■ 06 April 2008 | 9:50 PM
So says Carl Edwards after his victory Sunday at Texas. The race was not one of the more exciting ones and some drivers were not thrilled with the car and how difficult it can be to drive. So, Edwards was asked about how challenging the car was and its role in the race.
Edwards fired back: "I've heard people say that the races are boring and people always want something to complain about _ if it's too hard to drive, you don't get enough side-by-side racing. The fact is that these are the 43 best drivers in the world. The cars have 900 horsepower and go 200 miles an hour, and the track is slippery and the tires are slippery and that's a spetacle and that's what it's supposed to be. It's not supposed to be easy for every one. It's not supposed to be driving down the interstate.
"I'm tired of hearing people complain, the media make up stories about how terrible it is and stuff. This is auto racing. There are going to be people that are faster.''
True, but if you the fan don't like what you see and complain about it _and enough do _ NASCAR will have to react. Without your butts in the seats or in front of the TVs, NASCAR doesn't have a lot.
On to other things from Sunday:
# Hendrick Motorsports remains winless. I talked with Rick Hendrick briefly as he left pit road after the race Sunday and asked him about the race and the way the season has gone for his teams. Here's some of what he said:
"That's probably the best we've been against (Carl Edwards on an intermediate track), so that's what we're gauging it on,'' Hendrick said. "It's early in the year and we're working hard, so we'll just have to keep working.''
Q: CONCERN WITH NOT WINNING YET
Hendrick: "We're going to win races. I'll be more concerned about going to New York. You show up every week and you want to win the race. You hate to get beat. We had a real shot at Martinsville. We had shots and we just didn't do it. I said last year that our horseshoe, we had it, maybe we dropped it. Today we got beat. He was better than we were, but we were closer. That's all we can do is just keep working. We're going to win races. You can't lead as many laps and have as many cars up front as we have and not win races. The big deal is to get the momentum and keep figuring this out, get better and close the gap on this mile and a-half deal. I think we'll be fine when we get to the Chase. I'm not worried about how many races we've won. I just want us to be competitive.''
# Don't overlook the run by Yates Racing on Sunday. David Gilliland finished 15th and Travis Kvapil was 18th. Both are in unsponsored cars. Roush Fenway Racing provides marketing help and supplies engines and cars to that team. Roush Fenway needs the Yates cars to run well (and even the Wood Brothers, although they're not showing a lot of signs of doing so) as the season progresses. The more teams in the same manufacturing camp excel and learn the more the information can pass along teams. If Yates falls off, Roush has no one to compare notes with if they start to struggle.
One has to figure other teams will catch the Roush cars down the road, so to stay ahead of that, they need to keep learning. Geoff Smith, president of Roush Fenway Racing, admits the key of other Ford teams is vital for his organization.
"One reason that we started the thought process of bolstering up other Ford teams was because we recognize there probably needed to be a mass of Ford teams that was just larger than us, particularly since we're going from five to four teams,'' Smith said. "Last year, you had our five and two Yates and one Wood Brothers for eight teams, but three of those teams are in this downward cycle in terms of performance and we were going to lose our fifth team.
"Ultimately we came to the conlcusion there had to be more teams better and we'll be better off at the end as a group with the same manufacturer that we could compete against some of the things that we thought would be going on with Toyota.''
# Chip Ganassi called out his teams this weekend but they didn't seem to react well. Ganassi was not as hard on Juan Pablo Montoya's team, while being critical of the teams of Reed Sorennson and Dario Franchitti. Franchitti didn't have a chance to prove his boss wrong since he failed to qualify for the race. Montoya placed 19th and Sorenson was 24th, saying that's about where they belonged to run.
In talking with another reporter about the comments, the other reporter said that if Ganassi was upset maybe he needed to look inward since he hired those drivers and the team members. Maybe so. It will be interesting to see how his teams do the next couple of weeks and if Ganassi starts making changes. He's done a lot there but it looks like he has more to do.
# Jeff Gordon finished last Sunday _ only the second time in 516 career starts he's finished 43rd in a Cup race. He finished there in 1999 also at Texas, which is one of two tracks he's never won.
"I just don't think I have ever been very good at Texas, that is why we have never won here,'' Gordon said. "But we have had our moments when the car has been really good. But you know what? When the car is off, I am lost here. I haven't felt this lost since my rookie year at a race track.''
# Pole-sitter Dale Earnhardt Jr.'s day soured when his car's handling went away. He finished 12th.
"We just chased the handling of the car the entire day,'' Earnhardt said. "We had it too tight at the end there. It's frustrating. Just a thousandth of an inch adjustment can just mess things up. We went back and forth all day long.''
# Jeff Burton finished sixth and remains the points leader.
# Ryan Newman finished fourth but his car failed post-race inspection. Right rear was found to be too high. Any announcement on penalties will come later this week.
# Joe Gibbs Racing placed all three cars in the top 10 with Kyle Busch third, Denny Hamlin fifth and Tony Stewart seventh.
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