FORD RACING NOTES AND QUOTES
Zippo 200 at the Glen August 13, 2011
Watkins Glen International
Ford Finishing Results: 5th – Carl Edwards 9th – Trevor Bayne 15th – Ricky Stenhouse Jr. 25th – Casey Roderick 27th – Tomy Drissi 31st – Timmy Hill 38th – J.R. Fitzpatrick
CARL EDWARDS – No. 60 Fastenal Ford Mustang – “I messed up the last restart. I messed it up, but Kurt did a really good job. He didn’t spin the tires and I wish I could have done a better job for my guys. It was kind of a frustrating day overall. I wish we could have run better. I think we had a much faster car than we finished, but I’m looking forward to the race tomorrow. We’ve got a good Ortho Fusion. I just appreciate all the fans coming out and supporting us. This is a fun race track.”
YOU CHASED THE BUSCH BROTHERS ALL DAY AND THEN IT CAME DOWN TO THE LAST RESTART. “I just didn’t do a very good job on the last restart, but our car was fast. Our Fastenal Mustang was good. I think if that last caution hadn’t come out I really had something for Kurt. I know everybody always says that, but I really feel like it was gonna be a good race. He was driving the heck out of his car. Those guys got a little ahead of themselves early. They were driving like crazy racing each other, so I was hoping they’d take care of themselves and we’d cruise on, but they did what they had to do. We ended up fifth, but we should have been a lot better. This is a fun race track. I wish it was a little longer race.”
YOU HAD SOME WORDS WITH JOEY LOGANO AFTER THE RACE. WHAT WAS THAT ABOUT? “Well, it’s both him and Kyle. You can only pass in a couple spots on this race track and I pulled down on the back straightaway to go past both of them and they both just ran me in the grass. That’s OK. I know how they want to race now. We’ve got a big race coming up in a day or two and we’ll be fine.”
RICKY STENHOUSE JR. – No. 6 RickyVsTrevor.com Ford Mustang – “I felt like we had the speed to be in the top 10. We had a really fast car in parts of the race when I could run, but we just made too many mistakes. I’ve got to balance driving hard and being conservative, and when I am conservative I still need to be up on the wheel and not relaxed. I think that’s where I’m getting in trouble. I’ll drive conservative, get relaxed and when something happens I’m behind on the steering or anything that I’m doing, so I’ve got to find a good balance. I’ve got to get some more road course testing in, maybe over the winter to try and get better since we’ve got three of them on the schedule.”
YOU DIDN’T LOSE MANY POINTS TODAY SO IN THE BIG PICTURE IT WASN’T AN AWFUL DAY, RIGHT? “It really wasn’t a big hit at all. We got kind of lucky because the 32 didn’t run as well as they probably wanted and I know the 2 was faster than a 10th place car, but they made some mistakes and sped on pit road, so it paid off for us. We got a couple of spots there on the front straightaway coming to the checkers, so we managed it and didn’t put ourselves in too big of a hole. I think we only lost five points, so, all in all, it was an OK day. We’ve just got to be a little bit better next time.”
TREVOR BAYNE – No. 16 RickyVsTrevor.com Ford Mustang – “On some road course you finish top 10 and you ran 20th all day but everybody else crashes at the end, but this time we actually ran top 10 all day long. We ran right there behind the Cup guys all day. I know we could have finished eighth there, but the lapped cars at the end raced real hard and got us back behind a little bit, so I couldn’t get to the 88 to pass and we finished ninth. But it was a good day for us. I learned a ton out here at Watkins Glen. Our Mustangs are really good, but I learned more today than I probably ever have at a road course because we were competitive enough to run behind the good guys. There are times you want to follow them but they’re so much faster that you can’t even keep up to learn. Today, I got behind Jimmie Johnson for a while and learned a ton from him, and just really had a solid day all the way through.”
