t win all the races. We won a bunch, but not all. We aren’t going to settle for being as good as everyone, we want to be better.”

“We still go testing. I don’t think we do less work than anyone. I think why we are pointing at the simulation is because that is what determines what you are going to work on once you get to the race track. It is the interface between the work and the output on the race track. That is the formula that may or may not be right, if that makes sense.”

GOING INTO THE 2010 SEASON, DID YOU HAVE ANY INKLING YOU WOULD BE IN THIS SITUATION? “Yes I did. We were worse in 2009 I think. I think we are doing better now. I thought things could be worse now I guess. When the season started I thought we might be in real trouble. Now we have three cars in the Chase, we are able to run top-10 … it’s not terrible.  I am not pleasantly surprised, but not surprised the other way either.”

WHAT WAS YOUR DEFINING MOMENT WHEN YOU SENT THE MESSAGE YOU WOULDN’T BE A DOORMAT ON THE RACE TRACK? “I don’t know if there is a defining moment. I am simple. I don’t mind confronting anybody about anything. I hope people know that if they are going to wreck me, or take advantage of me, that I am going to address that.  I hate to talk about other people’s deals. I will speak for myself and say that as a person, you have to stick up for yourself. I don’t see anyone in the garage that doesn’t stick up for themselves. I think we are all pretty clear about that stuff. I thought last weekend went just like it should have. I don’t think there was anything out of the ordinary.  It’s not my fight though. Those guys are their own guys.  It is tough. Everybody has to deal with it. I am sure you all deal with it in your business too. Everybody does it, you just don’t have cameras and everybody’s opinion interjected into it. I am sure if somebody steals your parking space, you might have some things to say that if a camera was right there, we would all be like ‘wow!’  That is just part of being a person.”

YOU MADE IT A POINT TO CONGRATULATE BRAD KESELOWSKI AFTER HIS WIN LAST WEEK, WHAT WAS THE IMPETUOUS THERE? “Brad and I had our issues, but like we have talked about a bunch, I did not mean to flip him over into a fence. I was just trying to spin him out. That is behind us … it is done. Brad and I get along just fine. Me going over to congratulate him was just me saying he had a heck of a race. I know I had him nervous a little but he kept his cool and won that race. I thought he did a good job, so I just wanted to congratulate him like I would with anybody.”

DO YOU THINK YOU GUYS SHOULD CONTINUE TO RESOLVE THINGS ON YOUR OWN, EVEN IF IT MEANS ON THE RACE TRACK? “I think we should be able to resolve things on the tracks, or in the pits, or wherever. You have to be able to tell guys that things don’t fly. I am normal. I grew up in Columbia, Missouri. If you had an issue with somebody, you go and take care of it. You can’t let it be because it won’t fix itself. What is different now is that you are on television and everybody has an opinion and it gets twisted around. That is one dimension of it. The second part is that some of the participants understand that very well and manipulate it. They don’t act like normal people and use you guys to make whatever reality they want to be. It becomes very difficult as a driver to decide what to do. You think it would be great if you could pull a guy aside and work things out. If you can’t work it out then whatever, but you can’t do that now. It is like this big mess now.”

ARE WE GETTING TO THE POINT LIKE HOCKEY WHERE THEY SETTLE THINGS WITH A FIGHT?  IS THAT WHAT IS COMING NEXT? “I don’t know what to say about that. Every situation is different and you just have to do what you have to do.”

CAN YOU TALK ABOUT THE INTENSITY RATCHETING UP EACH WEEK? “It is crazy. It is incredible really. I think it is hard for people to understand who aren’t in the cars. I heard a lot of talk this week about give and take and racing hard all the time. As a race car driver when you are in the car, there is stuff you realize like risk versus reward. Some of those restarts were just crazy. People are taking chances. I think that is a function of a couple things. The double file restart puts you in a position there to do that. Also, with the cars, it is so tough to pass that sometimes when they drop the green, guys with less to use just say ‘screw it’ and they go for it. Everybody else just gives them a wide birth and watches to see how it goes.  I can drive down in there and go three-wide and door slam someone just like the next guy. It is a tough balancing act on how hard to go on the restarts. In the end, as long as we get through without wrecking it is exciting for the fans.”

DO YOU THINK THE GREEN-WHITE-CHECKERED POSSIBILITY WILL TAKE AWAY THE FUEL MILEAGE ISSUE HERE? “That is a good question. I thought about that a lot at Pocono. I guess you just have to have a brace crew chief if he is going to stretch it to the very end. It depends on what everybody else is going to do. What is going to end up happening is that the last time everybody stops, lets say there is that caution but the best guy is one lap shy, of course everyone is going to get fuel there and save for that last lap. If a caution comes out before we get to that white flag … man there are going to be a lot of things going on. I don’t know what’s going to happen, but it will be different.”

Brad Keselowski Comments on NASCAR Meeting re: Incident with Carl Edwards

(Photo by Brandon W. Mudd)

BRAD KESELOWSKI (No. 22 Discount Tire Dodge Charger) Qualified 1st

“It was s a good qualifying effort. We have a great race car here. Our Nationwide cars are exceptionally strong. We’ve had a bad-fast Discount Tire Dodge here at Bristol since we’ve unloaded. Paul (Wolfe, crew chief) and the guys have given me a great race car and it’s really fun to drive. It just powers through the corners and picks up the throttle really fast down the straightaways. We’ve got some momentum here and it really feels good.”

THIS IS YOUR THIRD CAREER POLE AT BRISTOL. WHAT MAKES YOU SO GOOD HERE IN QUALIFYING?

