Ford Racing NSCS Notes & Quotes:
Daytona 500 Advance – Daytona International Speedway
Wednesday, February 19, 2014
Trevor Bayne, driver of the No. 21 Motorcraft/Quick Lane Ford Fusion, received minor nose damage to his car during a multi-car accident in today’s first practice session. The team is currently making repairs and the car will run in tomorrow’s Duel.
TREVOR BAYNE – No. 21 Motorcraft/Quick Lane Ford Fusion – “For us it could have been worse, but for a lot of people it was a worst-case scenario for a practice session. It’s unfortunate that this many cars are getting torn up this early. For us, our goal is to just go out there and make laps and stay out of trouble and make it into this 500. We just can’t afford to take risks. I was just thinking that Joey and I were coming up the middle there, I had a couple car lengths back of him coming off of four and I caught him real fast coming into the tri-oval. We both had a run. I obviously couldn’t see real good in front of him because I’m right behind him. I went back and watched just to make sure I didn’t create a mess there. It looked like the 20 kind of came down there a little bit and then came back up and the 22 had already filled that hole. The problem is the closing rate is so fast that if you try to move you have to be so decisive here. If you commit to a lane, even if it’s gonna send you backwards, you almost have to stay there because if you try to switch back and forth a couple times it isn’t good. It teaches me something for these Duels – to get in a lane, stay there and ride it out. We were really fortunate with our 21 Motorcraft/Quick Lane Ford just to not be torn up as bad as it could have been. They got the nose a little bit and they’ll have to work on it some to fix it for the Duels, but nothing beyond repair. I’m just really thankful we made it through that because it could have been way worse for us.”
WILL YOU GO OUT FOR THE SECOND SESSION TONIGHT? “We’ll try to get back out there. Even if we have some damage on the nose we have some little things we need to run through just to make sure they’re ready for the race, so we’ll be back on track. I’m not sure if it will be in Duel form, if we can get the grille and the nose all fixed up, but we could have way worse problems that’s for sure.”
WHAT’S THIS LIKE BEING WAY BACK IN OWNER’S POINTS? “It’s definitely a different Speedweeks for me right now. Normally here with the Wood Brothers we qualify in the top 10 or so, even the top three a couple times, but we just had a bad headwind. You can’t ever count on which way that’s gonna go. A lot of times it’s helped us, but this time it hurt us. We showed speed in practice, but just didn’t get the qualifying run we needed to lean on that for the Duels. So we know we’re racing in and that goes back to the point of me saying stay in a lane, get there, stay there – whichever lane is moving – just try to get there early and just ride it out and stay out of trouble because obviously if this 21 is torn up at the end of those, we could be in trouble and we don’t want that, that’s for sure.”
