Ford Racing NSCS Notes & Quotes:
Sprint Unlimited – Daytona International Speedway
Saturday, February 15, 2014
FORD FINISHING ORDER:
2nd – Brad Keselowski
4th – Joey Logano
7th – Marcos Ambrose
13th – Carl Edwards (Accident)
15th – Ricky Stenhouse Jr. (Accident)
CARL EDWARDS – No. 99 Fastenal Ford Fusion – “It looked like it might work out because Matt got down there and got turned, and I thought maybe he’ll stay low, but Tony got turned right and just clipped me and that was it. This race is about aggression, it’s about going out there and just keeping your foot down and racing hard and we all know that there is about a 50 percent chance that this could happen. It’s a shame to tear up a good race car, but I did have some fun and I learned a bunch for the 500, so we’ll just take this one and I guess we’ll run it in Talladega or something.”
WE SAW EVERYBODY ON TOP AND THEN ON THE BOTTOM. WHAT DICTATES THAT? “Everybody went to the top and the reason we do that is because it’s so chaotic that you don’t really know what can happen, so if you get a position and everybody gets in line then it’s like, ‘Well, that’s OK.’ Then Tony started working up to the front and I thought, ‘Heck, this is the Unlimited so let’s go for it,’ and then everybody started trying different things and then it became really fun, so it’s neat when these races have no points on the line because you can really try a lot of things. That’s a shame that Matt got into Joey there. That’s a rare mistake at one of these places for him. If it wasn’t for that, I think this thing could have been a lot of cars
racing really hard for a long time. It was going really well.”
DID YOU LEARN SOMETHING FOR THE DUEL? “This whole thing leads up to the last lap of the Daytona 500. That’s what we’re here to do. We’re here to win the Daytona 500. Our whole Fastenal team built a plan and part of it was to just go all-out in this race and do everything we could and, I’m telling you, I learned some things that could apply for that last lap and now we’ve got to get there and win it.”
RICKY STENHOUSE JR. – No. 17 Nationwide Insurance Ford Fusion – “I didn’t see anything from the time it started to the time it ended. Talking to Danica when I got in there that I drilled her when she was pretty much sitting still. I couldn’t see, couldn’t turn and just really destroyed our Nationwide Insurance Ford.”
SO YOU WERE JUST ALONG FOR THE RIDE ONCE THE INITIAL WRECK HAPPENED? “Yeah, once the initial one happened. I was up around the top and just tried to slow down as much as I could and then all of a sudden I saw the underneath body of the 41. He was pretty much on the roof and I couldn’t see, and after that the hood was up in the way and I couldn’t get out of gear and couldn’t steer. Everything was all bent up, so that’s not the way we wanted it to end, but I thought we learned a lot through the first 35 laps of it, but I definitely would have liked to finish it.”
WE SAW THE OUTSIDE LANE GO AND THEN THE INSIDE LANE, AND YOU SEEMED TO BE UP FRONT IN BOTH AT DIFFERENT TIMES. “Yeah, I think it just depended which car was in front of the lane. I thought we led the outside lane OK until the last segment when they hung us out there, but I thought it led OK.”
MARCOS AMBROSE – No. 9 Stanley Ford Fusion – “We were actually in a pretty good position. I was trying to help Junior there and ended up hurting him and hurting myself. I feel bad for Junior, but we finished the race with the Stanley car, but we were just a little disappointed with our effort.”
DID HE SURPRISE YOU WITH HIS MOVE INSIDE? “Yeah, I was trying to push him and there was a little bit of a zig and a little bit of a zag and the next thing you know I helped him in the fence. I apologize to Junior. I’ll try and find him later on if he wants to talk to me, but that’s just what happens here. You’ve got 10 laps to go in a race that only counts to win and I’m trying to push him to the front. Unfortunately, it was just a bad day.”
HE SAID HE WAS HAVING FUN WHEN HE HIT YOU ON THE BACKSTRETCH. I ASSUME YOU DIDN’T THINK IT WAS FUNNY. “It’s OK. He’s entitled to do that. At the end of the day we didn’t end up in the fence, so put the blame on me for that. We’ll go to the next one and try not to make the same mistake.”
DALE JUNIOR SAID THERE WILL BE A LOT OF WRECKING IN THE 500 BECAUSE THE SIDE DRAFT STALLS THE CARS OUT. CAN YOU TALK ABOUT THAT? “Yeah, it certainly does. If you can get your nose to the guy’s right-rear or left-rear quarter, you pull him back and you actually give yourself a little boost. It’s like a little shot of nitrous and it can really make you run, so it makes cars really move around a lot trying to do that. I think he was trying to side draft someone came back across when I was trying to help push him and that’s what happens.”
JOEY LOGANO – No. 22 Shell/Pennzoil Ford Fusion – TAKE US THROUGH THE LAST FEW LAPS. “I’m trying to relive it all in my head right now. It’s crazy. The bottom lane just didn’t get going there. They didn’t do a really good job on cleaning up the bottom of the race track, so it was a little slick down there. We weren’t able to hang on the bottom like I thought and then when they were three-wide for the lead and I had a huge run I was like, ‘Where’s the hole?’ Because I was ready to stick it four-wide and try to get by all of them, but there was no hole so I gave Brad the push. After that, you’re just trying to snip off everyone and try to get as close to the front as you can. It’s just so frustrating when you’re that close. I had a really good Shell/Pennzoil Ford. It’s so close and you can see it, but it’s so frustrating because you’re going as fast as you can and that’s all you’ve got. Overall, we survived it and finished fourth. It was a decent day. These things don’t mean anything unless you win.”
