Ford Racing NNS Notes & Quotes:
VFW Sport Clips Help a Hero 200 (Darlington Raceway)
Friday, May 10, 2013
Ford Finishing Order:
4th – Joey Logano
8th – Sam Hornish Jr.
12th – Chris Buescher
18th – Reed Sorenson
28th – Travis Pastrana
32nd – Trevor Bayne
JOEY LOGANO – No. 22 Penske Truck Rental Mustang – “It was a hard-fought top-five, that’s for sure. I felt like we were a seventh-place car. Jeremy made a good call keeping us out there and I tried to stay in front of those Gibbs cars, but they’re so fast it was just hard to do. To get our Penske Truck Rental Ford up to fourth was a good run for us compared to where I thought we were gonna run today. When we started the race I wasn’t full of confidence, but everyone kept their heads down and kept digging all day to make the most of what we had. Days like this when you get a top-five it’s not the end of the world, but we want to be in Victory Lane.”
SAM HORNISH JR. – No. 12 Alliance Truck Parts Mustang – “We were loose all night and never got it to a point where we felt like we were tight at all, so it was kind of rough on us. We had a pit stop that was less than what we wanted it to be and I think we went from running fourth and restarted ninth that time, so it just happens. We need to really work on being a little bit smarter than where we are to keep on the right side of the track because we knew it was gonna free up, but we just never got ahead of it like we needed to.”
GOOD TO HAVE A TOP 10 THOUGH AFTER LAST WEEK AND STAYING CLOSE TO REGAN SMITH? “We can’t worry about that. I was trying to catch him and get around him because we were better than them most of the night, but the track took a pretty hard swing around lap 80 and we got way behind. We just need to keep collecting points at this point in time. To lose one to him is no big deal. We’ve had some tough luck since the first off weekend, but we’re good. We’ve got fast cars, but just didn’t execute the way we needed to tonight.”
TRAVIS PASTRANA – No. 60 Roush Fenway Racing Mustang – “It was my fault. I didn’t qualify where we needed to. I felt like our car was quicker than where we were, for sure, even with me driving it (laughing). We were a lot better through the center of three and four, but we weren’t really better off on either corner. So unless I got a really good run, I didn’t really know how to pass them down the straightaway. You just kind of kept running on to people, so I finally had a good run – a couple of guys in front of me went two-wide and there was one more directly in front of me that was whoa’d up and I was like, ‘Man, I can get all three of these guys right here.’ Anytime you think that, you shouldn’t. I should have put a light bulb out because that’s not really gonna happen and it’s a horrible idea, but I was a little tight getting out of the corner and got really aero-tight behind them as I was trying to make a run off of them and got my stripe – only it was more the whole car. It wasn’t a little stripe, it was the whole thing and it didn’t work right after that.”
SO WAS IT LEARNING ABOUT RACING THE RACE TRACK ALL NIGHT AS OPPOSED TO OTHER CARS AND CATCHING THEM AT THE RIGHT SPOT TO PASS? “It was the right time, I just missed it by that much. It would have been awesome if it would have worked, but it was too early for that and I knew better, but every time I had not gone for that I was passed. Every time I kind of got held up at the wrong time, someone got by, so it was kind of a frustrating day of, ‘OK, how much is too easy and how much is too much?’ We found too much and too easy. I haven’t found that perfect little bit.”
