Ford Racing NSCS Notes & Quotes:
Toyota Savemart 350 (Sonoma Raceway)
Sunday, June 23, 2013
Ford Finishing Order:
3rd – Carl Edwards
7th – Marcos Ambrose
8th – Greg BIffle
11th – Joey Logano
16th – Casey Mears
18th – Boris Said
20th – Aric Almirola
21st – Brad Keselowski
24th – David Gilliland
27th – Ricky Stenhouse Jr.
32nd – Josh Wise
33rd – David Ragan
39th – Paulie Harraka
CARL EDWARDS – No. 99 Aflac Ford Fusion – “It was a real battle and I feel really bad about the incident with Kyle back there. We were racing really hard and I got to the inside of him and I took a gamble that he knew I was there. His spotter called it and I backed out as hard as I could and ended up wrecking him, but I had a lot of fun racing with him. I’m really proud of my Aflac guys. We ended up with a good position. I didn’t think our car was that good, so I’m happy with it.”
MARCOS AMBROSE – No. 9 Stanley Ford Fusion – “It’s OK. We got a top-10 out of it. The weather cooled down a lot and we just didn’t anticipate that when we set the car up and we just fought it all day, but I’m proud of my team. It was a solid effort.” YOU SAID THE OTHER DAY YOU WERE TRYING TO GET THE CAR TO WHERE IT WOULD BE GOOD FOR A 30-LAP RUN. “Yeah, that didn’t work out too well, did it. Again, we were pretty good for 10-odd laps, but we couldn’t hold it on the long run. I’m not sure whether I’m too aggressive on the tires or whether I just can’t get the car underneath me, but we just really struggle on the long runs around this place. We have for three years now.” WAS THE TEST NOT WORTH IT? “Well, we got a top-10 out of it, so we’ll take it, and we had a really fast car in qualifying so all of those things are positives. Our sponsors were out here today to watch us, so we fought hard and raced well and ran up front for most of the day.” BUT FOR ALL THOSE POSITIVES YOU WERE THINKING WIN. “Yeah, I wanted to win. Of course I wanted to win, but that’s the way it goes.”
GREG BIFFLE – No. 16 3M Ford Fusion – “It was a great day. We could have been a little bit better, but I’m happy with a top 10. Our pit strategy didn’t go our way, but it was close. We wanted to stay on the track all day because we knew that would lead to a good finish and that’s what we did. We’re pretty happy with it.”
JOEY LOGANO – No. 22 Shell/Pennzoil Ford Fusion – “It was eventful. I was kind of disappointed at the beginning of the race because we were going backwards in a hurry. I couldn’t get into the corner and couldn’t get off the corner. We just had some braking issues and some chassis setup stuff for the exit, but the guys did a good job. They got the car better. We never had enough speed, so we really just focused on making sure we had some tires at the end because I had about 20 laps of good in it and then it hit a light switch and I’d go backwards in a hurry. We made sure we had something at the end because we knew we weren’t good on the long runs, so we put tires on it and tried to forge our way forward. We came up 11th – just a little bit short for our goal to get through today with a solid top-10, but from where we started today it was a good finish for us, but it’s never good enough.” YOU HAD A STREAK OF TOP 10’S SO ARE YOU HAPPY WITH 11TH? “I’m OK with it. It keeps our solid momentum going. We came in here with five straight top-10s and now we got an 11th, so you can say six straight top-11s. We’ll take that and now we have to obviously build our points cushion up and keep moving forward. That’s what we needed to do because this is one of those wildcard races and you never know what’s gonna happen, so we’ll take this and move on.”
CASEY MEARS – No. 13 Geico Ford Fusion – “It was a solid weekend for us. We definitely showed some improvement. We were third in the first practice and 12th in the second. We got loose in qualifying and had a solid day today, so I’m just happy with our progress. We’re not there yet. The good guys could put the throttle down a little bit harder through the high-speed stuff, so we need to work on that, but I’m proud of what we’re doing. If we just keep being solid week in and week out, we’ll have a solid year in the points.”
