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FORD CAPTURES HALF OF THE NEXTEL CUP CHASE FIELD
·       Despite having the fewest numbers of full-time teams among manufacturers (eight), Ford has the most qualifiers as five Tauruses qualified for the final 10-race Chase for the Nextel Cup.

·       All five of the Roush Racing Fords owned by Jack Roush made the field as Greg Biffle, Mark Martin, Kurt Busch, Carl Edwards and Matt Kenseth all finished in the Top 10.

·       Five cars is the most for a single manufacturer in two years of the chase format.  Last season there were four Fords, four Chevrolets and two Dodges in the 10-car field.

·       Martin, Busch and Kenseth are repeat visitors to the Cup chase while Biffle and Edwards are newcomers.
·       Busch will be looking to win the Cup for a second straight time.

photo credit Autostock

BUSCH BACK IN VICTORY LANE
·       Kurt Busch won for the third time this season and first time at Richmond International Raceway.
·       The win was Busch's 14^th in the NASCAR NEXTEL Cup Series.
·       Today's win is the 11th of the season for Ford, which is one more than last year.
·       Ford has 565 all-time NASCAR NEXTEL Cup Series wins.
·       The last time Ford swept the top three spots was Aug. 22, 2004 at Michigan when Greg Biffle won the GFS Marketplace 300.  Mark Martin was second and Dale Jarrett was third.

·       The last time Roush Racing finished one-two in a NNC race was Sept. 19, 2004 at Loudon when Kurt Busch won and Matt Kenseth finished second.

·       This marks the first time Roush Racing has swept the top three spots in a Cup event.

DALE JARRETT - No. 88 UPS Taurus (Finished 39^th) - "We had a good race car, but lap traffic was pretty tough.  There was prime real estate and everybody was trying to get to the same spot.  It's unfortunate.  That's one of the better runs we've had.  I was happy.  We made some good adjustments with our car, but it's another bad night at the end."  WHAT HAPPENED WITH THE INCIDENT?  "I was up beside the 37.  It was a lapped car and he ran me down on the apron and it's kind of hard to steer down there."  NOW YOU DON'T HAVE TO WORRY ABOUT THE CHASE THE LAST 10 RACES.  "We'd like to be a part of it, but we'll see if we can get this UPS Ford in Victory Lane."

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KURT BUSCH - No. 97 Crown Royal Taurus - VICTORY LANE - "This is something we've been looking forward to for many races - Richmond.  We wanted get a good finish because it's bit us so many times.  I've respected this place because it's tough to win and we've had everything go wrong to take our chances away, but tonight there were just great pit stops - smooth on the gas, smooth on the brakes.  With the way we've been running this year on short tracks, this finally gets us a win on all the short tracks.  It's a great feeling and just an awesome run for the Crown Royal Ford."  BUSCH BROTHERS HAVE WON BACK-TO-BACK.  WHAT ABOUT GRANDMA?  "I love grandma.  She's our number one supporter.  This whole group and just the way we're able to stick together, obviously, through all the things that are going on right now.  I'm just happy that we're able to push forward.  I've got a great group of guys.  This is a great momentum run now to go into the chase.  Just to run every week with these motors that Yates built us and this group of guys - all of our associate sponsors.  This weekend we had something special on the hood with Crown Royal Relief.  It's not a hangover thing, it's special relief for the hurricane victims.  I'm gonna take all my money from this win and have it go towards the chopper that they're trying to raffle off."  IS IT A STATEMENT?  "It is in some ways, yes.  In other ways, we're just racing our cars to the best of our ability.  This is the B car for next week.  We've saved our stuff just like we did last year.  It's gonna be a busy September and October with all of our testing.  Look out, Kurt Busch is running.  We're having a great time.  The souvenir sales are 50 percent off, I'm gonna give 50 percent of my souvenir sales to the victims as well, so we're just going and giving everything away that we can and we'll see what we can do for the championship."

photo credit Autostock

GREG BIFFLE - No. 16 National Guard/Subway Taurus (Finished 3^rd) - "It was a great run.  I tell you what, it was spectacular.  I wouldn't say it's not one of our best race tracks, but this isn't our strongest race track and to come here and finish third, I don't know what to say.  The Ford Taurus National Guard car, the guys did a great job in the pits.  One tire got away on us, so we had to come from the middle of the pack, but the car drove right up through there.  The brakes ran great all night.  Everything just worked perfect.  I couldn't be happier.  Congratulations to Kurt and Matt for making the chase.  It's a good night for us overall."

photo credit Autostock

MATT KENSETH - No. 17 DeWalt Taurus (Finished 2^nd) - "I'm relieved, but more than relieved I'm excited.  I'm excited for this whole DeWalt team.  They did such a great job on pit road.  They're the reason why we're here.  We were way behind here a few months ago and they just kept digging and giving me better race cars.  They were just killing everybody on pit road.  It was awesome on pit road and they put us in position.  I'm real excited because I feel like we've got some momentum.  We're running really well.  We didn't just sneak in.  We still ran second tonight and had a good run.  I really think that we can be a threat down the stretch.  There are a couple of tracks that probably aren't great tracks for us, but I think we can be a legitimate threat for it."

