Today’s win in the Daytona 500 was the 13th overall for Ford Racing in “The Great American Race.”

Ford Qualifying Results:

Ford Finishing Order:

1^st – David Ragan

CARL EDWARDS, No. 60 Fastenal Ford Mustang (Finished 1st)  “Ricky Stenhouse is a driving machine and here comes Jack Roush. Jack got us some fuel miles and we couldn’t dare run out of fuel with that Ford Focus out front in the pace car, it is all about fuel mileage today. Jack leaned her down and we didn’t need it, it was great. Mike Beam did a great job with the strategy. I didn’t think I was going to get by Ricky. I cannot drive any harder than that. That was as hard as I could drive to get by him. He is going to be a force to be reckoned with.”

HAD YOU EVER HAD A DOMINANT CAR MORE THAN… READ MORE

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DEARBORN, Mich. June 15, 2011 – Fuel mileage may be a problem for NASCAR Sprint Cup Series drivers when they come to Michigan International Speedway for this weekend’s Heluva Good! Sour Cream Dips 400, but it will be all green-flag conditions for one fuel-sipping car in the field.

The all-new 2012 Ford Focus, which delivers an EPA-certified 40 miles per gallon on the highway, will have more than enough petrol to get the job done when it serves as pace car for the first time at a NASCAR-sanctioned event.

While NASCAR Sprint Cup drivers will need to pit five or six times during the 400-mile race, the 2012 Focus, with its outstanding fuel economy, could go race distance and more, pushing… READ MORE

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By Mark Aumann, NASCAR.COM
November 22, 2010 12:01 PM, EST

Back-to-back victories to end season not lost on 99 team, offers promise again.

HOMESTEAD, Fla. — It’s not often that a two-race winning streak gets an asterisk.

For Carl Edwards, wins at Phoenix and Homestead to close out the season are definitely a reason to celebrate, particularly when the first ended a 70-race winless streak. But at Phoenix, Denny Hamlin’s fuel-mileage issues stole the headlines and on Sunday at Homestead-Miami Speedway, Edwards had to share the spotlight with five-time champion Jimmie Johnson.

Edwards was asked if it was frustrating to have his Victory Lane celebration interrupted. After all, he faced a similar situation in 2008.

“I tell you, it’s a lot more frustrating to not be in Victory Lane and watching somebody out there doing their donuts and all that stuff,” Edwards said. “I’ve been in this position before. We have won this race, and whoever wins this race is usually watching somebody else celebrate out there with the championship.”

However, after winning that race two years ago, Edwards was installed as the odds-on favorite to win the championship the following year — and promptly went winless until last weekend.

“Please don’t do that again,” Edwards pleaded with the media. “That didn’t work worth a damn.”

During the past two weeks, the smiles and jokes have returned for Edwards, who admitted the strain of going almost two seasons without a victory was hard on him, crew chief Bob Osborne and owner Jack Roush.

“A 70-race winless streak is very difficult,” Edwards said. “It’s difficult because Jack owns this team. He goes to bed and wakes up every morning, I’m sure, thinking, ‘How can we make this better.’

“I go to bed and wake up every morning, thinking how can I be better, and Bob does the same thing. When you don’t get the results you want, you first look at yourself and you say, ‘Hey, how can I do better?’ It’s very easy to start looking around and start pointing fingers at everyone else.”

So for Edwards, finishing the season with back-to-back victories was a great way to close 2010.

“To look at what we have done and look at these two race wins and [finishing] fourth in points and say, ‘Hey, if you would have told me 10 races into the season that this is how we were going to wrap this thing up,’ I would not have believed you,” Edwards said. “This is beyond the comeback that I expected [and] it’s really beyond what I hoped for. This is a very good, good finish to the season.”

If anything, Edwards wishes the Daytona 500 was next week rather than next year.

“Heck, yeah, I wish the season was just starting,” Edwards said. “That would be nice to start the season with these two wins but we’ll go for three in a row at Daytona and that would be a heck of a place to get three in a row.

“We have been close at Daytona in a couple races, and that would be nice. So we’ll go there with guns blazing and I think we are going to be better than we have ever been, starting next season.”

If anything, Edwards believes he and his team have learned their lessons from 2009, mainly because of experience and horsepower.

“I feel a lot better right now going into 2011 than I did going into 2009, and that’s because I feel we have a lot of momentum and things are getting better,” Edwards said. “We have a new engine that we are working on that just keeps getting better.

“That is the best performance down a straightaway that I have had in a long time [Sunday]. We just got a lot of good things going. I can’t tell you guys how much this means to finish a season like this, this is just spectacular for us.”

When Martin Truex Jr. had to make an unscheduled stop for a tire going flat, Edwards’ main focus turned to watching the laps tick off and keeping an eye on what was happening in the Chase.

“I don’t think anyone wanted to be out there racing those guys too hard, just because of the potential disaster that you could be a part of,” Edwards said. “We joked about it [and said,] ‘Hey, it would be nice to watch that whole thing out of the rear-view mirror.’ And that’s what we did almost all day.”

Even if it meant delaying his celebration a few minutes for a fireworks display.

