FORD RACING NOTES AND QUOTES
Ford 300
November 19, 2011
Homestead-Miami Speedway
FORD FINISHING RESULTS
2nd – Ricky Stenhouse Jr.
3rd – Carl Edwards
11th – Trevor Bayne
21st – Timmy Hill
27th – Casey Roderick
36th – Andrew Ranger
42nd – Fain Skinner
RICKY STENHOUSE JR. – No. 6 Blackwell Angus/Cargill Ford Mustang – CHAMPIONSHIP VICTORY LANE INTERVIEW – WHAT ABOUT THE LAST TWO OR THREE LAPS? “We sure tried. That was all I had. I was really hoping for one more lap there, but Brad did a good job. It was fun racing Carl and those guys. I got a little loose there coming off four or I thought we could have got him, but the Blackwell Angus Beef and Cargill Mustang did its job at Ford Championship Weekend – Nationwide Insurance – this is a dream come true.”
WHAT A CINDERELLA STORY. WHAT MADE IT HAPPEN FOR YOU? “I think first off is just relying on God. We were down in the dumps and we relied on Him and He pulled us through. That’s why we have to give him the praise for the nights that we’re on top. It was just a lot of hard work by all these guys – Jack Roush, Ford Racing, everybody at Blackwell Angus Beef and Cargill – this crew right here, they didn’t give up on me. They were with us all through last year and I’m just glad to be here.”
ONE HERO IS JEFF GORDON AND THE OTHER IS YOUR DAD. WHAT DOES THIS DAY MEAN TO YOU AND YOUR DAD? “It means a lot. My family sacrificed everything they had. My sister didn’t quite get everything that she’s ever wanted. We were racing as much as we could and to do that for them, he taught me hard work and to never give up. I wish my granddad was here. He helped us out a lot through the go-kart days and worked on our cars. We had a lot of fun doing that. I wish he was here, but this is an awesome night.”
TALK ABOUT YOUR NIGHT “This is just awesome what this team has done, what Jack Roush has done and everybody at Ford Racing and Nationwide Insurance for giving us this great series to run in and all the fans that come out to watch every week. We really appreciate that, especially the ones that support us.”
HOW GOOD WAS THIS RACE CAR TONIGHT? “Man, this race car was awesome. It was a little tight at the beginning but we worked on it. We knocked the wall down in three and four but it seemed to maybe help it a little bit. Mike Kelly did an awesome job and we had awesome pit stops. Everybody on this Blackwell Angus Beef and Cargill Mustang worked their butts off. We had a late race charge there. I didn’t want to see that caution when we were leading but those always come out it seems like. That last restart I was giving it all I had. If I could have got a little better restart and not lost as much ground to Carl and Brad I think we could have had it. It was a great race, fun hopefully the fans enjoyed it. We do this for them.”
GO BACK A YEAR OR SO AGO AND JACK GIVES YOU A CALL TO DRIVE THE NATIONWIDE SERIES. YOU HAD PROBLEMS KEEPING THE CAR OFF THE WALL. HE PUT YOU TO WORK REBUILDING THE CARS. WHAT KIND OF LESSONS DID YOU LEARN FROM JACK ROUSH? “The same lessons I learned from my Dad. He just helped me remember them. You have to work hard, stay focused and be patient and determined. Jack has his way of doing things and it has definitely worked out.”
JAMIE ALLISON, Director, Ford Racing – “Wow. What a great moment. Unbelievable to have this championship. It is what we all race for and is a proud moment for Ford and Ford fans everywhere. We got one championship tonight and we have one more to go tomorrow.”
CARL EDWARDS – No. 60 Fastenal Ford Mustang – PIT ROAD INTERVIEW “First, congrats to Ricky. That’s huge for Ricky to win the driver’s championship. I’m so proud of my guys. Fastenal, Ford, Valvoline, NextGen oil, Wiley X, all the fans that came out here. It’s a great weekend for Ford. I’m proud to be driving a Ford. I wanted to get Brad there at the end. We were racing hard and I got up on his bumper there and I was hoping he’d get loose, but I got tight. He did a really good job driving. It was just fun racing. This is really neat and Denny raced me so clean. That was a ton of fun.”
RICKY GOT YOU AS WELL. “That was funny. I thought I finished second. Ricky got me too, but he deserves it. He’s a great guy and it was just a fun race. I’m excited for tomorrow. Tomorrow in that Aflac Ford is gonna be a blast.”
TAKE US THROUGH TONIGHT. “First, congratulations to Ricky and all the Blackwell Angus Beef folks. Ricky has come so far and I think he’s gonna be a champion in a bunch of levels of this sport. That was huge and my guys have done a great job all year – eight wins and we’re so proud to have Fastenal on board. Ford has been great. It’s Ford Championship Weekend and we wrapped up the drivers and the owners and that was huge. Valvoline and NextGen, Wiley X and all these fans that are here, this is cool. It did get pretty exciting there at the end. I had to remember, ‘Hey, don’t screw this up,’ and Brad started blocking a little bit and I thought, ‘Well, if he’s gonna block, I’m gonna bump him,’ and then I bumped him and it helped him and hurt me. I didn’t do a good job of that, but he did a great job racing. I thought everybody raced as aggressively as I’ve seen in a long time and everybody was real respectful. It was really fun.”