CARL EDWARDS - No. 99 Scotts Taurus (Finished 21^st) - "That was nervewracking, but I did have fun racing there at the end.  My car was pretty decent and I was just cruising.  The middle of the race we were just tight in the center and that wasn't good.  We started falling back and falling back and we went a lap down and I thought, 'Man, this is really going the wrong way.'  We fought back and got our lap back. That was pretty cool and ended up running 20^th or 18^th, so that's fine.  That works."  WHAT ABOUT THE WRECK.  "Oh man, that wreck was insane there.  I saw the whole deal flash before my eyes.  It's pretty cool we made it through that."  THOUGHTS ON MAKING THE CHASE?  "I can't believe it.  I wasn't allowing myself to even think of this, really, so it's pretty cool.  When I go home tomorrow it's gonna be pretty neat."  WAS IT HARD TO PROTECT A SPOT INSTEAD OF GOING ALL OUT?  "Yeah, it's real hard, but that's what was necessary and that's what we did."

MARK MARTIN - No. 6 Viagra Taurus (Finished 13^th) - "The car was pretty special.  We did get one lucky dog, but we would have never gotten it if we didn't make a lap up on the race track against the 97 and all those guys.  I'm pretty proud of the performance here tonight.  I'm glad that we had this tonight.  Maybe we won't have the flat tire next week.  I'm real proud of the performance.  I thought the car was pretty strong, especially on the long runs and we didn't make too many people mad."  NO PRESSURE EVEN WHEN THE TIRE WENT FLAT.  "Yeah, the racer in you doesn't like the idea of finishing 41^st, and then it got to 30^th, and then it got to 23^rd.  But, heck, there's nothing wrong with 23^rd based on what we had, but we wanted more and we could have got more if we would have had more time.'

MORE BIFFLE - ON ROUSH'S 1-2-3 FINISH.  "That's pretty incredible.  I mean, we share information really well together - all these teams do - and we give each other racing room.  It's fun to race with Matt and these guys.  Man, it's just unbelievable that our cars run this good.  This is the way we were running in Phoenix when we got that bumper bar through the radiator.  It just shows how strong our teams are and how strong we're gonna be through the end of the chase."  HOW DO YOU FEEL GOING INTO THE CHASE?   "Awesome.  I think that before tonight I felt like we were the team to beat and I still do.  We've got so much momentum.  Our cars are running so fast.  I really feel like we're gonna be one of the teams to beat."

MORE KENSETH - ON 1-2-3 FINISH - "It's pretty neat.  I mean, you've got to enjoy it when it's our time at Roush.  It really works in cycles.  You have up and down days and up and down years.  It goes like that for awhile and right now I'm really enjoying this.  It's fun to drive these cars.  I've got great teammates.  They're all running good and they're all working really good together right now.  It's sad to see Kurt go when he eventually goes because right now we've got a really good group that works good together and we've got good information and everybody is running well."  WOULD IT HAVE BEEN TOUGH TO TAKE IF YOU DIDN'T MAKE IT AFTER SUCH A GOOD COMEBACK?  "Yes and no.  It's easy to say afterwards, but coming into today I didn't have a lot of pressure.  I was good however it went.  I thought we had a good car if we raced really well and didn't have any problems we were gonna make it.  I thought we could make it on performance.  If we had some problems and didn't make it, well, that's just the way it goes.  No matter what, I was gonna walk away today happy and proud of my guys because we made up three hundred and some odd points on 10^th place in the last couple months and that's awesome, even if we wouldn't have made it, so either way I was gonna be real proud of the effort they put forth."

RICKY RUDD - No. 21 Motorcraft Genuine Parts Taurus (Finished 38^th) - "I got run over from behind and didn't see it coming.  I didn't know what happened.  The guys did a good job.  At the very end they got the car tuned up a little bit.  I could never get a handle on the track and then it finally did right there at the end.  Everything was going good except we got run over."

