Standout day for Marlin and Busch.

Both Sterling Marlin and Kurt Busch had strong cars throughout Sunday's Brickyard 400 with Marlin leading until Jeff Gordon's rocket restart on lap 135 and Busch once again upholding the Roush Racing banner with a fine fifth place.

RON GREEN: Also joining us, fastest of the rookies Kurt Busch and second-place finisher, Sterling Marlin. We're going to open up questions for all these to expedite things and open up the floor to questions.

Q: Talk about the laps, how that set-up was.

STERLING MARLIN: Had a lot of trouble with the race car, had trouble with fuel pump, and you thought big. But I don't know, we got and we just field slow restart, had the car get moving, gas mileage. I don't know if that had something to do with it.

GREEN: Up front.

Q: Restart when Gordon got by you -- I guess next to the last restart, was that because of slower cars on the inside that left a gap or anything, or can you describe how he got by, or did he just run by?

MARLIN: I tried to ease off the accelerator a little bit to let him run up close and take off, and I did. He barely hit me in the back end. Next thing I know, here he comes. I don't know who was on the inside, but they weren't there, but they needed to be there to block him. But they wasn't there. So it didn't quite work out the way I needed.

GREEN: Kurt, let's go ahead and get some comments from you on your run today.

KURT BUSCH: Since you don't have any questions, I will just start off by saying I'm very proud of the team, the way that Sharpie/Rubbermaid executed. It was wonderful just to get back up front where we need to be. We always just seem to be behind the 8-ball when it comes to track position. That's our biggest struggle. And that, therefore, comes from qualifying. So when we pick up that program, we'll be able to showcase ourselves a little bit more toward the front, where I think that we've been able to perform on the flat, smooth, wide racetrack.

Q: Kurt, earlier in the season you had yourself a couple top-five runs, and then you dropped off a little bit. Is there something that happened in your testing here at Indy, or anything in particular in the last couple of weeks to bring about this run?

BUSCH: No, nothing fell off this race. I didn't have a water heater in like I had a Loudon. If I just wanted to back up and back up, it would have just been bum luck on the racetrack. We've been fairly good at most tracks. Like Sonoma was a very dismal run for us. We finished 24th, just kind of hung out in the back all day. We just had a lot of bad luck on our side. We have had conditions where we've been running 11th. Like last week we were the highest running rookie with 30 laps to go and then the wheel falls off and we finished the last place rookie and we finished 37. It's just been a struggle. That's what a rookie team is supposed to go through, and supposed to weed out. And we have done a great job getting used to the new crew chief. The whole team came aboard from the 17 DeWalt car. And he has now taken the reins and really guided us in the right direction.

Q: Sterling, they talk about how hard it is to pass here, but here is Gordon coming from 27th all the way to win the race. Almost kind of like when he gets on this track, he is just able to do things that a lot of people don't expect.

MARLIN: What Jeff usually gets is his car driving good. He's got great motors and you push off the corner a little too loose, you can pass here. I am sure he had some great pit stops. Gained some in the pits. If you've got a good race team, a good race car, qualifying back, you ultimately will come up front.

Q: Sterling, when you got around Bodine and got behind Jeff, did you feel you could run him down or were you just trying to hang on for second, or what were you looking at there?

MARLIN: I thought after I got Bodine, I could run him down because I did gain on him a little bit. But his luck kind of equalled out. His car is really strong down the straightaway. I could gain on him through the corners a little bit but he could really get me down the straightaways. But, you know, give it all you have last 20 laps whatever you had, to go on the green. We just come up a little short.

Q: Kurt, could you just talk about your first experience of Indianapolis and at any point was it overwhelming seeing all those fans?

BUSCH: It was just a wonderful treat to even drive here. This is quite a unique racetrack and it's my pleasure just to even drive here. It was just a great invite by Jack Roush to give me this opportunity and to drive around here testing a few months ago, and actually get into race conditions today. It's a wonderful treat to drive down all four corners. Gives you a different challenge and the set-up is quite different from most tracks. And to get that experience here, this place is where racing evolved around the early 1900s. It was here where everybody started to race and that evolved down to Daytona and the Charlotte area, of course. But this is where racing started. This is quite a treat.

Q: Sterling, the last round of pit stops there was a different strategy on the tires. How did that play into this when you did what he did?