TREVOR BAYNE – No. 16 Ford Mustang Ford (Finished ) – “Well, we had a really fast race car, we just had one run where we missed it a little bit. Everyone moved to my lane and we were so fast at the top but everyone saw that and they all moved up in front of me and I had nowhere to gain on them. We were just average at the end there. We lost a right rear tire and it got us in the wall. I don’t know if it went down first or getting in the wall took it down. It is disappointing because I wanted to be out there with him doing so me burnouts. Next year hopefully we can be out there. I am really pumped for Ricky and Carl. To win championships is a big deal. It shows consistency and it shows you can be there all the time. They were fast. It is a tough series and for them to win is huge especially for Ricky. This is an awesome deal for him. I am really excited for him.
YOU’VE GOT THE 500, HE’S GOT THE NATIONWIDE TITLE. WHO HAS THE TRUMP CARD? “I don’t know man. I don’t know if you can compare apples and oranges, that is kinda what that is. I am just excited for both of us to have seasons like this and I am really proud to be a part of this Roush Fenway group.”
CARL EDWARDS PRESS CONFERENCE – “It was huge for us. That 18 team, they’ve been unbelievable and for us to have closed in all the points we did the last couple of months, I think it was 50 or so points – something like that – my guys are very excited about this. That was our mission tonight to be that 18 and to win this owner’s championship. I just can’t say enough things about Jack Roush and Ford and everything they’ve done with this Nationwide program. Ricky Stenhouse and Trevor Bayne have been huge helps to me as a driver. They’ve obviously been amazing on the race track and I’m so happy for Ricky for his accomplishment and for us to have won that owner’s championship makes it really neat for all the guys back at the shop and it’s something they can be proud of, so that was good. The race was a blast. That was just really fun. There at the end I learned a little bit about the different lines on the restarts and things like that. Brad did a really good job. He blocked for everything he had. I bumped him, but not hard enough, and I got tight and then Ricky got by me. I thought Ricky might get him. I don’t know about you guys, but coming into turn three that last lap I thought, ‘Maybe these guys will bump into each other and we’ll still win this thing,’ so I don’t know if it looked that exciting from the grandstands or TV, but it was real exciting for me and that’s a good way to spend a Saturday night before tomorrow’s race. It was a blast.”
IS THIS BITTERSWEET FOR YOU AS A FULL-TIME NATIONWIDE DRIVER? “Mike Beam and all the guys on this Fastenal team, I think it’s eight races we won this year, we got more poles than anyone, we led close to 2,000 laps. It’s been a blast. It’s really fun and I’m gonna miss it a lot. I’ll probably run some races. There’s no telling, I might run again full-time here in a year or two, who knows? I really do enjoy this and years like this are a lot of fun and it’s from a lot of hard work. We were not this fast a year-and-a-half ago or so when we were really struggling. They had to really go to work on the engines and the cars and moving the shop, so it’s been a lot of fun. It’s been something I think has helped me in huge ways to be in the place we’re in in the Cup Series.”
DID THIS FULFILL YOU HOPE FOR A PROPER PREPARATION FOR TOMORROW? “Yes. This was very good practice for me. It was really good practice, especially there was one point where the 18 was in front of us and I had to really bear down and go for it there on those restarts. That was neat. We also made a lot of adjustments on the car. I got to feel adjustments and feel the track change a little bit as the sun went down, and I was reminded of all the things you have to be careful of not to mess up, so I think it’s great practice. I didn’t hurt myself or break an arm or anything, so that was good. I had a good time. I actually did think about, ‘If I win this thing should I do a backflip or not?’ That would be unreal.”
WHEN RICKY DIDN’T MAKE THE RACE AT NASHVILLE LAST YEAR DID YOU HAVE ANY DOUBTS ABOUT HIS ABILITY OR HIS ABILITY TO SURVIVE WHATEVER JACK HAD IN STORE FOR HIM? “I didn’t know if he’d be able to survive Jack. I mean, Jack was on Ricky. He was not building Ricky up. He was challenging Ricky every day and I think Ricky has shown everyone, myself included, how good he is. There are guys, when I talk about Ricky with the Cup drivers, they know when he comes up there he’s gonna be a force to be reckoned with. There is no doubt that Ricky Stenhouse will win tons of Cup races and probably championships. He’s truly that good.”
