Ford Racing NNS Notes & Quotes:
Aaron’s 312 – Talladega Superspeedway
Saturday, May 3, 2014
Ford Finishing Results:
2nd – Chris Buescher
4th – David Ragan
10th – Trevor Bayne
18th – Dakoda Armstrong
21st – Ryan Blaney
24th – Ryan Reed
CHRIS BUESCHER – No. 60 Roush Performance Parts Ford Mustang – “Congratulations to Elliott Sadler, but this Roush Performance Mustang was awesome all weekend. We knew we had a good piece, we just had to pull through with it.”
THOUGHTS ON THE LAST RESTART. “It was wild, that’s for sure. It was just a matter of holding on to what we had at that point. I didn’t want to do anything crazy. Regan Smith pushed me great right there at the end. That’s about all you can ask for because I’m still very new to this speedway racing, so to be able to pull off a second is really cool to me. This Roush Performance Parts Ford Mustang was fast all weekend and we got the finish we deserved today.”
TREVOR BAYNE – No. 6 AdvoCare Ford Mustang – “It’s not the result we wanted, but it’s better than I thought we were gonna get about halfway through that thing. To come back to a 10th-place finish with a car that looks like it was in a demolition derby. I thought when we hit the fence with everybody else that we were done, so I’m proud of my guys for working hard. I was questioning it for a little bit when we gave up those two laps on pit road being on the lead lap and able to hang with the lead draft, I was kind of getting frustrated, but it worked out perfect with the free pass. I feel bad that cars were torn up and we were part of the cause. I don’t know exactly what happened with the 2 car. I was following him and the 62 was a wild man behind us, so I was just trying to keep him behind me – whatever I could do. I know they were having heating issues, so I’m sure that was part of the pulling out, but I knew if I got out of that pack that I was gonna get shuffled all the way to the back and we were all racing harder than I definitely wanted to be at that point. I was pushing the 2. He went to the very top. I wasn’t sure what the 62 was gonna do so I was looking in my mirror a little bit. I went to guard the inside and then there was a slow car in the middle three-wide, so that was gonna put us four-wide if I tried to go to the inside of the 2 and I thought better of that, and as soon as I checked up I don’t know what happened – if I came up or he came down or we did it together and I got his left rear. These cars are just so touchy that if you touch each other at all, like the 99 with the 2 earlier when he spun across the grass and we barely missed that one, it happens – not because we want it to or not because we aren’t using our brains, it’s just part of the racing here and I feel bad that cars were torn up, especially for RCR. I think that took out half of their bunch and it took out us and the 16, so, like I said, it was great that we could come back and get a top-10 finish, but we definitely had a car that I felt like we could have won this thing with or finished top-5. The way we got to the top-5 early in the race I was pretty pumped about it.”
THESE CARS ARE PRETTY JITTERY IN THIS CONFIGURATION AREN’T THEY? “You can handle them it’s just the fact when you’re in a big pack and you’ve got 30 guys out there and they’re all overheating, so they’re bobbing and weaving. If we could all ride in a single-file line or double-file line that would be perfect, but everytime we’d get a run and I’d see the 2 or 3, it was mainly the Chevy’s pulling out of line to cool down. I was like, ‘Whoa,’ so it would stall up the lane and the bottom lane seemed to be able to stay in line a little bit better with the Fords and Toyotas. I think that was definitely junking us up a little bit, so it was tough racing. I don’t know if you guys have seen my car, but it doesn’t look like a top-10 car, so I’ll take it.”
BRIAN WASN’T HAPPY BUT YOU WOULD PROBABLY EXPECT HIM NOT TO BE, RIGHT? “Yeah. I completely understand his reaction with not having the opportunity to come back, so I understand his frustration, but I think it should be more frustration with the circumstances of the kind of racing we’re in. I don’t know, even if I got wrecked, if I could point the finger at somebody. Like I said, I think it was him and the 99 that got together earlier when the 99 spun out, so it goes both ways. I feel terrible that their stuff got torn up and he should be frustrated that his day was ended early. I don’t want him frustrated with us, but I haven’t seen it yet and I don’t know if I came way up the race track or what, but it was gonna put us four-wide, so I checked up. I thought that was not a good idea and when I did we got into his left-rear and he went sailing. I feel bad for him.”