POST-RACE PRESS CONFERENCES

MATT KENSETH - "We had a good night tonight and had a good race.  My guys had great pit stops and had a good car.  We pretty much stayed in the top 10 all night after the start and just had a real consistent run.  It feels good to get a second-place finish out of here.  At the beginning we didn't have any top fives and we've had a few of them lately and been running much better.  I'm excited to have dug our way back out of that hole and made the chase.  That's a great job by all my guys and everybody at Roush Racing.  I'm excited to be in the chase and looking forward to go to Loudon next week.  We've got a lot of momentum right now.  We're running really well.  All of the Roush cars are running well and it's fun to be part of that organization right now because we've got good stuff."  WILL WE SEE TEAMWORK THE FINAL 10 RACES LIKE WHEN YOUR TEAMMATES LET YOU LEAD A LAP?  "Well, first of all, that didn't happen tonight exactly.  I came out of the pits first and Kasey Kahne was up there on two tires and Kurt came up behind me, so I just passed Kasey first and then Kurt caught and passed me.  He had a better car, but I was in front of him so that didn't happen tonight.  That's not to say it couldn't happen, although I don't think it will because all five of us are trying to race for a championship right now and it would be silly to help anybody when you're trying to win yourself.  So that didn't happen tonight.  I'm sure that if I would have been close to him, not to say that it couldn't have happened, but we were better at the time when Kasey had two tires.  We took the lead for a few laps and Kurt had the better car.  We didn't play it conservative.  We ran second.  We were gaining on him a little bit at the end, but he just had the better car all night - just like last year.  He had the best car, too, but ran out of fuel and had some other problems."  WOULD IT BE FUNNY IF YOU WON ONE RACE AND WON THE TITLE?  "I guess so?  I'm laughing now.  I don't know.  Everybody was asking a couple weeks ago - there are some people in the chase and probably still is - I don't know.  There are a few guys in there that haven't won a race this year.  I don't think Rusty has and Mark hasn't won a points race.  There are still a few guys in there and I'll say the same thing I've always said, it still has to reward consistency somehow.  It's not like football.  It's not one team against one team.  It's one team against 42.  If you run seventh, that's not saying you lost, that's saying you ran seventh and there are six guys that beat you.  So you still have to be rewarded for that and for running good week in and week out.  It's hard to win these races.  If I needed that extra 10 points to win tonight to get in the chase, I still couldn't have won.  I was running as hard as I could to try to catch Kurt, so everybody is trying to win and there can only be one winner every Sunday.  It still rewards consistency.  Do I think it would be funny?  Yeah, it would be kind of funny I guess for a shorter answer."  DO YOU FEEL OPTIMISTIC NOW?  "Yeah, I feel good about it.  There are some tracks coming up that we're not probably the best at and there are some tracks coming up where I think we'll be pretty strong at.  I feel like if you are gonna get running better we're definitely doing it at the right time.  Last year we started off pretty strong and won a couple of races and by this time we were in the chase, but, honestly, I wasn't that excited about it because we weren't performing very well.  I knew in my heart that when we got in the chase we weren't going to win the championship most likely anyway, whereas this year sliding in and making up all those points and running well the way we've been running the last couple of months, I'm optimistic about our chances.  I think that we can perform pretty well and have a shot at it."

GREG BIFFLE - "It was a pretty good run for us.  It was pretty uneventful, really.  We kept our track position and the car ran really well.  It was the best car I've ever had here.  We just had one mess-up on pit road.  We lost a tire across pit road and had to come from about 16^th or 17^th and worked our way back up.  I'm pretty excited about running this good here.  The car doesn't have any marks on it, so we're getting ready to take it to Loudon.  Obviously, we feel it's one of our best cars.  We were thinking it was gonna be, so it turned out that way.  I'm just excited to be in the chase and excited to run third here tonight."

CARL EDWARDS - "The Scotts Winterizer Ford was real good early and then we had one bad run where we were real tight and went a lap down.  That was petrifying for me.  I saw it all kind of slipping away, especially with Ryan's really good run and Jamie was running really well.  Obviously Matt was running great, but we got it back together though and got our lap back luckily and ended up finishing 20^th or something like that.  I'm just really pumped to be in this deal.  This is gonna make it a nice trip home tomorrow and to relax a little bit."

MATT KENSETH - HOW DOES JACK KEEP THESE TEAMS EQUAL?  "Jack gives us all the same stuff.  We all have the opportunity to build the same thing, you know what I mean.  I can build the same kind of car Greg can, or he can build the same kind Kurt builds or whatever, so we all have access to the same stuff.  Doug Yates and those guys do an awesome job on engines and they're all very, very close also, so the opportunity is there.  It's up to us how we put that together and how we use that stuff.  Right now we all have it really, really good as drivers and Jack has it pretty good too because all five teams are working really, really well together.  All five drivers get along pretty well and share information and work together and try to work together for the whole team, not necessarily just the single car.  So that's hard to find, it's hard to find guys to work that well together and it's hard to find teams that will always work that well together because we still have to compete every Sunday or Saturday night in this case.  Ryan's feeling pretty bad because he can't get along with his teammate (laughter).  One quick thing, Kurt is going next year or the year after - whatever - and I'm sad to see that happen - and Mark's going too - right now the whole group works really good together so you've got to enjoy it while it's here."

