Ford Racing NNS Notes & Quotes:
O’Reilly Auto Parts 300 (Texas Motor Speedway)
Friday, April 12, 2013
Ford Finishing Results:
2nd – Brad Keselowski
15th – Reed Sorenson
17th – Chris Buescher
22nd – Jeffrey Earnhardt
26th – Trevor Bayne
33rd – Travis Pastrana
34th – Sam Hornish Jr.
SAM HORNISH JR. – No. 12 Alliance Truck Parts Ford Mustang – WHAT HAPPENED WITH JEREMY? “I’m not really sure yet. We stayed out trying to give ourselves extra tires for the end and ended up trying to get through traffic. I knew that there was no room to fit between the 30 and the 51 and all of a sudden everything just closed up. I’m not sure exactly what happened. I’d have to look at the replay, but it’s frustrating for sure. At the end of the day, the guys worked hard to get the car back out there. We didn’t want to take a couple of weeks off there to cool off. We were pretty happy with how we were running. At least our teammate had a good night. The car was good, but we didn’t have the right strategy and kind of put us in the back. I mean, things happen.”
YOU STILL HAVE THE POINTS LEAD. “I guess we’re up by two and that’s better than being behind by 28. We’ll just keep our heads down. We have an off weekend for the Nationwide Series next week, but we’re gonna go run the Cup race at Kansas and at least attempt to qualify for it. The good thing about that is there’s not any cooling off. We’re gonna actually be out there working together and doing stuff like that, so I’m looking forward to it. Then it’s on to Richmond, which is one of my favorite tracks. It’s a frustrating night and we wish that we would have done a lot better, but we had a good car and things didn’t work out our way. As long as we keep putting together cars like this, we’re gonna have more wins and we’re gonna have more top-three finishes. That’s all we can do is keep our heads up and move forward.”
DO YOU LIKE THE IDEA YOU’LL STILL BE IN A CAR NEXT WEEK? “I wanted to be in a car last week, so the fact that we have an off weekend, that’s just how it is for the Nationwide Series. But I like the fact that we’re all gonna be working together because, obviously, Greg and Brian and all the guys that work on this car are gonna be there at that race, so it’s gonna give us an opportunity to basically go there and work on our communication. We get a little bit longer race, whereas some of these other guys are gonna be off for the weekend, so we’ll look at it like a big practice event.”
TREVOR BAYNE – No. 6 Cargill Ford Mustang – “Seth and the guys really worked on the car hard all night and got it way better by the end. We drove up to fourth and were catching Austin for third and at about that time I looked down and had a red gauge for water. When they kept crashing on the frontstretch they kept kicking grass up all night long and I guess we just got the worst of it. I tried to stay out of it. I saw it happening and backed off the guys in front of me – got real high and tried to clean it off on the car in front of me, but it just never came off and we overheated there. It got up to 310 and spit some water, so I had to come down pit road and we lost like four laps. There were cautions all day long and then when we need lucky dogs nothing happens, so that was kind of our luck tonight. But I’m really proud of this team. I hate that Mike Kelley couldn’t be here with us. I’m really hoping and praying for him to get better. He’s in the hospital right now, but Seth did a good job stepping in and helping me get this car dialed in tonight.”
WAS IT A DISTRACTION NOT HAVING MIKE? “You always want your crew chief here. He’s the man. That’s why we put him in charge, but Seth has got some experience here the last couple of weeks doing Chris Buescher’s car and he was planning on crew chiefing tonight, so he was prepared and I felt like he did a great job stepping in. He and Mike have worked together for a long time. Obviously, I’d love to have Mike here, but I feel our team did a good job of picking up. Mike has done a good job of preparing them for the worst, not necessarily him being gone, but all our guys are in position for a reason. They know what they’re doing and it was unfortunate he couldn’t be here. We tried to pick up the slack for him, but just didn’t get the result.”
TRAVIS PASTRANA – No. 60 Roush Fenway Ford Mustang – “Honestly, we learned a lot when we went back out there. We came into this race with so much confidence. We had such a great test and I felt fast and I felt ready. We unloaded off the truck, my first time ever here, I looked up at the board when we were going by on lap three and Trevor was in first and I was in second. A lot of the guys hadn’t gone out yet, but I was like, ‘All right, this is why we tested. This is what we’re doing.’ And then it just went downhill for pretty much the whole team from there. It was very frustrating to qualify so far back and then we were just super-loose on the start. I got the car working a little bit better. I had a chance to run up in the top 15. We were hoping for a top 12 or so, but stuff happens. I’d rather that happen now than have it happen if we’re out leading the race.”