“Bristol is just one of the places that comes naturally to me and I’ve been fortunate to have good cars. Sometimes tracks just come to you and Bristol is one of those tracks. Having a fast car always makes the driver look good. I’ve been lucky to feel good inside a fast car and that’s the key.”

WHAT HAPPENED AT THE MEETING WITH NASCAR THIS MORNING?

“I don’t know how Carl feels about it, but I don’t think it’s cool to say everything that was said in there. Hopefully, it will be productive to where we can move forward and continue to race each other hard and not have any more incidents like we had at Atlanta.”

“We hadn’t talked before. I wouldn’t say there was anything said that surprised me. You have to understand, Carl and I have a mutual respect for each other in a sense we’re almost the same people. We come from similar backgrounds. We drive the same way. I have a lot of respect for him before and after the accident. Hopefully, that will stay the same.”

HOW DOES THIS AFFECT THE WAY YOU WILL BE RACING?

“Carl and I have talked before about leaving each other more room, but it seems like when it came down to it, it just never worked out. It’s racing. The biggest thing to me, you know, is incidents are going to happen because we race against each other more than 60 times. We’re going to run by (beside) each other. We just each have to build up a tolerance for that.”

WHAT ROLE DID JACK ROUSH AND ROGER PENSKE HAVE IN THE MEETING?

“Jack and Roger are two different people for sure, but they are both extremely supportive of us. Carl and I both put a lot of emphasis and trust into our car owners, where we listen to them and talk to them. I think we both see the same things in them. They’re kind of mentors to us.”

WAS IT DIFFICULT TO STEP INTO THE CAR (TO QUALIFY) AFTER THE MEETING?

“If you’re going to be successful in this sport, it’s really important to separate your emotions from trying to get the job done. I feel good that I was able to do that.”

DALE EARNHARDT JR. HAS BEEN QUOTES AT SAYING YOU HAVE A TON OF TALENT, NO CONFIDENCE. WHAT’S YOUR REPSONSE?

“To me, confidence means that you’ve proved yourself. I don’t ever feel like I’ve proved myself. I always feel like every time I get in the race car is a new opportunity to prove myself and, not only that, that I’ve reset from whatever past accomplishments I have that they mean absolutely nothing. So, if that means lack of confidence, then yes, by that definition, yes.”

Edwards, Roush Comments on Meeting With NASCAR re: Keselowski

(Photo by Brandon W. Mudd)

Carl Edwards and Brad Keselowski met with NASCAR this morning at Bristol regarding their incident two weeks ago at Atlanta Motor Speedway. Here are Carl's comments on the meeting as well as the comments of Carl's team owner, Jack Roush:

CARL EDWARDS – No. 99 Aflac Ford Fusion – HOW DID THINGS GO IN THE MEETING?

“Everything went really well. I think the biggest thing coming out of that meeting is that now, I think, Brad and I understand one another a little better. I think we’re gonna be able to just go forward and go racing, and that’s what this is all about. It was really cool to be able to talk with Jack and Roger and Brad all at once. We laughed. We cried. In the end, I think it’s gonna be good.”

WHAT HAS THIS WEEK BEEN LIKE FOR YOU?

“This last week was really good, actually, for me. I got to spend a lot of time at home, but I guess this is just part of life and part of the way things go, especially with the way the media works. Sometimes people don’t understand everything that’s going on. It’s interesting, I’ll say that.”

WHAT DON’T PEOPLE UNDERSTAND?

“Well, for instance, with what happened at Atlanta. It’s very hard for people to understand that the result is far different from the intent. Things can be presented in a lot of ways, but I guess that’s just part of it. What’s most interesting to me is that sometimes it’s about selling ad time or newspapers and it’s not about explaining the story.”

YOU HAVE SORT OF BEEN PORTRAYED AS AN ANGRY GUY WHO GETS UPSET. HOW DO YOU FEEL ABOUT THAT?

“I addressed that a little bit yesterday. I think some people would like that to be the case, but let me put it this way – it’s real easy to stand back and throw stones at someone and make little chirps and say things that make you feel better about yourself, but, in the end, what I said yesterday holds true. The people who know me know that I’m a very fair person. I guess if my biggest fault is standing up for myself, I’ll take it. They can fault me all day for that.”

JACK ROUSH, Owner – No. 99 Aflac Ford Fusion – WHAT WAS TALKED ABOUT INSIDE?

“The ultimate responsibility that we all have – that NASCAR has, the owners have and the drivers have – to keep everybody safe in this business. It’s a sport that needs to be contentious, but it needs to be safe too and we’ve got to be careful to respect that line.”

DO YOU FEEL THIS IS BEHIND BOTH DRIVERS?

“Carl and Brad both said things that would indicate that they’re willing to put it behind them and let bygones be bygones, to give one another racing room, and that’s what’s needed. They need to give one another a little extra room for awhile.”

DO YOU AND ROGER SEE EYE TO EYE ON THIS?

“Oh, yeah. Roger and I are on the same page.”

WHAT DID YOU SAY TO CARL REGARDING THIS SITUATION?

“I told him I did not condone what he did, but I did understand it.”

DO YOU THINK BRAD AND CARL SEE EYE TO EYE?

“No, but I think that they will give one another enough respect that we won’t see another occurrence like that. I think Carl is not likely to have incidental contact with Brad and cause a wreck, and I think Brad is not like to have incidental contact with Carl and cause a wreck in the foreseeable future.”

WHAT ABOUT CARL AND KEVIN HARVICK?

“I don’t know about that. I didn’t read the things that they said about one another and I’ve had no contact with either one.”