THE CAUTIONS AT THE END WERE WHAT YOU NEEDED. “We were on the lead lap forever even with a torn up race car. We kept holding the draft well and worked our way back up in the top 10 and then we started making adjustments and had a tire go down, the splitter came off and ended up losing two laps when we were fixing everything, and they fell perfect for us to get back on the lead lap and have a shot.”
DAVID RAGAN – No. 98 Carroll Shelby Engine Company Ford Mustang – WHAT WERE YOU THINKING ON THAT LAS RESTART? “When you’re on the bottom and you’ve got a car in front of you and a car on the outside of you, all you can do is push. With the new rules that NASCAR has implemented you can’t push too hard, so you have to be very conscious about how hard you push and falling off a little bit and getting back on and I just tried to maintain that within the rules. I was really hoping I could push Elliott a little bit farther where I could clear the outside car and then it would have been a good race between Elliott and I coming to the line, but nevertheless a top-5 finish is great for the Biagi DenBeste team. We had a lot of fun and had a chance to win and that’s all you can ask for here.”
RYAN REED – No. 16 ADA Drive to Stop Diabetes Ford Mustang – “It was really unfortunate. The guys gave me a fast Ford Mustang. I just hate it. I don’t really know what happened because I haven’t seen the replay, but we had a fast car. I hate it for my guys and myself because I felt like we put ourselves in contention and led a lot. We got up front and led some of the race and knew we had a fast race car and just trying to stay out of trouble. When it was getting hairy, I would back out of it. Everything seemed fine and then all of a sudden out of nowhere the 2 came sliding down the race track and I don’t know what happened. It was a bad deal, so we’ll move on to Iowa. I like that race track.”
DID LEADING THOSE LAPS GIVE YOUR TEAM SOME CONFIDENCE? “It did, but at the same time we didn’t really necessarily need that. These last few weeks we’ve been building momentum. We may not have had top-5s to show for it, but we know the gains we’re making and we know we’re getting better each week. I’m not worried about it a bit with our speed. That’s Talladega. You can’t over-think it too much, you just have to take it and move on and go to Iowa, a place I really enjoy.”
DAKODA ARMSTRONG – No. 43 WinField Ford Mustang – “We did a good job qualifying, got up front and it always helps to have good track position, but our window net fell down so we had to come in under green and went one lap down – almost two there – but luckily we got that all back. We really battled back and I thought we were gonna be alright because we were restarting sixth there and I thought those Junior Motorsports cars would go, but they would not take off and we fell way back. Then a wreck happened and we kind of got in the wall trying to dodge it, and then right there at the end the guy in front of me wouldn’t go again, so I don’t know. We got behind the wrong people on restarts, not that we can help that, but it’s definitely not the finish I felt we deserved. I felt like it was a pretty good car and I thought we were gonna be right there in contention. We’ll work on it and go get ‘em at Iowa.”
CHRIS BUESCHER PRESS CONFERENCE – “It was insane to say the least. Our Roush Performance Parts Mustang was really good all weekend. I think we saw we were with our teammates at the top of the charts during practice, even with the crazy qualifying. It’s hard to plan that one out really well, but I think we did a really good job of that as well. We got in the final group and then starting the race – really after our last couple of weeks, Richmond worked out really well for us, but leading up to that we had some bad luck and really just wanted to come here and finish this thing without tearing up a race car, wanted to get a solid run and get us back moving in the right direction. I think getting a second-place finish just makes it that much better. It was a really good race. We went all the way to the back and came back up to the front and to be battling at the end was incredible. I got to learn a lot from good friends. David Ragan is a really good friend of mine. He helped me a lot throughout the race and the way we lined up there at the end Regan Smith said that he would push me as hard as he could and, sure enough, I’ve never been to one of these restrictor plate races where you’ve been able to make contact like that and it was absolutely crazy and very out of control, but a whole lot of fun. I’m really proud of the guys. We got the finish that we deserved this week. We worked way too hard to put a fast car on the race track to have something take us out of that and we didn’t let that happen.”
