Ford Racing NSCS Notes & Quotes:
FEDEX 400 BENEFITING AUTISM SPEAKS
Sunday, June 1, 2014
FORD QUALIFYING RESULTS
2nd Brad Keselowski
8th Joey Logano
12th Aric Almirola
14th Carl Edwards
16th Marcos Ambrose
29th David Gilliland
36th David Ragan
38th Greg Biffle
41st Ricky Stenhouse Jr.
BRAD KESELOWSKI, No. 2 Miller Lite Ford Fusion | Finished 2nd
“The car was really strong the second half of the race. My guys made great adjustments on it and we drove up to second there. We were pretty equal to Jimmie there but never got a crack at him. I would have liked a shot. It was a decent day for us finishing second and that is something to be proud of but we want one spot more.”
JOEY LOGANO, No. 22 Shell Pennzoil Ford Fusion | Finished 8th
“We weren’t very good today. Some runs we were and some runs we weren’t. We had a tough day on pit road in the beginning there and recovered decent, so that is good. A couple runs we were good and the next thing you know we were super loose and then we were super loose. We were chasing the car all day and that is what screwed us up. We lost our track position that way too. We went for it at the end there with two tires but we were just way too tight. That was it today.”
ARIC ALMIROLA, No. 43 Farmland Ford Fusion | Finished 12th
“That was a decent day. We ran probably seventh to 15th all day and we finished 12th, so it is kind of what we have been doing the last few weeks. We did that at Kansas, running sixth to 11th there all day and Charlotte we ran 8th to 12th all day and now here the same thing again. I am proud of that from where we were at the beginning of the year when we were racing for 20th to 25th, so we have made a lot of improvements to be racing the way we are now. We just have to figure out what we need to go that next step and get in to the top-10 regularly and run in the top-five so we can compete for wins. I am really proud of Trent Owens and the guys on this team. We were a 27th place car at best in practice yesterday, so they made a lot of changes overnight and the car was a lot better today.”
GREG BIFFLE, No. 16 3M Ford Fusion |Finished 39th
Lap 135 Accident Quotes — “Inside of the car I didn’t really know what happened. I just knew that the 47 got into us pretty hard and turned us into the fence. After watching the replay I see what happened. They were racing hard back there and he stuck it into a hole that maybe there wasn’t room for. There definitely wasn’t room come three-quarters of the way around the corner I guess and he slid off the bottom and got his right-rear caught by the 17 and up into us. It was a chain reaction. This place is tight and fast and when you get racing that hard back there on a restart stuff like that is going to happen.”
RICKY STENHOUSE JR., No. 17 Nationwide Ford Fusion | Finished 41st
Lap 135 Accident Quotes — WHAT HAPPENED? “We were really loose. The 47 jumped to the inside of us there and I tried to stay out of his way and he got me. We met right-rear to left-front and it got him sideways and everything else happened after that. Our Nationwide Insurance Ford was really, really loose all race long and we were trying to hang on with it. We didn’t want it to end that way and we got our teammate caught up in it and tore up a lot of cars. That is now what we wanted to do. It is a tough end to our day. It is a bummer. We started the race so loose and we were hoping we could get it tightened up and be able to make some ground up but we were just really, really loose.”
BRAD KESELOWSKI POST RACE PRESS CONFERENCE
BRAD KESELOWSKI, No. 2 Miller Lite Ford Fusion
YOU HAD A GOOD SOLID RESTART THERE ON THAT LAST CAUTION AND GOT WITHIN AN ARM’S REACH OF JIMMIE JOHNSON, BUT YOU JUST WEREN’T ABLE TO CLOSE THE DEAL. TALK A LITTLE BIT ABOUT THE RACE. “Yeah, we just had an up‑and‑down day. I started up front, and that’s a part, and faded to the back pretty early in the race. We just weren’t where we needed to be in the car. Paul Wolfe and the team made some good adjustments and got us where we needed to be, and took back off and had a couple really strong runs and drove from I can’t remember whether it was 13th or 14th up to second there. I thought we were going to get a crack at Jimmie and then that last caution came out and we just kind of whiffed on pit road, came out way behind. I drove back up there, and with the help of the restart got up to second, and I think we were pretty close to even to Jimmie, it was just a matter of who was going to be out front, and we just never could really take advantage of our pit stall to get in front of him.”
BRAD KESELOWSKI PRESS CONFERENCE CONTINUED – WITH THE HOLE, I GUESS NOT REALLY A POTHOLE, BUT THE CRACK OR THE CRUMBLING TRACK IN TURN 2, WHAT DID YOU GUYS SEE? DID YOU COME CLOSE TO IT WHEN IT WAS FALLING APART AND DID IT SEEM TO HOLD UP WELL ENOUGH, OR DID YOU JUST AVOID IT AFTER THAT? “I think NASCAR did a good job, or whoever, I think it was NASCAR. Whoever fixed it did a good job of repairing it. It started to come back up at the end, but I didn’t think it was a major issue. It was definitely a major issue at first when it happened. I could feel it when I was driving over it, and you knew it was only going to get worse. If somebody didn’t repair a small hole, it was going to turn into a big hole, and I’ll give NASCAR credit enough to realize that and stop and fix it before a problem like that escalated, which it would very quickly. I thought the repair was pretty good. Yeah, I didn’t really notice it a lot. You could feel it a little bit, but I thought it was probably just right.”
CAN YOU TALK ABOUT THE PIT CREW THIS WEEK. YOU GUYS MADE SOME ADJUSTMENTS. JUST WONDERING HOW IT WORKED OUT AND WHY THE CHANGE. “Yeah, we’re just not where we want to be. We haven’t been where we want to be for probably the last year and a half, and it’s keeping us from winning races. You know, I think that’s the bottom line. We’re making adjustments and we’re going to continue to make adjustments until we get it right. I feel really good about the last one we made, and the guy who stepped in did an excellent job in his position, but we still weren’t where we needed to be in others. We have to keep working.”
