Ford Racing NSCS Notes & Quotes:
Aaron’s 499 (Talladega Superspeedway)
Sunday, May 5, 2013
RAGAN WINS FIRST RACE FOR FRONT ROW MOTORSPORTS
· David Ragan registered the second NASCAR Sprint Cup Series win of his career and first at Talladega.
· Tonight’s win is the first for Front Row Motorsports.
· Ford now has 897 all-time NASCAR wins (NCWTS, NNS and NSCS combined).
· Today’s win by Ragan is the first NSCS triumph for any active Ford driver at Talladega. It marks the 20th Ford victory at the 2.66-mile speedway and the second straight following Matt Kenseth’s victory last fall.
DAVID RAGAN – No. 34 Farm Rich Ford Fusion – VICTORY LANE INTERVIEW – “I’m kind of a low-key guy, but, man, I don’t know. First off, I’ve got to thank the Lord. Without him nothing is possible. I’ve got to thank my teammates David Gilliland and Josh Wise. If it wasn’t for that final push from David Gilliland, I don’t know what to say. This is a true David vs. Goliath moment here. Front Row Motorsports, Ford. I’ve got Farm Rich on our Ford this weekend, their first chance at a NASCAR race. They’re not all this easy, but this is special to get Front Row Motorsports their first win. It feels like I’ve never been here before.” WELCOME BACK TO VICTORY LANE. “You win these Sprint Cup races and you never want to be a guy that never wins one. You win one and you don’t want to be that guy that just wins one, you want to win two and win three. We love this place. Front Row Motorsports puts a little emphasis coming to Daytona and Talladega. The draft is a big equalizer and anything can happen. Our Farm Rich Ford was fast. We made the right pit calls all day. Our pit crew was flawless and we were just in the right place at the right time. I had a great teammate. David Gilliland gave us a great push. I owe him a lot. I’ll definitely buy him lunch this week or something. Josh Wise, everybody that works so hard. We’re a small team. We build our own chassis, our own bodies. I can’t thank Ford Racing, Doug Yates, Robert Yates and Jack Roush enough. Man, it’s a special moment for all of our partners here. This is big.” HOW DID YOU WIN? “We were gonna be happy with 18th or 20th on the first big rain storm. We had three cars that didn’t have any scratches on them. We think about winning the race, certainly, but we also think about our race cars and getting ready for Daytona in July. Our car drove good. We put four tires on there the second-to-last stop because we were gonna do fuel only there at the end, and then on my restart I got a great start. I was pushing the 43 and I wanted to stay with that 43, but the 20 had been the class of the field all day. Matt Kenseth kind of pushed me to a win at Daytona a year or two ago, so I decided to stay with Matt and then coming off of turn two he was blocking everybody and I had a great run. The 38 pushed me like there was no tomorrow and, again, I can’t say enough about our Front Row Motorsports team. David Gilliland and Josh Wise, two great friends, and, again, thank the Lord for everything that he’s given us today.” WHAT IS THIS LIKE NOW TO WIN FOR THIS TEAM? “I can only imagine what it felt like back in 1988 when Mark Martin got that first win for Jack Roush or when Geoff Bodine won that first race for Hendrick Motorsports. I’m sure it was just as special. A lot of these guys have been to victory lane in the Sprint Cup Series and late model racing, short tracks, ARCA – all kinds of series – but to do it here at Talladega in 2013, like I said, it’s a true David vs. Goliath story. I couldn’t be more proud to play my own role.”
Ford Racing NSCS Notes & Quotes:
Aaron’s 499 (Talladega Superspeedway)
Sunday, May 5, 2013
Page 4
CARL EDWARDS – No. 99 Fastenal Ford Fusion – “That was crazy. I blocked everybody I could. I was doing everything I could. I blocked Matt and I thought, ‘Oh, we’ve got it.’ And then I saw Jimmie coming and I blocked him and I thought, ‘Who is that back there?’ It was this Ford freight train coming and I just couldn’t stay in front of them. David did everything but wreck me. He did everything right and I still thought he was gonna wreck when he was looking in his mirror and he almost hit the apron and he wiggled coming to the line, so I thought we still might get this thing, but it’s awesome for David Ragan. We were gonna win the race if it rained, and then I thought we were still gonna win this thing and it just wasn’t meant to be. But it’s the most fun I’ve had at Talladega.”