GREG BIFFLE -- DOES ROUSH HAVE A BIG ADVANTAGE?  "He's got a huge advantage.  He's got a 50 percent chance, I think.  All of the teams are running good.  But the 20 car is better than all of us.  We'll see.  He's got a good chance.  We've got some good cars.  I think we've got a really good car and all of them are good.  Kurt is winning races.  Matt's made up a bunch of points.  Mark is running right there."

CARL EDWARDS - DID YOU SEE YOUR CHASE FLASH BEFORE YOU DURING THE WRECK?  "Yeah, that was pretty wild.  Yeah, I kind of saw everything there and I thought, 'Man, I can't believe we're gonna go out like this.'  I had the car slowed down and whoever was behind me gave me just enough of a push to push me into the car that was stopped in front of me, and then somebody ran into the right-rear.  I just didn't know what was gonna happen there, so I was really excited we didn't pop a hole in the radiator or any of the other important stuff.  That was pretty amazing."  YOU ARE THE SURPRISE OF THE TOP 10.  WHEN DID IT BECOME A REALITY THAT YOU COULD DO THIS?  "Pretty early on we had a good run at Daytona and then we went to the next race track, California I believe it was, and ran fifth or something like that and I got thinking that, 'Man, this could be pretty neat.'  Then we went to Bristol and reality set in, but, no, it's surprised the heck out of me to be honest with you, that I'm sitting here talking to you.  I'm really excited and I think you're exactly right, nobody would have picked us." 

MATT KENSETH - HOW WAS THE TRACK AS FAR AS DEBRIS?  "I think it was awesome.  It was about five lanes wide and if you needed that sixth one, you were probably up too high.  I thought it was pretty good.  Yeah, there were some marbles, but they were way, way up there.  Whenever you have a tire that wears out and rubber comes off of it you're gonna have some marbles, and it's hard to blow it when the groove is that high, so I didn't think it was that bad, but some of those guys were running higher than what I was, too.  I don't know, Biff was up there on the cushion.  What did you think?"

GREG BIFFLE - "I thought it was awesome up there.  There was a lot of grip.  I was never up in the marbles, so I thought the track was plenty clear enough up there.  I got a little high coming off four one time and it just starts to slide.  When you get in that stuff you've just got to slow up and kind of regroup and get going again.  I think NASCAR did a good job about cleaning the track.  They cleaned the track everytime there were cautions, so I don't know what they can do.  They're not gonna stop the race in the middle of a run to go up there and clean it.  I think it was the best race I've been in here.  The groove was real wide.  I mean, you could run on the bottom.  It was pretty good racing."

CARL EDWARDS - HAS IT SET IN WITH WHAT'S GOING ON WITH YOU THE LAST COUPLE OF YEARS?  "I'm very fortunate.  You know where I came from.  This is kind of wild for me to be involved in this this early.  I feel like the reason why I'm having such great success is my team.  I feel like I've kind of got on board with Roush right at the crest - and Greg Biffle all the stuff he's taught me - no, it's just unbelievable.  It hasn't really set in.  I'm gonna go home to Missouri tomorrow and hang out and throw some rocks in the river and relax a little bit - do something that's not racing.  I'm really happy." 

GREG BIFFLE - COULD IT BE A DISADVANTAGE TO HAVE FIVE CARS IN THE CHASE?  "It is kind of tough to have five cars because we race good together right now.  I had fun racing with Matt tonight, but if that's for the championship or for a potential five points towards winning the title, it's gonna be harder to race with each other like that because that spot is important.  Naturally, he's gonna try and race as hard as he can.  I was turning.  If he won't let me up there and he chops down on me, then he won't do it again."

MATT KENSETH - "Just to add one more thing to that.  I think the big thing is we're still gonna work the same during the week and the teams are still gonna work the same during the week.  They're gonna work together.  All the guys in the shop, the same people put the bodies on the car the same whether it's a 16 or a 99 or a 17 or whatever it is.  Everybody is still gonna talk.  They're still gonna share information.  They're still gonna work together.  Everybody is gonna do that, but when you get on the track, yeah, you're not gonna do nothing to hurt each other, but if you're gonna do something that might help Greg, but it's gonna cost me, I'm not gonna do that and he's not gonna do that either, unless it gets way stretched out at the end and one of us is out of it or something like that - you'll try to help the guy.  But it's mostly in the shop and it's during practice and after practice sharing notes and talking and finding out things about their cars and trying to apply that to make the whole thing better."