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AVONDALE, Ariz. — Jimmie Johnson didn’t have the fastest car in Sunday’s Kobalt Tools 500 at Phoenix International Raceway — at the end of the day, race winner and pole-sitter Carl Edwards did.

Johnson, the four-time defending Cup Series champion, didn’t lead a lap. Denny Hamlin, ahead in the points and seeking his first title, led a race-high 190 laps.

Ultimately, none of that mattered. Short on fuel at the end of a race he had dominated, Hamlin short-pitted with Joe Gibbs Racing teammate Kyle Busch on Lap 298 of 312, while Edwards, Johnson and Kevin Harvick were conserving fuel after pit stops under caution on Lap 224.

All three won their gambles, and Hamlin, who finished 12th, saw his lead over second-place Johnson shrink from 33 points to 15 entering next Sunday’s season finale at Homestead-Miami Speedway. Harvick is third in the standings, 46 points behind Hamlin.

Edwards crossed the finish line 4.77 seconds ahead of runner-up Ryan Newman to break a winless streak of 70 races, dating to Homestead in November 2008. Edwards squeezed 88 laps out of his last tank of gas to win for the 17th time in his career, completing a sweep of a weekend that also included a victory in Saturday’s Nationwide Series race.

Joey Logano and Greg Biffle finished third and fourth, respectively, followed by Johnson and Harvick. Matt Kenseth, Mark Martin, Kurt Busch and Jamie McMurray completed the top 10.

“Everybody made it on fuel — is that what you’re telling me?” Hamlin radioed to crew chief Mike Ford after learning he had finished 12th.

“Good job today, man,” Ford replied. “I know that was ugly. That’s something we’ve got to work on.”

“What do we have to work on?” Hamlin asked.

“Mileage was awful,” Ford told him.

Indeed it was. Ford told Hamlin he was 12 laps short on fuel after the pit stop on Lap 224. Contrast that to Edwards, who raced Hamlin hard and passed him for the lead on Lap 266 and made it to the end of the race despite conserving fuel for only half of the last green-flag run.

“I wasn’t sure exactly what our status was,” Edwards said. “I don’t think [crew chief] Bob [Osborne] wanted to say it over the radio, or he just didn’t want to tell me, but I didn’t know what was going on. I thought we were 12 [laps] short, and the caution came out [on Lap 234], so I thought we were maybe six short or something like that.

“So when they dropped the green [on Lap 240], I started racing pretty hard, and I felt like I was a little faster than Denny, but then I realized, ‘Maybe he’s saving a little fuel, so I better save some.’ So I was saving. And then Kyle was falling back even farther behind me, and I thought, ‘OK, these guys are all saving fuel,’ and then Bob started telling me lap times, so I thought, ‘Why is he telling me lap times? Maybe he wants me to race here.’

“We had to establish the fact that he wanted me to race them, so that’s when I drove by Denny. … I only saved fuel for about half of that last run.”

Even as he was in gas-conservation mode inside his car, Johnson recognized the magnitude of his gamble. Failure meant the end to his hopes for a fifth title.

“If we ran out, yeah, we would have lost the chance to be the champions,” Johnson said. “But that kind of left my mind, and I really started focusing on what I needed to do to save gas. Really tried to eliminate my thoughts, any negative thoughts in my mind. Just save fuel … what I needed to do on the race track to save fuel.

“Before I knew it, the laps went by pretty quick — worked themselves down to the white flag. Once I came off of Turn 2 and down the back, I felt pretty good I’d make it to the start/finish line ahead of the 11 [Hamlin].

“My emotions tried to get the best of me. I was on the edge of my seat, but I kept talking myself off the ledge.”

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By Sporting News Wire Service August 2, 2010

LONG POND, Pa. — With his team owner at the Mayo Clinic recovering from injuries sustained in a plane crash, Greg Biffle found the remedy for the ills of Roush Fenway Racing and Ford’s racing program.

Pulling away from the rest of the field after a rain delay of more than 17 minutes, Biffle beat pole-sitter Tony Stewart to the finish line by 3.598 seconds to win Sunday’s Sunoco Red Cross Pennsylvania 500 at Pocono Raceway.

The victory, Biffle’s 15th in the Cup Series, was his first since 2008 and the first for Ford and owner Jack Roush since Jamie McMurray won at Talladega this past November.

“I wish he was here, and I’m sure he’s watching, and this one’s for him,” Biffle said of Roush, who suffered injuries to his face and eye when he crash-landed his plane Tuesday night in Oshkosh, Wis. “It’s been really tough. We worked so hard.”

Roush released a statement calling it a “proud day” for the entire organization.

“They’ve done a wonderful job and this is just the beginning of the rewards that have resulted from all of their hard work,” he said.

Biffle said Roush called him in Victory Lane and the owner said, “he never met somebody that had the will to win like I do.”

“I’m glad he thinks of me like that,” Biffle said. “No matter how grim the outcome can be, I’ll still be digging.”

Biffle won Chase races at New Hampshire and Dover in 2008 before falling into a 64-race winless drought. Biffle was winless last year for the first full season of his career. He joked in Victory Lane he had forgotten how to celebrate.

