Roush F-150s Take Top Two Spots at Portland

Greg Biffle and Mike Bliss placed first and second in the Grainger 225 at Portland International Raceway. It was Biffle second career NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series win, and second of the 1999 season. His first victory came at Memphis earlier this year. Bliss' second place finish was the best of his current season, and gave Roush Racing the top-two places in the event. Grainger was not only the race sponsor but also Biffle's team sponsor so the win was doubly sweet. In addition, both Bliss and Biffle are from the Portland area. Biffle is a Vancouver, Washington native, and Bliss originally came from Milwaukie, Oregon, just down the road from Portland.

Mike Wallace, #2 Team ASE Ford F-150: (11th) "About the 13th, 14th lap something happened to second gear in this thing. I'd go down in the corner and put it in second gear, and it would pop itself out so I had to run when I could keep it in second gear holding on to the shifter. So I ran from lap 16 holding onto second gear, and then I'd go from first to third gear so I was missing second gear basically the whole race. I was trying to save it at least just to get to run on the long straight-aways. And that's the only place I could use second gear. Unfortunately I had a parts failure of a brand new piece. That's what the day amounted to. The truck got tore up as far as the nose and the bumper because we got all slowed up down there to miss one of those restarts in turn one, and someone else was driving somewhere not in front of em, but run in the back and shoved us into somebody. I guess considering what we went through 11th is a frustrating finish because we were much better than that, but that's where we finished."

Kevin Cywinski, #31 Auto Trim Design Ford F-150: (24th) "We were outside of truck there towards the back, and got the tires off the race track. Having the rain there just before the race didn't help. I think we picked up miles an hour going off the track. It was unfortunate we got this Auto Trim Design Ford F-150 off there into the barrier. It ruined the day right off the start. It's really too bad for the team. Hopefully we'll bounce back at Watkins Glen."

Boris Said, #44 Federated Auto Parts Ford F-150: (FIFTH AFTER STARTING ON THE POLE, THEN FALLING BACK AFTER A BATTERY CHANGE AND COMING BACK UP THROUGH THE FIELD) "It was just unfortunate that 20 laps in we started to get a miss. I didn't really know what it was. All of a sudden on a restart it just shut off. And then I noticed that the battery was just completely dead. And we were just limping around. The guys had to go all the way back to the truck to get a battery. They ran all the way back, and we changed it. With 10 laps to go we were pretty fast. We were pretty banzai there passing people two and three at a time sometimes. That Ford was all right. I used it as a battering ram there sometimes, but that F-150 is one tough truck. I can attest to that."

Greg Biffle, #50 W.W. Grainger Racing Ford F-150: (WON - SECOND WIN OF THE 1999 SEASON. HIS FIRST CAME AT MEMPHIS.) "The strategy the Grainger team had was right on track. They are road racers, and we had a better tire than he (third place finisher Ron Fellows) had. He was starting to get loose, and I knew I had him. I said I had him going down the back. I tried to get him there and he wouldn't let me inside. The minute we saw that corner it was covered with dirt clods and somebody had gone in there and thrown dirt out. He was already sliding sideways before we contacted, and we were doing everything we could to save it. The guys behind us wrecked. It's great to compete with those guys, Ron Fellows and Boris Said, those veteran road racers. Coming from a year ago never finishing a road race to winning one. Hats off to these guys."

MORE GREG BIFFLE FROM POST-RACE INTERVIEW: "I hated for it (the contact with Fellows) to happen. I'm confident that if the dirt wouldn't have been on the race track we would never have had any contact at all. Right after we got through there there was a crash. Another truck spun out. It was just all of the dirt on the track that mainly caused all the contact. I wouldn't have gotten into that corner and run into him on purpose."

WERE YOU AWARD JACK SPRAGUE AND RON HORNADAY HAD GONE OUT EARLY? "Yes, I was. And then Stacy Compton was doing his best to stay on the lead lap. I'm not able to drive down into the chicane and make those passes like Ron Fellows. He was doing a great job of that. I tried it on Stacy Compton, and he was trying to fight to stay on the lead lap. And that gave a chance for Ron to get the lead back. Those were the guys we needed to race today. Jack Sprague, Ron Hornaday, Stacy Compton and Andy Houston - those are the guys that are ahead of us in points. Most of the race I was just trying not to break parts and be smooth on the gas and braking. I was just trying to be as easy as I could with the pieces. I knew those guys were out there.

