Ford Cars Continues Search for Second Win

The eleventh race of the current Nextel Cup Series is already over and Chevrolet continues its dominance by taking the top three positions. The Dodge Avenger 500 was held at the Darlington Raceway. Juts like the tenth race of the season. the Dodge Avenger 500 was also postponed due to rain.

After the 500 laps of the race, Jeff Gordon driving the #24 Chevrolet Impala emerged as the winner. Denny Hamlin, driving another Chevy Impala, finished at second place while Jimmie Johnson finished in third in yet another Chevy Impala. This marks the tenth race that a Chevrolet car has won this season. The only race that a Chevrolet car has not won is the Auto Club 500 - the second point race of the season which was won by a Ford Fusion driven by Matt Kenseth.

While Ford is the only car manufacturer to grab a win against Chevrolet cars, they have yet to gain another win this season. At the recently concluded Dodge Avenger 500, the highest placing Ford Fusion is the one driven by Carl Edwards who finished fifth. While Ford has reason to be frustrated with the way Chevy has been dominating the season, Edwards is clearly elated by his top-five finish. “My guys did a great job,” Edwards said. “I guess I got onto pit road wrong and we got a penalty, but I had fun. This is the greatest race track we go to by far. They need to build about 10 more of these all over the country. We need to race at them once a month for sure. This is a blast,” he furthermore adds.

Talking about the closing stages of the race when he was involved in a tight finish, Edwards has this to say: “It’s crazy, but that’s what makes this place so great is you can race so hard. My hat’s off to Jeff Gordon and those guys. They did a great job, but our Office Depot team did great today. This is the best finish we’ve had in a while and I’m really proud of them.” Reflecting on his performance which earned him the fifth place finish, Edwards is evidently thrilled in the way his team is making progress. “It was a lot of fun. I appreciate all of the fans sticking around for the race today and I hope everybody had a good Mother’s Day. It was a lot of fun for me. This is my favorite race track. Congratulations to Jeff and those guys. They’ve been on a roll and it’s awesome to see somebody do that well, but we’re creeping back up and we’ll go onto wherever we’re racing next and have a good time,” he continues.

The second highest ranking Ford car after the race at the track called “The Lady in Black” or “The Track Too Tough to Tame” is Matt Kenseth driving the #17 DeWalt Ford Fusion. Kenseth finished seventh and thinks that his team is also gaining ground on the Chevrolet Impalas. “I feel like we’re gaining on it,” he says. “We’re not where we need to be, but I feel like we’re definitely gaining on it. Before the sun came out, we weren’t the car to beat, but we made some adjustments and got up within the top five cars and actually led a little bit. The cars are just very, very sensitive - at least ours are. The sun came out and it just really threw the car for a loop and we could never get it back.”

While not finishing as high up in the ranking as Edwards and Kenseth, #26 Royal Crown Ford Fusion driver Jamie McMurray did not exactly came up with a down-to-the-Weathertec mat performance. He finished 16th after the race. He talked about his car’s performance after the race saying: “It was just terrible at the beginning. All of the Roush setups were pretty close and I knew that Carl was leading at one point and we weren’t much different. Apparently what worked for him wasn’t working for us. We were just really, really loose so the guys adjusted on it and we got a little better, and then the next adjustment was really good. I thought we were like an eighth to a tenth-place car and we just kind of ran there for like 100-150 laps. Everything was good and we came in and pitted and then went back out and it was just undriveable - tight. We kind of thought we got a bad set of tires and then we put another set of tires on and it was a little bit better, but it still wasn’t the way it had been early in the race. I hit the wall a couple of times. I might have knocked something out of whack, I don’t think so, or maybe the race track just changed and we didn’t keep up with it.”

With the Chevrolet cars dominating the 2007 Nextel Cup Series, it is a given that Ford should step up and come up with wins for the rest of the season. While a top five finish is a good performance, they need to once again take the top position to make the season more interesting.