“We know we have a great team and I know I can do it behind the wheel and we were able to prove it [Sunday],” Biffle said.

Biffle’s crew kept the same car after driving the No. 16 Ford to a season-high third-place finish last week at Indianapolis. Before Indianapolis, he finished 16th-20th-35th in his past three races and hardly seemed like a Chase contender.

Not now. Biffle’s strongly positioned himself for a spot in the 12-driver Chase field

“The whole company needed it,” Biffle crew chief Greg Erwin said. “I can’t really explain what this means. I know [Roush] is with us. This is a brand-new car at Indianapolis and we brought it here because we liked it so much.”

Carl Edwards, who came home third, spoke with Roush on Sunday morning and said his boss sounded in good spirits.

“He was Jack,” Edwards said. “Don’t mess anything up. Don’t wreck. He’s been through a lot this last week. He really needed that victory. That’s pretty cool. I’m sure he’s really hard to handle for all those nurses in the hospital.”

Series points leader Kevin Harvick was fourth and Denny Hamlin fifth. Sixth-place finisher Jeff Gordon saw his bid for his first victory since April 2009 disappear when a four-tire stop under caution on Lap 167 of 200 left him mired in traffic behind cars that took two tires or fuel only. Gordon led 39 laps, second only to teammate Jimmie Johnson’s 96.

The start of the 500-mile race was delayed by rain, and another rain delay was the second time the race was red-flagged. After a stoppage of nearly 29 minutes to clear the debris from a horrific crash involving Kurt Busch, Elliott Sadler and Clint Bowyer on Lap 165, the race took a bizarre turn. All of the lead-lap drivers — except Sam Hornish Jr. — came to pit road for four tires, two tires or fuel only.

Hornish stayed on the track, inherited the lead and ran 11 laps under yellow before NASCAR stopped the field on pit road with 23 laps remaining. But, after the rain delay, Biffle went to the front on the restart on Lap 180 and never looked back.

The rain was exactly what Biffle needed to win the race.

“I felt like we didn’t have the best car [Sunday],” he said. “For some reason, when it cooled down, this car just took off — that’s all there was to it. The temperature cooled down, we really didn’t make any adjustments, and the thing just started going on the restarts and got in clean air, and the thing just took off. I don’t know what happened.”

Hornish raced hard over the last 21 laps but faded to 11th at the finish.

Gordon was fourth when the field restarted on Lap 151 after a debris caution. Juan Montoya, who had short-pitted before the leaders came to pit road under caution on Lap 146, had the lead by virtue of staying on the track. Dale Earnhardt Jr., who took two tires under caution, was second.

Though Gordon passed three cars to take the top spot on Lap 151, Montoya regained the lead on Lap 152, only to surrender it at the stripe a lap later. Gordon finally cleared Montoya through Turn 3 on Lap 154 and pulled away before two quick cautions slowed and ultimately stopped the race.

Earnhardt spun off Turn 1 to cause the fourth yellow on Lap 158, but no one near the front of the field came to pit road, being outside the pit window that would allow them to finish the race without another stop.

On Lap 165, Johnson attempted to bump-draft Busch as the cars approached Turn 2 and instead turned the No. 2 Dodge sideways. After twice turning across the nose of Bowyer’s Chevrolet, Busch slammed into the inside fence.

Busch’s analysis of the incident was succinct. “I got wrecked on the straightaway,” he said. “Jimmie Johnson drove straight through us.”

Johnson wasn’t surprised by Busch’s assessment.

“Kurt isn’t very fond of me,” Johnson said. “He never has been. I think when he has a chance to take a shot at me, he’ll probably do so. But certainly nothing intentional, and if he’d like to talk about it, I’m more than willing to talk about it.”

Johnson, who apologized over his radio, explained his side of the incident.

“I came up to bump-draft him and push him along down the back straightaway,” Johnson said. “So, we did make some contact. He was already wobbling, and I bumped him, and then it [Busch's No. 2 Dodge] was wobbling some more, then eventually it did a lazy turn to the right and into the wall.

“I certainly feel bad. I’m glad the No. 19 [Sadler] is OK. I understand he took a heck of a hit. Last thing I wanted to do was cause a wreck or crash the No. 2 or anything like that. I feel bad about that, but we were all just racing real hard down the back.”

Sadler got the worst of the melee, as his No. 19 Ford slowed and then spun after contact from behind. Sadler’s car plowed nose-first into the inside guardrail and berm behind it with enough force to rip the engine from the car.

When safety trucks removed the debris from the infield, Sadler’s car rode on one wrecker, the engine on another. Despite the severity of the impact, Sadler later walked out of the infield care center.

“I’m fine. I’m OK,” he said. “I’m a little sore, I think, from where the belts grabbed me. It knocked the breath out of me pretty good, but it’s definitely the hardest hit I’ve ever had in a race car.

“I’m not sure what happened. I know some guys got spun out and moved up in front of us, and I saw some smoke. Everybody started checking up, and I checked up, but whoever was behind did not — and ran in the back of us and knocked me down through the grass.”

The Associated Press contributed to this report

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