WHAT ABOUT CLOSING RATES? ARE THE HOLES CLOSING UP QUICKER? “No. They draft pretty similar to what they did last year. The cars handle better than what they did last year, but they drive about the same and they draft about the same also. It still feels like it’s got that rubber ball in between that switches and it accelerates the car in front of you. It still feels like it’s got all that. The only difference is that I feel like the bottom lane actually works a little better this year than it did last, so that’s a positive. That’s good. You saw as much freight-training up against the wall as we’ve seen before, so right direction.”
WHAT DID YOU SEE WHEN YOU HAD CONTACT WITH THE 20? “I went underneath him and he went to block and came across me. I haven’t seen the replay yet, but that’s what I saw from my view. I may be wrong, but I need to look at the replay.”
WHAT WILL WE SEE IN THE 500? “That with a lot more cars. It was pretty fun. I thought we had a good time. I think you’re gonna see a point in the race when everyone is gonna ride around and there’s gonna be a point in the race that we’re gonna push really hard and try to get back towards the front and run that track position. There are a lot of cars out there, so we’ll see.”
BRAD KESELOWSKI – No. 2 Miller Lite Ford Fusion – TALK ABOUT TONIGHT’S RACE. “It was definitely a race of attrition and we survived, somewhat, to the end. We finished second. Obviously came up one spot short, which in a race like this is all that matters. It was just kind of the timing of the runs. I thought it was great racing. The cars are maybe just a tiny bit more responsive than they were last year, but, obviously, if the field gets up by the wall it’s tough to make a move, but, all in all, I thought it was pretty good racing. This format is good for plate racing and I thought it was a decent night. Obviously, if you’re not winning in a race like this it’s kind of irrelevant. None of that stuff matters.”
WHAT HAPPENED TO YOU THE LAST TWO LAPS? DID ALL OF YOUR HELP GO AWAY? “Three cars had good runs – the 18, the 11 and the 22 – and the 11 timed his run just perfectly and made the most of it. It’s the end of the race. Everybody is taking their opportunity to win it and you can’t expect any help. Everybody is kind of out for themselves as they should be.”
WHAT HAPPENED IN THE CRASH THAT WHITTLED DOWN THE FIELD? DID YOU LOSE SOME SPEED DUE TO THE DRAFT? “I was quite a ways in front of it from what I can remember. Logano dumped the 20, so you need to talk to the 22, I think. He was in front of it.”
HE WAS IN FRONT OF IT BUT DID YOU HAVE ANY LOSS OF SPEED GOING THROUGH THERE? “No, not that I remember. I was just racing side-by-side with somebody and looked in my mirror and there was a big cloud of smoke. I couldn’t tell what happened, to be honest.”
WHAT HAS BEEN THE SIDE-BY-SIDE EFFECT OF THIS CONFIGURATION? “The cars are different than what they were in 2012 and essentially from what they were in ’11 to get rid of the tandem. Part of that package to do so has made the cars to where they’re more side draft sensitive back to kind of what we used to have – the difference being the cars are less sensitive to the left side than what they used to be. I think that’s why you see all the guys running up against the wall whenever they
can. That package has definitely changed the racing here and allowed the cars to stretch out a little bit, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but it is what it is. I think it’s pretty good racing here in this format, so I thought we had a good race.”
YOU GUYS SEEMED TO GO WHEREVER YOU WANTED AT THE END. WAS THAT BECAUSE OF THE SMALL FIELD? COULD WE SEE THAT IN THE DUEL OR 500? “The field was so small I wouldn’t take anything from the second half of the race and say that you would see it in the 500. It’s kind of like Kyle said earlier, it was just kind of its own deal.”
WHAT DID YOU SEE WHEN THE PACE CAR CAUGHT ON FIRE? “When you think you’ve seen it all, then you see that. It’s just never-ending. We’ve seen wires, we’ve seen jet dryers. I don’t even know what to expect for the 500. It seems we always find the weirdest thing for the 500, so I just hope nobody was hurt. It doesn’t look like they were, but that’s an interesting one there. I couldn’t exactly tell what happened. I just saw the whole back half of the car was on fire. I thought it was a race car and then someone said it was the pace car and I couldn’t help it but to start laughing. What are you gonna do? That’s racin’.”
HOW MUCH ARE YOU LOOKING FORWARD TO THE 500? “I think you’re always looking forward to the Daytona 500. It’s the biggest race of the year and it’s an opportunity to really put yourself on the list of great ones if you can win it, so it’s an opportunity and something to get excited for no matter how the cars drive. In this particular situation, it’s very similar to what we had last year. I think the fastest cars will find their way to the front, hopefully with the best drivers in them.”
TV MENTIONED THERE WAS A POINT WHERE VISION WAS AN ISSUE IN THESE CARS. ARE THEY CORRECT IN SAYING THAT AND IS IT SOMETHING YOU’D LIKE NASCAR TO LOOK AT? “The cars are hard to see out of, but that’s what we get paid for is to make a hard judgment call in a split-second. I think we have to be wary of a sport of child-proofing these cars. They should be hard to drive. They should have things that they do that stand out and allow talent to rise to the top. I’m one of those that’s not in favor of child-proofing the cars and putting more spoiler on them or more downforce or more whatever. This should be the cream of the crop and the baddest of the bad race car drivers. You shouldn’t have everything handed to you. When you have all that stuff handed to you where does it stop? Should we put traction-control at Martinsville so you can just push the gas pedal down? They should be hard to drive. That’s why it’s Cup and it’s elite. I’m always leery of trying to fix things that probably aren’t broken.”
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