PAULIE HARRAKA – No. 52 Hasa Pool Products Ford Fusion – “I don’t know what to say except that stuff happens. We had a right-front go down and that was it.” WHAT HAPPENED ON PIT ROAD AS YOU GUYS WERE GOING OUT FOR THE PACE LAPS? “I don’t know. Somebody two cars ahead of me decided to stop in the go lane and why he did that I have absolutely no idea, but these cars don’t stop very well on the wet asphalt.”
CARL EDWARDS PRESS CONFERENCE – YOU WERE EXCITED TO START THIRD ARE YOU EXCITED TO FINISH THIRD? “I would have like to made a couple spots up. It feels weird to race that hard all day and finish in the same spot you started. That’s the true story. I actually got passed a lot and passed a lot of folks. It was a pretty dynamic race. There was a lot that happened. The handling changed quite a bit throughout the race. The tires were a big struggle, which I think makes the racing really good. I’m really excited about the tires and I think everybody did a great job on my team. Jimmy Fennig did a good job. We had a little bit of a fuel issue. We were spilling some fuel and weren’t getting the car all the way full, so we were very nervous whether or not we were gonna make it to the end, so a top-three finish is something we can be proud of and if we can keep coming here and qualify well and finish well eventually we will win one of these races.”
CAN YOU TALK ABOUT THE IMPROVEMENT YOU HAVE HAD ON ROAD COURSES? “We have done a lot of work and there are a lot of people who have contributed a bunch as a group. Our whole Ford group has tried different parts and tested different things. We’ve leaned on Marcos Ambrose a lot and his expertise in road racing, and I think you saw that in qualifying and in the race with myself, Greg and Marcos all qualifying in the top four. That’s a pretty big feat for us and to be running as well as we did. I think there at the end, Greg was eighth and was really fast at the beginning. We were pretty fast at times. It looked like Brad was pretty fast, so it won’t be long and we’ll get a Ford to Victory Lane here at Sonoma.”
COULD YOU HAVE MADE IT ON FUEL WITH A GREEN-WHITE-CHECKER? “I don’t know. I don’t know how much fuel is in the car, but I was definitely dreading a caution with two to go because if that would have happened, I don’t know if we would have made it to the end. We were very, very close on fuel. Is that what happened to the 42 car? Yeah, so I think you might have seen guys out there on foot pushing their cars. And I also want to say congrats to Martin and that whole bunch. They’ve worked very hard. I’ve seen it in his eyes with some of the close finishes he’s had and fast cars without a win, and to go that long without a win is very tough. Those guys have worked really hard, so congrats to them.”
THIS PLACE IS TRADITIONALLY HARD TO PASS BUT I SAW SOME PASSES IN PLACES I HAVEN’T SEEN BEFORE. IS THIS GEN-6 CAR RACIER ON A ROAD COURSE? “That’s interesting the way you put that because I thought it was harder to pass and that’s why we saw guys taking advantage of different spots, but you are right. I saw passes happening in places that I hadn’t seen before, so it was an interesting race that way, and I think it’s because everyone was closer and more even and it was more difficult to just out-brake someone into a braking zone. It seemed easier to keep a guy behind you in a braking zones, so you saw swaps for positions in the esses and up through two and three, so that was pretty interesting.”
DID THE RAIN AFFECT YOU AND YOUR DRIVING AT ALL? “I thought it was pretty neat when it was raining a little bit and the curbs were really slick, but the track retained a lot of grip even though it was a little bit damp. When they threw the caution, I thought we could have kept running. I thought that was pretty interesting because it seems like when a track gets that wet usually it’s you’re unable to get any grip, but this was pretty impressive. I don’t think we were in danger of having any trouble if we would have kept racing, but the curbs were really slippery, so that was an interesting game. I thought I was the only one who saw that and then I started noticing no one was touching the curbs, so it was neat as a racer to be out there seeing everyone kind of figure out where the slick spots were.”
