Ford Racing NSCS Notes & Quotes:
Irwin Tools Night Race (Bristol Motor Speedway)
Saturday, August 24, 2013
Ford Finishing Order:
5th – Joey Logano
8th – Marcos Ambrose
9th – Greg Biffle
12th – David Ragan
15th – Aric Almirola
18th – Ricky Stenhouse Jr.
25th – David Gilliland
30th – Brad Keselowski
33rd – Casey Mears
39th – Carl Edwards
CARL EDWARDS – No. 99 Fastenal Ford Fusion – WE HEARD IT WAS THE ENGINE. HOW MUCH WARNING DID YOU HAVE? “I didn’t have any warning. I’ve just got to thank all the guys. That’s the most fun I’ve had in a race car in a long time. Jimmy did a great job. The car was almost perfect and the engine ran awesome until it broke. We had great pit stops and I think we’ve got some good things to get forward to. This is what we needed, a race like this – with the engine aside – I think we were the dominant car here tonight. We’ve got some good races coming up.”
WHAT HAPPENED? “We had a great car, probably the best car we’ve had in a long time. The pit crew was great. Our strategy was good. The restarts were great. The engine ran great until it blew up, so if we run like that the rest of the year it’s gonna be awesome. We’re gonna be good. We’re in a position right now we said we’d go for it. I’m sure that’s what Doug Yates and the guys did. They probably just made the most power they could, but it’s hard. I feel like we were in control of that race. We were gonna win that one.”
JOEY LOGANO – No. 22 Shell/Pennzoil Ford Fusion – “That was the hardest fought top five I’ve ever had in my life. We had a right-front knocked in once. We got blocked in by the 11 once. We got a piece of garbage on the front. Every time this happened we had to go all the way to the back, so we came from the back three times to get a top-five finish. They can’t put us down and can’t keep us down. This team is awesome. We deserve to make this Chase and if we keep doing this on days that they’re trying to put us down, we deserve it. I’m just really proud of everybody on this Shell/Pennzoil Ford team. They’re all excited about this top five. I feel like I had the winning car all night. I feel like I had the fastest car and the only car that could really pass people. We went from 20th there with 40 or 50 to go to finishing fifth. We’re proud of that.”
YOU SAID YOU HAD TO REALLY DO WELL AND YOU CAME THROUGH. “It feels good. I tell you what, I’m worn out because that was a lot of work. I dug my heart out and this whole team dug their heart out the whole day and this is what we’ve got to do. This is the only way we’re gonna make the Chase. I don’t know where we are in points yet.”
YOU STILL HAVE TWO RACES TO GO, BUT IF YOU MAKE THE CHASE WILL THIS BE THE RACE YOU LOOK BACK ON AND SAY, ‘THIS IS WHERE WE EARNED OUR CHASE SPOT?” “You have to look at all the races beforehand. We have plenty of races that we could say where we lost it, but we definitely have a lot in the bank that we’ve made up and I’m really proud of this team. If you told me we would have finished fifth after about 150 laps into this thing I would have taken it. It just goes to show that these guys never quit.”
WHAT DOES THIS DO FOR YOUR TEAM WITH THE FIGHT THEY SHOWED TONIGHT? “Who wouldn’t want to work for a team like that and that’s from the top down. That’s from Roger Penske. He’s the guy that hires these guys and picks the right people and surrounds me with the people that it takes to win races and work their guts out. He’s got me and he knows I’m gonna work my guts out and this team is behind me every bit of the way, so I can’t be more pleased with what everyone did today.”
MARCOS AMBROSE – No. 9 Stanley Ford Fusion – “That’s two top-10s in two weeks and we’ve got to take that. We’ve had a good few weeks here and I’ve just got to thank everybody at Richard Petty Motorsports for giving me the opportunity to run like that. We didn’t start off great and we didn’t finish great handling-wise, but we fought hard all night and got some track position at the end that really helped us a lot.”
YOU ALWAYS SEEM TO RUN WELL AT THIS TRACK. WHY? “Yeah, I guess a little bit of the Tasmanian Devil comes out in me. This is a really aggressive track and you’ve got to be aggressive all night. You’ve got to gnaw on that steering wheel and I just like getting up on the wheel like that. These are good nights to really test your mettle and see what kind of man or lady you are out there and get after it.”
BRAD KESELOWSKI – No. 2 Miller Lite Ford Fusion – YOU TALKED ABOUT BEING WORRIED AND CONCERNED THE OTHER DAY. “I said every team is worried and concerned. If you’re not in right now, I don’t care if you’re running eighth or you’re running 13th, every team is worried and concerned – not just mine.”
ARE YOU MORE WORRIED NOW THAN YOU WERE? “I’m not in a better position. I’m not gonna be out of the worried zone unless I make it or it’s over. That’s my job as a race car driver. I care about my team. We’ve got two races left. I think they’ll be good race tracks for us. Obviously today was not a great day for us. We’ve tested at the next two tracks and we’re gonna be very competitive. I feel like this is gonna come down to the last lap at Richmond and I’m ready for that battle.”
DOES TESTING AT ATLANTA AND RICHMOND GIVE YOU MORE CONFIDENCE THAT YOU CAN MAKE THE CHASE? “Yeah, it gives me more confidence. We didn’t have the speed we needed here, but we obviously weren’t a 30th-place team. It was just the way things fell.”
GREG BIFFLE – No. 16 3M/Bondo Ford Fusion – IS THIS ONE YOU’LL BE HAPPY TO TAKE TO THE HOUSE? “Yeah, I think so because, to be honest with you, we weren’t all that great right off the truck. We were a little bit tight and I had to drive the heck out of it and run it right on the edge to get any speed out of it. Things worked out for a top-10 and some of the guys we were racing had trouble too, so it will probably end up being OK for us.”
DAVID RAGAN – No. 34 Peanut Patch Boiled Peanuts Ford Fusion – “It was a pretty good day for us. We had a fast Peanut Patch Ford, but we had to work hard for it all night. The guys in the pits did a good job. We dodged a couple wrecks and got a little bit of damage. It kind of looks like we just ran a race at Darlington. It was a lot of fun and a top-15 finish is an improvement from our qualifying spot. It was a good day. We always want more, but we’ll learn from it and move on to Atlanta.”