MARCOS AMBROSE – No. 9 Stanley Ford Fusion – “I’m just really proud of my team for keeping me going. We were involved in two big wrecks and managed to finish 14th with the car. It’s not the day we wanted, but it’s a day we’re proud of.”
JOEY LOGANO – No. 22 Shell/Pennzoil Ford Fusion – WHAT HAPPENED? “We’re not sure. In looking at the ECU data it doesn’t make sense. You look at the water gauge and it was really high, but the oil temperature was fairly low, so it looked like a gauge was broke from my view. We communicated about it during the race and decided that it was a gauge that was broke, but eventually it blew up. I don’t know. We’re thinking maybe an air pocket somehow got in the water system, but it doesn’t make sense. We’ll look into it and we’ll come up with the answers, but it’s a bummer when you’re sitting third when it was raining and now you don’t finish the race. I wish it would have kept raining.”
Ford Racing NSCS Notes & Quotes:
Aaron’s 499 (Talladega Superspeedway)
Sunday, May 5, 2013
Page 5
DAVID GILLILAND-CARL EDWARDS PRESS CONFERENCE
DAVID GILLILAND – No. 38 Love’s Travel Stops Ford Fusion – WHAT HAPPENED AT THE END? “My crew chief, Frank Kerr, said, ‘You’ve got to have the restart of your life,’ and we had a good one. It was dark out there, sprinking a little bit, dry sweep was on the windshield a bunch, but we got a good restart. Our Love’s Travel Stops Ford Fusion was really fast all day. I got hooked up with my teammate there. Michael Waltrip got behind me and was giving me a great shove and I had some good momentum and got hooked up with Ragan there and just stayed glued to his bumper and kind of worked our way up through there and came home 1-2 for Front Row Motorsports. It’s a huge day obviously for any team to get first and second, but for Front Row Motorsports and our little team, and what we do it with, we’re really proud of that. And Bob Jenkins, for sticking with us and doing this deal probably 80-90 percent out of his own pocket, it’s a special day.”
WAS DAVID THE REASON YOU WERE COMMITTED TO PUSHING HIM AND NOT BEATING HIM? “I was trying to beat him for sure, but we had to get there first. Once I pushed him out to the lead, the 99 was on my side and David had kind of got enough of a lead that I wasn’t gonna pass him, and at that point I was obviously trying to finish second. We got hooked up. He’s a great restrictor plate racer. I’ve had some great finishes in restrictor plate races in the past and I still obviously want to get that first win, but today wasn’t the day. We’ll take second for sure and a first with our teammate. It’s a big day. A lot of it had to do with this little note here wishing me good luck. This is from my 10-year-old daughter. She wrote that and put it in. It’s got a little horseshoe in it. She wrote that and put it on my dash before the race, so she had some horseshoe good luck earrings in too, so we’ll take it. (Daughter’s name is Taylor). She’s been coming to the race track her whole life, but she watches it from the motorhome.”
WHERE DOES THIS RANK? “It’s big. Kentucky is probably still my favorite and then Sonoma was obviously good. I had Jeff Gordon behind me on a green-white-checker I think, so that was a great accomplishment, but this is right up there with them. I still want that first win, but the Sprint Cup Series is very tough. Everybody out there racing at this level is awesome and a great race car driver and it’s tough. We’re up against it every week. There are weeks we don’t have enough tires to put on our car, so we’ve got to put scuffs on and everything else, and then we’re racing against guys that have stickers, so we’re just continuing to build and for Front Row Motorsports, a one-two finish, and to be there to help make that possible is very special to me.”
DO TEAMS LIKE FRONT ROW CIRCLE RACES LIKE THIS ON YOUR CALENDAR? “Yeah, for sure. These and the road courses, we feel like, are our best shots to come and have a legitimate shot at winning. The rest of our program we’re still working on and trying to get there. Obviously, some day we want to be an organization that can go and compete for wins on a weekly basis, but we’re not there yet. So to be able to come to these type of tracks, we definitely put a lot of preparation and a lot of emphasis on our speedway program and today we had two very fast race cars and were able to come home one-two.”