ELLIOTT SADLER - No. 38 M&M's Taurus (Finished 17^th) - "We had a lot of contact tonight but you know what I'm not going to hang my head. These guys behind me worked their butts off all year long but we didn't make the Chase. The world's not over with. I've got some great sponsors on this race car that believe in us whether we made it or not. I got a great car owner in Robert Yates. We've just got to try and maybe get that 11^th spot but the main thing is that we need to go and win a race. I think that would be good for all the guys involved. I'm so proud of them with all the problems that we had tonight, they did not give up. We kept on fighting and kept on fighting. I'm so proud of all of these M&M'S race guys right now."

KURT BUSCH PRESS CONFERENCE - "This was our tenth attempt at Richmond and the first couple of times as a rookie you just write this place off, and then after that this place is fast becoming one of my favorite race tracks, but also the toughest.  This was a short track - the last one on my list to win on for short tracks - and just to be able to have a car that would compete each time for a win.  The time previous to this we ran out of gas while leading with eight laps to go.  The time before that we had lugnuts get stuck in the brake caliper while leading.  The time before that while leading we had fan belts come off the car while leading.  So the story kept digging and getting worse and worse and worse for us.  Our stats look horrible here with one top 10 finish in 10 starts, so this was a great win.  I've come to respect this race track and what you need to do to win.  Just to have the open mind of coming in being locked into the chase - to try something a little different, but it wasn't completely out of the box.  Just to be able to win at Richmond - check this one off my list - so now I've got all the short tracks.  It's too much fun, and to be able to work with a great group of guys and still give 100 percent effort - right now we've hit our stride and now we've got 10 to go.  Ten top-10s will definitely do it for us in the next 10 weeks, I hope."

JACK ROUSH - "The only blemish that we had on our night was the 6 car.  Mark ran over something and cut a hole in a tire after one of the restarts and had to come in after a few laps.  He lost two laps and worked his way to just outside the top 10, I think.  But he worked his way back from two laps down - one lap on the race track and one lucky dog award - so that was good.  The problem that Jamie McMurray had; the problem that Jeff Gordon had; the problem that the 48 car had, those were all out there for us tonight, but we missed them.  Two of our programs that were most vulnerable were obviously the 17 and the 99.  The 17 was right behind Kurt.  He was the man of the hour.  Robbie and those guys did a great job.  I'm really missing Jimmy Fennig here.  Jimmy's become a media magnet.  I'm surprised that we snuck off and he didn't follow us in here, but Jimmy has done such a great job with this team keeping it together and helping Kurt and providing leadership within the group of crew chiefs to advance the technologies that have been complimentary to the tire and the spoiler we've had this year.  Personally, I expected to come out tonight with three cars in the top 10.  That's what I expected.  I was hoping for four, and the fact that Matt didn't have the flat tire and that Matt's engine didn't break.  We had the lugnut, the fan belt, I think there may have been one more out there.  The litany of things that can happen, that will get on top of you, all of those things stayed away from us tonight.  When I look at my programs, I look at Kurt and he's on the top side.  This business cycles.  You go up and you go down and good things happen and things not so good happen for awhile.  You can be doing all the things with the same people and it just goes through cycles.  Kurt is obviously headed on the upside of the cycle.  Greg is on his way back.  Matt is going straight up.  Mark is certainly not in a hole.  He's running good at most places.  Tonight, from 30^th position, a third of the time he was back there he had the fastest lap and, of course, was able to pass Kevin Harvick and stay in front until he had a chance to race to get a lap back - to not be awarded it because he was the first car one lap down.  So I feel really good. 

JACK ROUSH CONTINUED -- Carl learned something tonight.  If you don't wreck, you can finish 20^th and it's OK in a given situation.  Carl has got a learning curve that's straight up, so I'm really excited about the prospect of taking this group of five to the final 10 races here.  I couldn't be prouder of them for what they've done.  I'm sure that we've got bad luck coming.  I wouldn't be surprised before these 10 races are over if we don't have to give back some of the good luck that we've had and get some of the other people's bad luck that's kept them out of the top 10."