CHRIS BUESCHER CONTINUED – WHERE IS THE CONFIDENCE WITH YOUR TEAM NOW AFTER TWO STRAIGHT TOP-10 FINISHES? “I think this will be really big for us. Unfortunately, I guess you could say we have an off-weekend to slow it down, but we’ve been running in a position to be able to do this, we just haven’t been able to finish all of our races like this. It’s cool to be able to get that momentum and keep it rolling. Obviously, when things happen that aren’t your fault it’s hard on everybody and you sit and think about what could have been. With the beginning of the season and the way it played out, we’re not really in a points Chase, so we sat down after Darlington and said, ‘You know what, it’s time to go try and win some races.’ And I think that mindset is gonna help us going forward.”
WASN’T RAGAN THE ONE WHO KEPT YOU FROM MAKING A MOVE ON SADLER AT THE END? “Yeah, I haven’t seen a replay. From what I understand he may have been the guy that pushed Sadler ahead of me, but I’m not gonna expect him to lift when he’s on the bottom there. He’s going for wins just the same as I am and when it comes down to the last lap it’s everybody for themselves. He did a heck of a job helping me before that. We were back at the back of the pack a lot. Me and him were both involved in the two big wrecks down in three and four. When I say involved, we were in the middle of it. I promise there were cars all around us we just didn’t hit anything, so it was really a miracle going through that. I’ll give him a little slack there for the final lap.”
CAN YOU TALK ABOUT HOW COMPETITIVE THE ROOKIE CLASS IS THIS YEAR? “It’s one of the toughest years that I can think of going back. There are guys I’ve raced with through legends cars, through ARCA, since I was probably 12 years old in all honesty. I’ve been around a lot of these guys – Ryan Blaney, Elliott – some of the others – Tanner Berryhill, just all of these guys. I’ve been around plenty and I know how they race and it’s good to be out here competing for rookie of the year with them. We’re giving it everything we’ve got. We’ve got a little bit of ground to make up, but we’re not out of this thing by any means.”
WHAT DEVELOPED WHEN YOU WERE TWO-BY-TWO ON THE FINAL LAP? “I guess I didn’t realize we did break away four cars like that. With the 7 behind us it was probably just a big cube coming down the backstretch. We were all holding each other as tight as possible. The 7 was pushing me like crazy. We probably hit 12 times going down the backstretch, just big pushes and it makes it quite wild going around the corners the same way. I tried really hard to hold Elliott down, trying to side draft. I’m very new to this. I don’t have all the speed secrets yet, but we’re gonna work towards that. I think all of those guys did a really good job to make sure we got to the finish line clean. I respect them all that much more for being able to do that, and I think it made for a great race. We didn’t have that last 100-foot pass, but it was a good finish.”
WHAT DID YOU LEARN THIS WEEK THAT MAKES YOU MORE CONFIDENT GOING TO IOWA? “A lot of it is just momentum and the fact of knowing that we can do it. Obviously, it’s a track that a lot of people will say there’s a lot of luck involved and I don’t doubt that one bit, but we worked very hard to go from eighth to last to back to second, and these guys have been working really hard in the shop. All of our Roush Fenway teammates have and we’re gonna inch up on this thing to where we can get our cars back in victory lane here. Iowa is a place that Roush has had very good success in the past. It’s a place that I’ve run really well at in the ARCA Series. I really like the place. I understand they’ve made some changes or maintenance changes to the track, and I think that’s a new ballgame we’ve all got to play, so it will be exciting when we get there. Like I said, I don’t know if I really want this off-weekend at this point. I want to keep going, but Iowa is a really cool race track and anything we can take from here may just be the fact that we have momentum on our side. We’re capable of running this well. Richmond was some place that was halfway similar to Iowa, where you can take some notes and move them over. With our run there, I think we should be able to show up in Iowa and have a really solid run.”
