Ford Racing NSCS Notes & Quotes:
GEICO 400 (Chicagoland Speedway)
NSCS Post Race Quotes
Sunday, September 15, 2013
JOEY LOGANO, No. 22 Shell Pennzoil Ford Fusion – CAN YOU SUM UP YOUR EMOTIONS RIGHT NOW WITH THE ENGINE FAILURE TONIGHT? “I am pretty angry. That was such as fast race car we had. After the rain delay we came in and put on four tires and lost some track position but we were going to take two on the next one, kind of like the 24 did and he cycled out to the lead there. Unfortunately the motor blew up. You have these every once in awhile. It is a bummer to have it in the Chase when you are running for a championship. I feel like Chicago was one of those tracks we could win at. Everyone was doing the right thing. We have a really fast race car and we put it on the pole and led laps today, it just wasn’t our day I guess.”
CAN YOU MAKE UP FOR THIS STILL IN THE CHASE? “The problem is it is only 10 races and that makes it hard but we aren’t out of it. We have a shot at it. This team has shown how good we are. It is always a bummer when you have a mechanical failure like that when you can’t really do much about it. Other times you can at least be mad at yourself or something you did wrong. Everyone did a good job. That is what we have to hold our heads up about. It is a tough break for this team. We are strong. We have battled through a lot of adversity this year and we will keep doing it.”
HOW MUCH DID THE TEMPERATURE DIFFERENCE PLAY INTO THIS? “The RPM’s are up for sure. When the temps outside go down and you are making more horsepower you are going a lot faster on the race track. I was having to lift early into one because I was up against the chip. It was a lot of RPM’s. I don’t think I will be the last one to blow up today. The things are torqued up. It was okay most of the time. We haven’t really had an engine issue that was internal in the motor this whole year. Usually we have one or two a year.”
FORD FINISHING RESULTS
7th Brad Keselowski
8th Ricky Stenhouse Jr.
11th Carl Edwards
13th Aric Almirola
15th Marcos Ambrose
16th Greg Biffle
26th David Ragan
28th David Gilliland
30th Casey Mears
37th Joey Logano
CARL EDWARDS, No. 99 Fastenal Ford Fusion – “There are a couple of things I wish I could take back. I tried the high side one time and about five or six guys freight-trained me on the bottom. The last restart we all just kind of fought for the bottom and I had to check up or I was going to wreck Greg (Biffle). That got us. Other than that, the strategy I think was very good to have good tires at the end. Our car was as fast as anyone at the end. We needed things to fall a little better and I needed to make better decisions in our Fastenald Ford.”
HOW DID THE RAIN DELAY AFFECT YOU? “The rain delay was just what we needed. WE weren’t very good and it was good to regroup. The track changed a little and that played into our hands. It’s a lot like Atlanta. As a group I don’t think our Roush Fenway Fords – we are just missing something at this style or race track. Once we go back to Kansas with a little more grip I think we will be really good.”
GREG BIFFLE, No. 16 Post-It Ford Fusion – “That was a rough night. We had major issues in the pits. I don’t know what happened. We started from the back a few times and it is really hard to get track position to pass. Our car was pretty good but every time we got ourselves worked up there, something happened. Something broke. I thought the motor broke but it must have been something on the exhaust system. We were down quite a bit of power the last 100 laps. We just tried to keep our momentum up. The restarts just killed me. I just didn’t have the power on the restarts. Once it stretched out a little we were pretty good and could keep up. It was really tough. We were hit and miss a little bit tonight. This wasn’t our best night but we pulled off a 16th place finish. Everybody kept working hard. That isn’t the way we wanted to start but we had a pretty fast car at times.”
HOW WERE THE RESTARTS WITH THE NEW RULES? “They were fine. Same as they have always been I think. Unfortunately for us we broke something. I don’t know if it is down a cylinder. I had a hard time getting going on restarts. Other than that, restarts were fine tonight.”
BRAD KESELOWSKI, No. 2 Miller Lite Ford Fusion – “It was a lot of up and down for us. We started second and were running up front for awhile and then had some problems with a pit stop and then some kind of vibration that we couldn’t identify. We lost all of our track position and the last run we just dug really hard to salvage a seventh. I think we were probably a top-five car. I don’t know if I had anything for the 20 or 18. It is hard to tell because we never got a shot to find out.”
HOW AWARE WERE YOU OF ALL THE ENGINE ISSUES OUT THERE? “I saw the 88 blew up. The temps were way down outside and the cars were really turning a lot of RPM and that just puts you in the failure zone and that is what we saw out there today.”
MARCOS AMBROSE, No. 9 DeWalt Ford Fusion – “That was a good night for our DeWalt Ford team. We were loose in the day but the car was so much better at night. We lost some handling at the end and couldn’t get back into the top-10, but the guys worked hard to really improve the car today.”
RICKY STENHOUSE JR. POST RACE PRESS CONFERENCE COMING SOON
Ford Racing NSCS Notes & Quotes:
GEICO 400 (Chicagoland Speedway)
NSCS Post Race Quotes
Sunday, September 15, 2013
RICKY STENHOUSE JR. POST RACE PRESS CONFERENCE (TOP FINISHING ROOKIE)
TALK ABOUT YOUR RACE, IF YOU WOULD – RICKY STENHOUSE JR., No. 17 Best Buy Ford Fusion: “We didn’t start off nearly like we wanted. We thought we had a better car throughout the weekend. We started the race and thought we were in big trouble. Luckily after the rain delay, getting back out there at night, it kind of helped our car turn a little bit better. I stayed out there on that last caution; thought we were going to be in trouble with those guys behind us on tires, but we were able to hold them off, get an eighth‑place finish.”
TALK ABOUT YOUR DRIVE‑THROUGH DURING YOUR RAIN DELAY. “Yeah, we went to Sonic. It gave me a little bit of energy. Then I took a nap and really played it out well.”
RICKY, TWO STRAIGHT TOP 10S ON THE HEELS OF THE POLE AT ATLANTA, WHAT HAS BEEN THE DIFFERENCE FOR YOU GUYS THE LAST THREE WEEKS? “I wish I knew. I feel like our cars still don’t drive very good. I think Scott is making good calls to get us track position at the end of these races and we’re able to hang on to it. We still got a lot of work to do. It’s good to carry that momentum from that pole in Atlanta, two top-10’s now. We were looking forward to carrying that on the rest of the year. We still have a lot of work to do. I think just good pit calls there at the end keeping us out on the track and getting track position has been the best for us lately.”
DID YOU NOTICE ANYTHING DIFFERENT WITH THE NEW RULES? DID IT FEEL ANY DIFFERENT FROM THE COCKPIT? “No, I give it 110-percent all race. It felt really good. My spotter told me there were 20 to go when there was 30 to go. He might need a little help because I think a crew chief is normally talking to him, telling him how many to go. He missed that by 10. Then I stayed out there under that last caution. They said we had 25 to go. I was like, ‘I thought you said we had 20 to go five laps to go.’ That threw us off a little bit. I thought the restarts went well. I didn’t ever start on the front row. I guess you’ll have to ask Kyle how the restarts were. It seemed like everything went pretty smooth tonight.”