KURT BUSCH CONTINUED - CAN YOU CLARIFY THE RELIEF EFFORT?  "Definitely.  To have a chance to have a special paint scheme to commemorate something that's very special to our hearts.  To have the Crown Royal Relief decal on the hood in a very prominent position out on the TV panel of the back of the car, people got a good look.  Some were confused on what it meant.  It looks like a hangover relief kind of thing at first, but once you look past it and get into detail, it's an effort to put together money.  It's a charity fundraising effort.  We've actually got a chopper from Chip Collins that we're gonna auction off on ebay in the upcoming weeks and we're not gonna go any less than what my winnings were tonight.  That will be the starting bid.  I'll throw that money down.  I want to put in a percentage of our souvenir sales through the end of the year.  I want to add as much money as I can to that fund and really kick it off. When you have a sponsor that's as strong as a distilled liquor company like Crown Royal, they can make things happen in a unique way.  That's the power of advertising and the power of connection to people.  So tonight we had a great decal on the car and away we go."  WHAT WAS THE KEY TO WINNING?  AND WITH CARS LIKE THIS DO YOU HAVE SECOND THOUGHTS OF LEAVING?  "The key to victory was not to have fan belts come off and not to have lugnuts get stuck in the rotor and to be open-minded enough to change with the race track.  This place was resurfaced a couple years ago and the bottom groove was the way to go.  Everytime we come back the groove gets higher and higher and you have to adjust for that.  So knowing that, you look for a setup that can work in multiple grooves - somewhat similar to New Hampshire and Martinsville - a couple of short tracks that are on the schedule.  Just to be able to go out and run competitive lap times in Jack Roush's equipment.  To have Jimmy Fennig lead this group it doesn't make me second-guess it, it just makes me feel good in my heart that I know that I'm getting a great effort from the crew guys and everybody behind me to go and capitalize on what's in front of us this year."

JACK ROUSH CONTINUED - DO YOU HAVE A CHASE ADVANTAGE?  "I'm in better shape with five than I would be with one.  I think I'm in better with five than I would be with four, unless somebody runs into somebody for reasons that aren't good enough.  I'll have to think about that (laughing).  No, I'm feeling that we've got five capable and able drivers driving equipment that's organized through great engineering activity, that pools their efforts and works real hard and administered by five crew chiefs that hopefully know what they're doing.  On any given day, they've all demonstrated they can win.  They've all won this year." 

KURT BUSCH CONTINUED - DO YOU CONSIDER THIS A STATEMENT RACE?  "Most definitely.  To be able to get a jump and jump into fifth place in points.  We were looking at different math going into this race.  We were 35 points behind Mark Martin.  If we could gain on those 35, then that would give us five more towards the chase.  Just to be able to put an exclamation point on Richmond was the biggest goal, but in hindsight, knowing that when you have a chance to win the last regular-season race, it just propels you right into the chase.  Knowing that we have our A car waiting for us back at the shop ready to go at New Hampshire, things are shaping up to look just the same as last year.  With a little bit of racing luck and a little bit of staying on top of our game and not let the big picture get away, we could do the same thing we did last year."

KURT BUSCH CONTINUED - WILL THERE BE INTERNAL TENSION RACING WITH TEAMMATES?  "I don't think so.  I believe early on it will definitely help us understand with the extra testing, with the cars on the race track giving one another extra room and to be able to know that that guy is in the chase, it's definitely a great feeling.  As we get closer to the end, let's just say six races, one or two might not be able to have a shot at the championship, but their tests are still just as valid.  They're equation of team and race car are gonna help us out.  So, if we're out, we're gonna help the other guys.  If Edwards falls out or Kenseth, it's still gonna work even better into our hands when we have five guys in the chase."

JACK ROUSH CONTINUED - HOW HARD IS IT TO GET FIVE TEAMS IN THIS THING?  "That was the reason that I said I started the night here believing that I only deserved to have three.  We had more than our share of good fortune and there was bad luck waiting for us tonight.  We had been snake bit so many times by so many different things here.  Looking back, this is probably the cleanest we've ever run at Richmond forever with two cars or three cars even let alone four or five.  We're just living the dream here with this thing.  I know we're gonna have to give it back.  Everything averages out for the luck that you can't affect through preparation and strategy.  Some of it you just can't do anything about.  Carl missed by just a heartbeat, he missed a bad wreck between the 88 and I forget who he wrecked with back there, but he was all over the top of that and caved the fender in a little bit.  A little bit more and he would have wound up tangled up like Jamie McMurray did."  DO YOU THINK MATT BENEFITS THE MOST WITH RESETTING THE POINTS?  "Based from the middle of the year on, everybody but Matt probably felt like they had a real good shot at it.  In the early part of the year, Matt didn't run very well and we had some things break against us.  We stopped for two tires when four tires was better.  It wasn't clear, but that's the way it worked out.  Stop for four tires and two were better.  We may have run the thing out of gas once.  I'm trying to remember about that for sure, but we just had a number of things that broke that were bad and it certainly looked like that he wasn't gonna be in, but I guarantee that they'll be anticipating Christmas like a seven-year-old between now and Thanksgiving time - or the week before that - when we go to Homestead.  The 17 has had a Cinderella finish to the 26 races here and they're on their game.  They're a championship level team.  In our world, nobody has better pit stops.  Nobody is more sure-handed.  They have a lineup of cars that are good cars and that they're comfortable with, that is ready to go forward, and the things they've tried lately have all worked.  They've had more improvement throughout the second half of the year than any of our other teams and I'm sure they're real excited about that.  They believe they can win and that means a lot."

