Ford Racing NSCS Notes & Quotes:
Sprint All-Star Showdown (Charlotte Motor Speedway)
Saturday, May 18, 2013
Ford Finishing Order:
2nd – Ricky Stenhouse Jr.
7th – Aric Almirola
10th – Casey Mears
13th – David Gilliland
RICKY STENHOUSE JR. – No. 17 Best Buy Ford Fusion – HOW MUCH WERE YOU ABLE TO LEARN IN 40 LAPS? “We learned lot. We thought we were gonna be a lot better there, but the first segment we couldn’t keep up and Scott made some great changes to our Best Buy Ford Fusion and made it come to life. We got a good restart there and I was just trying to not lift and go where they weren’t. I hope that was exciting for the fans because it was exciting from my seat, so now we’ll go to work on it and make some more changes with what we’re allowed to make and go back out there. It’s gonna be tough. Obviously, these guys have won races and that’s why they’re in the All-Star Race, but we’ve accomplished the first things we set out to do and that’s get in the race. Now we can keep working on it and see if we can’t learn some things for next week and just try to go after that million if we’ve got the opportunity at it.”
HOW DOES IT FEEL TO BE IN THE ALL-STAR RACE? “That’s really cool. Hopefully, we can be in the All-Star Race every year. Hopefully, we don’t have to keep coming through these Showdowns, but if that’s what it takes, that’s what it takes. I’m definitely excited about it. We’re ready to go.”
CASEY MEARS – No. 13 Geico Ford Fusion – WHAT WAS THE THOUGHT PROCESS IN NOT PITTING AFTER 20 LAPS? “We made a substantial change before qualifying being an impound race. It worked out well for qualifying, but it was hitting the track way too hard. The splitter was hitting the track so hard that I couldn’t even get into turn one. We knew we would like to come in and put on fresh rubber, but we knew we were gonna hit the track and not have a chance, so we figured we’d do all we could and that was to start up front and give it a shot. We knew if we came in and took tires we’d finish where we were or worse because it was hitting the ground so hard, and we just figured with high air pressures maybe we could smoke off a few laps and kind of hang in there, but, obviously, it fell off pretty bad. I wish we could have raced because I feel like we’ve got a good race car. We were one change away from being pretty close and that gives us good direction for the 600, but I really wanted to go down swinging there and, instead, we were just hanging on.”
RICKY STENHOUSE JR. PRESS CONFERENCE – TALK ABOUT MOVING ON TO THE ALL-STAR RACE. “That’s gonna be tough. That was really cool getting in through the Showdown. We wanted to win that thing. I thought we had a car yesterday that was gonna be capable of running up front for the lead, but we’ll take second and give ourselves an opportunity to keep working on it and see if we can’t figure out some things for next week. The more laps the better for me in a Cup car, so we’re definitely excited about it. We couldn’t keep up that first segment and Scott and the guys made some great changes to the car and we were able to get it freed up and get it turning a lot better for us and were able to hold on to second. The restart was a lot of fun and I’m sure we’re gonna have a lot more of that in a minute.”
YOU SEEMED CONFIDENT BEFORE THE RACE. HOW COME? WERE YOU THAT CONFIDENT IN THE CAR? “Yeah, I enjoy mile-and-a-half race tracks and it seems like we’ve been better on short runs this year than what we have throughout the whole race, so I felt like we had a better car than what we had there. I was a little disappointed once we went green to start, but definitely it was a lot better that second run. I was a lot more confident in the car than when we started after the first three laps of that first segment. I was a little disappointed.”
WHO DID YOU VOTE FOR IN THE FAN VOTE? “No one.”
