FORD RACING NOTES AND QUOTES Gatorade Duel 150 – Race #2, Page 2 February 17, 2011 Daytona International Speedway
TREVOR BAYNE – No. 21 Motorcraft Ford Fusion (Finished 19th) – YOU HAD TO BE HAPPY WITH THE FIRST 59.5 LAPS. “Yeah, I really was. Gordon and I worked awesome together and it was just down there at the end. Everybody is racing like it’s the last lap of the big race, so when we got down to it we were three-wide at the end with a big run and I think we just ran out of real estate there and he came off the wall and got us. That kind of stinks. I hate it for all these guys because we were doing awesome, but that’s part of it, I guess. We knew when we were passing those guys three-wide on the outside we were gonna be in trouble, but that’s racing. We’ll get there.”
WHAT DID YOU LEARN? “I learned a lot. I learned how to keep it cool and when I could duck out. We learned a lot about unplugging the other guys, but I think it’s more the leaders – the leader kind of controls your group. The pusher is just the engine and keeping it cool. That’s his only duties, but also on restarts getting to him as quick as possible, but the leader’s duties are to make sure you protect the high side, so you don’t get unplugged – as we call it – and then unplugging the other guys, putting his left-front on the right-rear of the back guy and unplugging them so you can get around them. But I think it was awesome for our first one until the very end, so I think we’ll get it.”
YOU SAID THE OTHER DAY THAT JEFF GORDON WAS YOUR BOYHOOD HERO AND HERE YOU WERE PUSHING HIM ALL DAY. “I know. It’s crazy. We were running up front and leading the race for a while. That’s awesome for him to have that kind of faith in me to let me work with him because that takes a lot for these guys when they’ve got 20 other guys out here that they’ve been racing with their whole life – to say, ‘Hey, I’m gonna take a chance with this kid, let him push me and see what we can get to.'”
NOW YOU HAVE TO START FROM THE BACK. “I think Jeff Gordon is starting in the back with us, so we’ll just work together again and wear them out.”
CARL EDWARDS – No. 99 Aflac Ford Fusion (Finished 10th) – “I worked really well with Greg and we did great. We got split up at just the wrong time. We fell back and then the caution came out and mixed us all up, but I feel like we’ve got something for the 500. If we work with these other Fords, it’s gonna be really good.”
DO YOU FEEL THE FORD FR9 ENGINE IS AN ADVANTAGE? YOU DON’T SEEM TO HAVE TO SWAP WITH THE CAR YOU’RE PUSHING? “It feels like the FR9 is working really well. The cooling system works well and I think we’re gonna be good. I think for the 500 it’s gonna be an all-day, whose car can last longest, whose engine is the strongest and which drivers can work together the best. I think that’s gonna win it and I feel like we’ve got a good enough team to do that.”
GREG BIFFLE – No. 16 3M Ford Fusion (Finished 15th) – “It was about the same as the Bud Shootout. We had to split the guy in front of us a little bit, which slows us down. It was kind of the same. Maybe it will be a little different when we get some more cars out there. I think when we add more cars on Sunday it will draw bigger groups forward. We will just have to wait and see how it all turns out.”
YOU GUYS SEEM TO BE ABLE TO DRAFT LONGER THAN MOST, IS THAT ATTRIBUTABLE TO THE FR9 ENGINE? – “It could be the engine, or the way we have our grille opening, although most everybody has that set the same. I don’t know what that contributes to. I think we are definitely cooling better. Maybe we spent more time on the engineering of it, I am not sure. I know that it is definitely an advantage to be cooler longer, so that is a good thing.”
DAVID RAGAN – No. 6 UPS Ford Fusion (Finished 20th) – “We were just riding there and someone clipped me in the right rear. I think the 24 got me, but we’ll have to look at a replay. It’s just a shame to run the whole race like that and get wrecked at the end and it’s not even a points-paying race. Our car was fine, but it all just depends on who is pushing. It’s kind of a difficult way to go out there and race, in my opinion, but our backup car is gonna be great. We’ll be fine. A car that’s a second off can be fast if the right person is pushing, so we have no worries for the 500. We’ll be fine.”
TRAVIS KVAPIL – No. 38 Long John Silver’s Ford Fusion (Finished 13th) – “That was my first chance at racing with this two-car draft, so it was really different. It is a way different kind of racing. It is critical that you get locked up with two drivers. If you don’t, you lose the draft and are a lap down in no time. You have to be aggressive and get with a partner and just lock on. If you don’t do that, you are in trouble.”
TRAVIS KVAPIL PRESS CONFERENCE – HOW DOES IT FEEL TO KNOW YOU ARE IN THE DAYTONA 500? “It feels great. This team, last fall, we missed Talladega, getting in on speed. We worked really hard in the winter getting some better equipment and got the new FR9 Ford engine. Bob Jenkins and everybody have made good investments over the winter time to get us better equipment. It paid off for us. It is great for our team. Our three cars are locked in the field, so we are really proud of that. This is my first time doing the two-car stuff in competition. We practiced it, but in practice it’s different. It is a craft. It takes a little bit of time to figure that out and what you can and can’t do. I feel pretty pumped. It is cool.”
DO YOU HAVE TO FIND A PARTNER TO DRAFT WITH ALL DAY AND ARE THE SPOTTERS GOING TO HAVE TO HELP YOU FIGURE OUT WHEN THE SWAPS WILL HAPPEN? “It is a lot longer race. I think there will be time to sort through that a little bit. I had three or four guys that I worked with throughout the day today. After a restart, the guys I was with previously weren’t around. Maybe he was too far forward, or too far back. You need to go and go hard on the restarts. If you are looking in the mirror and thinking you are going to lock up with a guy, the field is going by you. You have to go on the restarts. I wasn’t toward the front where those guys probably had more of an idea of a play of what they were going to do. I was back mid-pack or so. For me, it was run hard for a lap or two and then hope there was somebody I could hook up with and go. I was able to do that for the most part. I think that in order to keep up, you are going to have to do all this two-car stuff. If you don’t and you try to run in line or get singled out, your lap time will be too slow. The guys that are hooked up in the front, running two cars, they will click off laps pretty quick. You are going to have to attach to somebody. For me, I had just enough grille opening where I feel like I can push all day long. Down the straightaways I kind of have to straddle a little bit, which slows the lap time down a half a second, but then I could get back in line in the corners. My water temperature would get hot, but it wasn’t to the point of where I needed to bail out.”
WE SAW THE 92 CAR FINISH FIFTH WITH A SHOT TO WIN. DO YOU THINK WE COULD SEE AN UNDERDOG WINNER SUNDAY? “To do it right, making these switches, is tough. To swap positions like that takes experience and guys that have had a lot of laps. I guess anything can happen though. We saw Brad do that at Talladega a few years ago. It was an underdog team then for sure. I think we have a lot similar situation now. At that time, however, the two-car draft there was pretty new. I still think it will come down to guys that have the experience on the track and have fast race cars.”