KURT BUSCH CONTINUED - HOW DO YOU APPROACH DEFENDING YOUR TITLE?  "New Hampshire is key to getting a good start.  You want that race to go smooth and to gain bonus points.  Bonus points now can mean more than the top 10 positions because you can gain 100 points in the final 10 races and that was key to our victory last year.  So getting off to a good start.  I'm looking forward to many tests at the mile-and-a-halves because those dominate the chase races this year.  At New Hampshire, we went from seventh to first in points last year.  We're gonna try to do that again.  We're gonna come from fifth, hopefully."

JACK ROUSH CONTINUED - ASIDE FROM CHANGING WHEEL SUPPLIERS WHAT HAVE YOU LEARNED FROM LAST YEAR'S CHASE TO THIS YEAR?  "Actually, we didn't change wheel suppliers.  We figured out that there was a technique that we had in our wheel that really contributed to our problem last year and we've understood that.  Unlike several of the teams, we're still with the same wheel supplier that we had before we had problems."  WHAT HAVE YOU LEARNED?  "We got all brand new wheels.  Kurt gave me some advice in the middle of the race, suggesting that I probably needed new wheels, so I took that and starting at the chase they'll all have brand new wheels.  We'll have next year's wheels starting then.  The wheel thing, we think we've taken the risk out of it.  We've got our best lineup of cars.  We've got plenty of great engine parts and we've got plenty of gears that have got the right heat-treat for our transmission and things.  We've got our best parts and our best cars laid back for these final 10 races.  Everything that's gone wrong early in the year - we had one car before we went to Fontana that didn't have an electrical system component in it that helps fail safe for an alternator failure, and we understood that and got that corrected.  So all of the cars have got everything we understand that is beneficial to them, that reduce the risk of falling out of a race for something we can predict, and we've just got to go see what happens - see if we can run over a piece of trash at the wrong time or somebody drops their oil in front of us - one of those things we can't control.  That's what will get us.  It won't be something we've overlooked."  ANY TREPIDATION ABOUT HAVING FIVE GUYS IN THE CHASE?  "The longer we go with this program, and I'm talking about this 18 years I've had in stock car racing with all these guys.  The longer I go, the less they let me do.  For some reason, they're becoming more capable on demonstrating the limits of my capability and they're protecting me from it.  I'm not stressed at all with what I need to do today with what's going on.  Doug Yates is doing a great job with the engines.  Harry McMullen is doing a great job building the cars.  We've got plenty of cars.  We're consolidating on our construction of our cars.  We've got backups for our backups for our backups.  We're in really good shape.  The thing that is not clear is whether we discover something with a shock absorber, or discovering something with a spring, or with an aero-balance issue that is outside the box of what's known.  There's only one car and I'm not gonna say what we're concerned about out there, but there's one guy that's got one thing technically that we don't understand that has beat us a couple of times this year.  That's the only thing I'm aware of that we lack.  We're up on our cooling.  We're up on our brakes.  We're up on our shocks.  We're ready to run for a championship if we ever were and it's just my good fortune we're sitting there with five teams ready to do it."  WHAT ABOUT THE PSYCHOLOGICAL ASPECT?  "At 63 years old and doing this for 40 years do you think I'm not smart enough to psych myself out of it.  We won't be making a lunge for life.  We won't be making a desperate attempt to find something new.  We'll just hunker down and treat this thing - in the old days it was a 36-race schedule - it's gonna be a 10-race schedule where every race counts.  You can't make high-risk decisions, low probability of success decisions for your hardware and the guys will have the good sense to do that on the race track.  They'll race the same way we have to get us where we are." 

KURT BUSCH CONTINUED - YOU RACED HARD WITH HARVICK EARLY.  WHEN DID YOU TAKE CONTROL?  "We raced real hard and that's what Richmond allows you to do.  When get side-by-side with a guy, the inside car, his momentum is restricted a bit because that guy has the momentum on the outside and it's fun to race like that.  There aren't many race tracks that allow you to do that and after a few pit cycles to notice that Harvick's car kept getting tighter and tighter.  With this new format of impounding, you see guys sit on poles and you know they've got fast race cars, but you know they sat on a pole because it was comfortable in qualifying.  So I looked at that.  I said, 'Well, we were fifth and we were on the loose side.  I think our car is gonna get better as we run.'  And it did.   Harvick's car got a bit tight, so we have to compromise between qualifying and race.  So about halfway when we took the lead from Harvick, we were able to stretch it out.  I was challenged by my little brother.  He seemed very strong and very determined tonight to back up his win in California, and then to have Matt Kenseth and Greg Biffle - a top three for Roush at the end.  It was great racing.  Just having a car that is capable of qualifying well and racing well is the key to winning with this new impound system."