Ron was faster than me most of the day until the end, and the tire deal just didn't work out for him. We stopped under the green and took four new tires. We were able to just cruise and save the tires. Everybody had to stop again. The leader was going across the start-finish when I was in the esses, so I was close to going a lap down. We knew that we didn't need to run the truck at that time because everybody had to stop. So we just kind of coasted to save the tires and save the tires. Then there was a bunch of caution laps. We had better tires, tremendously better tires. I didn't think I was going to be able to make a pass that soon. It was about 14 to go, and I could tell I was a little better. I figured in ten more laps I might have an opportunity."

COULD YOU COMMENT ON WINNING THIS RACE RIGHT ACROSS THE RIVER FROM YOU HOME? "It's great. It's the first time Grainger has gotten involved with the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series. All the executives are here from Grainger and a lot of family, fans and friends from this area. I spent a tremendous amount of time promoting this event coming up to it. It was just a spectacular victory today. It's a team accomplishment. Coming from a year ago, we had not finished a road race. And to be able to win, and not to have any failures. That was a win in itself for us. Just finishing the race. If we had finished fifth today that would have been a win for us. Once it got going we made some last minute decisions on sway bars and things like that. I had never even considered the truck was going to be that good. The truck was just flat awesome today. We had a great pit stop. It was great to win in front all those fans and Grainger folks."

HOW MANY PEOPLE WERE HERE FROM VANCOUVER? "I really don't know. It was a great turn-out. There was a couple bus loads from my pub, and lots of folks I couldn't begin to guess how many."

WILL THERE BE A GRAINGER BONUS? "I don't know. I'll have to talk to them about that. I'd just like to go shopping for all the tools and supplies they've got. If you've ever seen a Grainger catalog, it's something else. They've got every tool in there you'd ever need."

WHEN DID YOU PIT? "I believe on lap 37 under green. We're going to try the same strategy (at Watkins Glen). Fortunately I've got a race under my belt at Watkins Glen, and I was leading there when we broke the transmission. We've already led there. I was leading Ron Fellows and Hornaday and all those guys. So I think we've already proven we've got the ability at Watkins Glen and be a threat. I learned a lot today on how to save on the transmission and brakes and things like that so we'll go to the Glen and try to improve on saving parts. That's the biggest advantage I have this year, being at every race track at least one time. We've got notes from all of them from last year."

 

 

Ron Barfield, #55 Icehouse Beer Ford F-150: (18th) "I run about the whole day without a brake pedal. It's just something. I wasn't too bad there to start with. Just all of a sudden we didn't have a brake pedal, and then later on the rear master cylinder didn't have fluid. It was just one of them deals. This Icehouse team will bounce back from it, and we'll go on to Watkins Glen and maybe we'll get us a win there."

Kevin Harvick, #98 Porter-Cable Power Tools Ford F-150: (20th) "It was just one of those deals. A guy got in the back of him and knocked the valve spring cooler off. We had a good truck. It was not going to win the race, but we would have finished in the top ten. But that's the way it goes. The Porter-Cable Ford and the guys did a heck of a job. We'll go to Watkins Glen and take it from there."

Mike Bliss, #99 Exide Batteries Ford F-150: (2ND) "Roush Racing has an awesome road course package. We did some good pit stop strategy. We got great fuel mileage today. We had one stop. We planned on it all day. It got us a good track position, doing the pits the way we did. I can't say enough for this Exide team. They really worked hard here this week. We didn't really have a lot of time to work on this truck. They changed four transmissions while we were here in three hours. I'm really proud of this team. We had a real good transmission in it today." YOU WERE NOT PLEASED WITH YOUR QUALIFYING EFFORT YESTERDAY. IT DIDN'T SEEM TO HINDER WHERE YOU ENDED UP. "I'm not a good qualifier when it comes to a road course. I don't know what it is. I can just run consistent all the time out there on the track. I can't run that second quicker. I need to learn that."

Matt Chambers, #99 Exide Batteries Ford F-150 crew chief: "We're really excited. This is our first top-five of the year with Mike. The last three races we've had a pretty good truck for Mike. We're finally getting the stuff to where he likes the feel of it. We're getting there. The whole team is pretty geeked."....

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