WHAT WAS IT LIKE TRYING TO HOLD ON TO THE CAR EARLY. TV HAD A SHOT OF YOU SAWING ON THE WHEEL PRETTY HARD. “I don’t know if they got a shot coming off of four, but I went all the way to where I was at the lock and I thought, ‘Whoa, this is bad. This is real bad.’ It caught and then it came back and I was like, ‘All right, there we go.’ It’s good to have a little bit of drift and rally experience at times, but it’s just frustrating because then it’s like, ‘OK, I just need to back it down and let’s wait until we can get in and make some adjustments.’ The team really did a great job. We swung for the fence and were coming around, but weren’t where we wanted to be.”
BRAD KESELOWSKI – No. 22 Discount Tire Ford Mustang – PRESS CONFERENCE – “I just came up a little bit short of beating Kyle and didn’t quite have enough. I had a pretty strong car, but didn’t have enough. I gave it all I had. The team did a decent job and overcame some early problems on pit road to execute pretty well there at the end. I was proud of them for that, but it’s pretty tough to beat those Gibbs cars. We definitely gave it all we had and I was really happy with our effort. We just came up a bit short and that was it.”
WHAT MAKES KYLE SO TOUGH? “Kyle is definitely really strong. He’s a great driver for sure, but I think you have to look at the cars that they have at Gibbs. I think last year was a bit of an eye opener for us. Joey won a bunch of races in that same car and Kyle had the reverse fortune, so I think that shows you the effort that Gibbs puts into this series and they’re being rewarded as they should for that effort. I think that’s all kind of aligned – not to take anything away from Kyle – but that’s definitely aligned to really help his career in the Nationwide Series. You put an elite driver in an elite car and he should get elite results and that’s what you’re seeing.”
DID YOU LEARN ANYTHING FOR TOMORROW? “You’re always learning. I didn’t really think there was anything specific, but there were obviously different grooves that opened up. That’s pretty normal here for Texas and sometimes you just confirm what you already knew, and I would say that was probably more of the case today, and hope not to do anything dumb and you learn from that sometimes too, but, for us in the Nationwide Series it’s about growing people. We had some new tire changers and different things today, so they probably learned more than I did and that’s important to us.”
HOW DO YOU THINK TIRES WILL AFFECT THE RACE TOMORROW? “I know there is some kind of limit – 11, is that right? But it really depends how the race plays out. Without those cautions, tires wouldn’t have been as big of a story. The cautions just really fell at the perfect time to where you’re kind of damned if you do, damned if you don’t as far as pitting was concerned, knowing you were going to burn a set of tires and hoping that when it comes back around the doors open up for you. It seemed each strategy was the right one at the time. It kind of reminds me of playing Texas Hold ‘Em and you’ve got the river card and the last card and it depends on what those cards are that turn over next, but it’s only because of the yellows that that was the case. I think we’ve seen in the Cup Series that there are a lot less yellows and that will probably negate any big tire strategy. I think that in itself takes care of it.”
HOW DID THIS YEAR’S TIRE COMPARE TO LAST YEAR’S? “Goodyear is always bringing different tires and trying to be a little bit better, whether that’s with the performance of the tire or the friendliness to the environment. I was kind of under the impression that this one was more of an evolution as far as friendliness to the environment, so that changes the way the cars race, for sure. It is a bit of a buzz word. I think you hit it pretty well there because tires are really the most important thing that we have. Some people say fuel, but we’ll figure that one out. Without tires you just don’t go anywhere. That’s what puts the power down to the ground and how they connect is really everything for us as a sport, so any small little change is gonna be amplified simply because of how important they are to us. It feels like I’m somewhat stating the obvious, but I’m sure there are some newer people in the room that that sounds a little weird to.”
CHRIS BUESCHER – No. 16 EcoBoost Ford Mustang – YOU HAD ROBBIE REISER ON YOUR BOX TONIGHT. HOW DID IT GO? “Yeah, we brought him out of retirement. I think he needs to stay, but it was good. We’re trying to get baselines established with this new team. This EcoBoost Mustang was tight, but we made it work. The more we could run, the better we got and these guys made huge adjustments on pit road. I mean, it was pretty wild. I’m sitting in the car and I was speechless to what they were telling me they were doing, so they worked on it really hard and got it better. There at the end we had decent track position, but couldn’t quite pull off more than what we had there.”
WHAT WAS IT LIKE HAVING ROBBIE IN YOUR EAR ALL NIGHT? “That was pretty wild. I get along really well with Robbie and I like him. It’s unfortunate circumstances. Mike Kelley, we’re wishing the best for him, and hoping for a quick recovery. I don’t know any details of his situation, but I know he’s in the hospital and they’re working on it. We’d like to have him back here.”