JACK ROUSH CONTINUED - HOW DO YOU KEEP GUYS WORKING TOGETHER IF THEY'RE ALL IN IT AT THE END?  "Mark Martin probably said it well in terms of the drivers.  Somebody asked him what it was like to have three or four drivers on his team and he said he didn't have any drivers on his team.  He said if they were on his team, they'd be trying to help him win races.  I have the respect for each of them to pursue their careers and to make the most of the opportunities that we've given them with the hardware and things.  To this point, they've had the respect for me to not take one another out by taking mindless chances around one another - where they could do damage or reduce the prospects of success through some misdeed of theirs.  I expect to race clean.  I often say when I'm faced with a contentious problem and I know the answer I put the protagonists in a room together.  I turn off the light and throw something in there that would make somebody mad and then just wait to shake the hand of the one that comes out.  That's the way I feel about it.  I want to see the same race that the fans do and the same race that our sponsors do.  I want to see the best of our drivers and the best of our programs win based on who has the most luck and who executed the best strategy on the race track with their crew chief and I don't care."

KURT BUSCH CONTINUED - WHEN WERE YOU CONVINCED THE FENDER DAMAGE WASN'T GOING TO RUIN YOUR NIGHT?  "It doesn't seem like it hindered our chances that much when it happened.  The car got a little bit tight, but this track is more about the car's handling and how you apply the four springs to the race track.  It was a stupid mistake on my part.  I got back in the groove and just waited for the next pit stop to pull out the fender and get four fresh tires and just have a clean slate again.  So, no biggie.  We used our right-front fender quite often tonight just because of how tough it is to pass when you get next to lapped cars that have fresh tires or when you have guys that are holding the top lane.  It's just fun short-track racing."

JACK ROUSH CONTINUED - THIS CHASE ISN'T A BAD DEAL IS IT?  "It is a great deal.  The only caution that I gave the powers that be at NASCAR when they brought this up more than a year ago was that the sponsors and the teams that didn't make the top 10, that couldn't be running in the final stages for a championship, were gonna buy the same amount of tires, the hotel rooms are gonna cost the same.  They were gonna have the same number of people at the race track.  The payrolls would be the same and it was gonna be hard to justify the level of cost and the expenditure that the sponsors and the teams had to exert to be able to run these races when they were running for 11^th place.  What they said to me at that time was that there was gonna be enough energy brought to it that the folks that would race from 11^th through 43 were gonna get their money's worth based on the fact there would be more attention brought to it.  I think that's true.  The other thing I told them at the time.  I told them, 'You guys are concerned about the fact that my program is getting stronger and stronger,' and I said, 'if I do get five teams' and I predicted that before I knew Jeff Burton was gonna leave in the middle of last year based on his contract being up and him having a chance to move early and me making a decision to build with Carl Edwards towards 2005, I predicted, I said, 'If I put five in this first year's competition with the chase, you guys are gonna say I'm predatory.'  They said, 'No.'  But we weren't able to do that last year.  We do have five great programs.  We were very lucky this year and we're gonna compete under the rules that they've got.  Whatever the rules they are, we'll take a look at them, try to figure out what we can  do.  The crew chiefs use their best strategies, the car builders do, and certainly I won't miss a trick if my experience tells me what I need to do.  We're racing hard.  Everybody races hard.  Somebody that doesn't use their best effort given the rules in front of them and the resources they've got is not doing what they need to be doing for the representation they make to the sponsors and to the fans."

JACK ROUSH CONTINUED - ARE YOU CERTAIN YOU AND KURT WILL BE TOGETHER NEXT YEAR?  "Kurt has made a commitment to me that we agreed to and I made a commitment to him that he agreed to two years ago, and there's one more year left in it.  It's my expectation he'd be in the car, unless something happens that I'm unaware of sitting here.  But I am open to consideration realizing that there are a lot of things in play here.  I've got commitments to sponsors and my sponsors have got an expectation based on the way they're set up for their marketing programs.  Of course, there's an expectation that Roger Penske has for what he wants to try to do in the post-Rusty era, so there are a lot of things in play.  Kurt is certainly a pawn in that, but I didn't put Kurt in play.  I've got commitments for him and I made commitments to other people with regards to that and we're talking about it.  To answer your question, I'm as certain as I can be without being certain."