MARLIN: Our car wasn't really good on new tires it took four or five laps come in. I guess the last round we had run maybe 12 laps, and we could make it on fuel, the car could make it on fuel. So we had to ease off the throttle before the pit just to try to save fuel. It's going to work out good for us with the green. But, you know, the caution come out and we decided to stay out and give it our best shot. Because here slow cars are on the inside and it's hard to get through the tracks. Leaders can have straightaway, you know, sitting back four feet fighting slow cars. Slow traffic plays a big effect here.

Q: Sterling, those last four laps seems like you -- last several laps seems like you picked up a little bit, lose a little bit, did you notice how close he was coming to dusting the walls off the corner? Were you thinking you just ride there long enough he might scrape it hard enough to give you a chance to run under him?

MARLIN: Well, I was going to get close enough to put more pressure on him. Try to make him hit it. But he hit it one time in the middle of three and four. But I really couldn't get close enough to him to make him make a mistake. Get him a little loose to get him worked up. But I just couldn't get close enough.

Q: Sterling, did the new front end help the Dodges this year?

MARLIN: I don't know. This is the same car we had in Michigan. We felt like we should have won the race in Michigan, had a third place car there. Brought it here, run second with it. So until you do it back to back and just see what it does, I don't know. I know the wind tunnel say it gets more down force up front. If that's what it says, that's what it says.

Q: Sterling, you've probably won a few laps at Daytona, a few laps here, joining Dale Jarrett as the only guy to lead Daytona and Brickyard in the same year. How frustrating does it feel that you dominated at some of these racetracks, and you're still looking for that first win for Dodge?

MARLIN: It's getting frustrating for us. We keep working harder. Last week we didn't run too good. And in New Hampshire it was terrible. But came here, tested, it wasn't real good. We just kept working on the car. We knew we had a good race car because we run third in Michigan and all the guys rolled their sleeves up got the car driving good. Felt like we had a pretty good race car. Pretty awesome running. The crowd is awesome. When we went around the place in convertibles before the race starts, just awesome.

Q: Sterling, Jeff Gordon wasn't the only one to come from way in the back to do well. Do you attribute that to maybe a lot of cautions, pits. Also, do you think that with so many people making that kind of jump, does that add any at all to what seems to be a fast-growing mystique with this race?

MARLIN: You look at last week's race, and Jeff had a dominant car in Pocono. He gets hung back in traffic and I think it was indicated tonight, the slow traffic, or the fast cars really hard to pass. Like I said, you sit up there leading the race, running second, you can really get a jump on the guys back in fourth place trying to race. And slow traffic really plays a lot. Jeff would have done the right situation pitting, I guess. I looked up, I don't know where they come from. That last caution come out the pits I don't know what happened but I think one car was leading, I guess, and he may have took on tires, and Jeff didn't take any tires. They made the right calls. We made the right calls. And we ended up second.

Q: Sterling, can you talk a little bit about the process of putting together a new set-up with the team and how it led into the weekend and how things changed into the weekend to get you where you ended up today?

MARLIN: I don't know about new set-up. We ran terrible last year here. We threw that set-up out the window. And we needed new tires, different tires here. And got our heads together after qualifying yesterday, and the set-up took off yesterday and the car was pretty good. We changed some stuff to see what it would do and we put the original set-up back in yesterday evening, and put some scuffs on it and went out and run some pretty quick laps. You don't want it to be too tight or too loose. At one point today we changed tires and got real loose and it got us back in the pack a little bit but we got the car tightened back up and came up a little bit.

Q: The race last year was criticized for being kind of boring. This year's race seemed to be a lot better. What was the reason for that? Was it the new tire?

MARLIN: I think with the tire and probably the bump stop rules and things of that nature made a difference. It seems like everybody is slipping and sliding a lot more than what they were last year, and with slipping and sliding more, you're going to be able to, you know, produce some passing and some lead changes, and I guess had what, 18 lead changes today. So I guess I mean that's a contributor to NASCAR doing the right things I guess trying to get things better and better and Goodyear bringing the tire. And that's been able, you know, for us to be able to make some passes. But it seems like, you know, you get going one time and it's doing one thing and the next time it's doing another and it's sliding around. And you kind of chase your car all day, which is going to produce a lot of passes. You're going to go forward and backwards pretty much all day. You just hope at the end of the day you're moving on the forward part.