HOW DOES A GUY GO FROM WHERE HE WAS 18 MONTHS AGO TO WHERE HE IS NOW? “I think the cars are better, first of all, so he was not only being thrown to the wolves, I mean, Ricky is a sprint car driver and he was really thrown in this thing head first at a time when I don’t think I was winning any Nationwide races. If I was, it was by the smallest of margins and I’ve been doing this for five years or something when he came in, so the thing about Ricky though is I’ve never personally seen a bigger example of a guy who just all he had to do was slow down a little bit and he’s as fast as anyone. I think two things coincided, Ricky learned to get the car set up like he wanted to run these long races, and the cars got a little better and however he hung onto his job was awesome and here he is. I can’t say enough good things about him. He’s always been a good, solid person through the whole thing. He’s just a good guy.”
DID YOU COME CLOSE TO GETTING CARRIED AWAY WITH BRAD? “I thought about it a little bit, but we kept it clean. That was just good racing. It was really fun. That thing could have gone any number of ways, whether we had a restart or didn’t have a restart. He did his job and that was just a good race. He drove his heart out.”
DO YOU THINK GOING THROUGH THAT FIRE HELPED MAKE HIM INTO A CHAMPION? “Right, all of us in this room, it’s not your successes that make you better, usually, those are nice, but it’s the tough times that make you strong and teach you the biggest lessons. Ricky, I can’t tell you. I wish I had some of those meetings on audio tape or video because he was getting it from all angles and he just kept getting better and kept working and turned this whole thing around. It’s amazing.”
THE RACE STARTS LATE TOMORROW. WHAT WILL YOU DO TOMORROW? “I’ll do normal stuff tomorrow, nothing big. I’ll just have a regular day before the race. Bob and I will talk a little bit tonight like we always do about what our plan is and there’s no change. We’ve got a lot of sponsor folks coming. Paul Amos from Aflac is gonna be here and we’re excited to have him here. We’ve renewed our partnership for a multi-year deal, so that’s really exciting and a bunch of people from Ford are gonna be here, which is really neat. I think it’s cool that Edsel Ford himself has been here this weekend supporting everybody, but, for me, there’s nothing different – no big appearances or anything like that.”
WHY DO YOU CHOOSE TO STOP NATIONWIDE FULL-TIME? “Because it’s been so good for me I am a little bit nervous that it might throw me off a little bit, but I think a big test for me was this year at Sonoma. We had the road course race in Elkhart Lake, Wisconsin and our car was no good in Friday’s practice and we made the call and Fastenal was okay with us not going to Elkhart Lake. I was really nervous that would throw me off. I’d been doing that for six years or something traveling that day and not practicing at Sonoma, but it turned out to be our best Sonoma Cup race that we ever had with me staying there and focusing on the Cup car. As much as I learn from running the Nationwide Series, I believe that sometimes, at this point in my career, it takes a little extra energy and it might be better to focus on my Cup car. But if it’s not working, I’ll be back here racing. I’ll find something to drive I hope.”
WERE YOU AT THE MEETING WHEN RICKY CAME IN HIS WORK GOGGLES? “No, what’s the story there?”
CARL EDWARDS CONTINUED — HE SHOWED UP IN WORK GOGGLES TO WORK ON THE CARS. “Jack’s boot camp. No, I hadn’t heard that story. All I heard for it seemed like months it was almost like Jack turned it into a game. I mean, you bring up Ricky and he’s like, ‘Yep, we’re running him into the ground. We’re not letting up on him.’ It was like Jack made it his mission that he was gonna go with Ricky to the end of the earth and it wasn’t gonna be fun for Ricky until he turned it around, so it worked out, I guess.”
DID HE EVER DO ANYTHING LIKE THAT WITH YOU? “Yes. My dad came here tonight. He’s here. Jack and my dad are a lot alike. My dad, when I was a little kid, everything would be going well, the day would be going great, and he’d go, ‘I haven’t beaten you for a while have I?’ Just to remind me like, ‘Hey.’ I’ve been like, ‘Yeah, I’ve been pretty good. Everything is good. I’m gonna keep it that way.’ But Jack is the same way. He pulled me in after one wreck that I caused and he asked me to come in and have a meeting with him. I was under the impression this was gonna be a ‘don’t worry, everything is gonna be great, we’re working really hard and you’re a good driver’ meeting. And he sat me down and said, ‘I just want to make sure you feel bad enough about what you’ve done,’ and he proceeded to tell me all the things I screwed up. He’s not afraid to break you down real far and make you look at all the things you’re doing, and you have to be strong to put up with that and if you’re not, it’s been my observation that he doesn’t have much use for you. You’ve got to be able to take what he’s able to dish out.”
WHAT ABOUT TONIGHT? “I think tonight was really good practice for tomorrow, but I’ve been doing this Saturday-Sunday thing long enough to know that it doesn’t all transfer. You can really feel like, ‘Oh, hey, I’ve got some things figured out,’ and all of a sudden the race will change, the track conditions will change just a little bit and those Cup cars, they’re so much faster down the straightaway and there’s a lot more accelerating and braking involved to get through the center of the corner that I always have to make sure to switch hats figuratively and make sure I’m driving a Cup car and not to rely on what we’ve done on Saturday, so I’ve only learned a couple of things that I think will be helpful tomorrow.”
