David Gilliland
“The thing that I love about road courses is that so much of the team’s performance is determined by the driver.   We go to a lot of tracks that the car does all the work and the driver doesn’t have as much say in the outcome.   At road courses, though, your finish has to do with how well you can turn the wheel.  You don’t have to worry about aero-push or having your fenders ####ed in; it’s mostly about how well the driver can get through the course.

CARL EDWARDS-60-Scotts Ford Fusion

DO YOU LIKE COMING TO MEXICO TO RACE?

"I like it a lot.  It's fun and it's totally different.  I wish we went to places like this more often.  I'm excited to go to Canada.  I'm sure it's more of a nightmare for everybody that has to drive a truck here or deal with all of the paperwork or whatever, but for me as a driver, I got up this morning in my bed in Charlotte and flew down here with Greg (Biffle) and got to take a great van ride.  Jon Wood was interpreting for everybody, which was pretty funny."

DOES HE SPEAK SPANISH?

"Almost as much as I do, which is not a lot.  We had fun, and it's just different.  Like tonight, I'm excited to go back to the hotel and check it out and try to understand what they're saying on TV."

YOU WERE VOCAL ABOUT THE NEED TO REMOVE THE CHICANE FROM THE ROAD COURSE, AND THIS YEAR IT'S GONE.  WAS IT THAT BAD?

"No, it just got me that one trip to the hospital there.  But other than, it's fine and it was fun.  I think it will be better without it.  It will be just a little more straightforward.  The only problem with the chicane was that in traffic you couldn't see the curbs very well at all, so everybody just had to agree to take easy though there and that made it a little bit tough." 

HOW WILL IT CHANGE THE RACING?

"I think it will make passing a little more straightforward if you get a good run off of the last corner.  It will make it simpler to make a pass on somebody, and you get that whole straightaway to figure out how you're going to pass them.  I think you'll see some neat blocking and stuff because that's a long straightaway." 

DO YOU THINK THE OPINION OF THE DRIVERS HELPED TO REMOVE THE CHICANE?

 "I don't know about that.  I think it's pretty obvious that that was a band-aid for the long straightaway.  I think practice went pretty well.  I didn't feel that I was going much faster at the end of the straightaway than we were, and it just felt a lot more comfortable.  It was just a bottleneck and I think will be fine without it.  I think it will be better.  That was kind of a bottleneck and kind of a crutch to keep everybody going a little bit slower, but it kind of took the racing away from that section of the race track.  You couldn't get a run on somebody and pass them off of the corner because you had to feed right back in line.  I think it's good." 

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