Ford Racing NSCS Notes & Quotes:
Oral-B USA 500 – Atlanta Motor Speedway
Sunday, August 31, 2014
Ford Finishing Results:
5th – Carl Edwards
9th – Aric Almirola
10th – Greg Biffle
14th – Joey Logano
20th – Ricky Stenhouse Jr.
27th – David Ragan
28th – David Gilliland
39th – Brad Keselowski
42nd – Marcos Ambrose
BRAD KESELOWSKI – No. 2 Alliance Truck Parts Ford Fusion – “We were rallying pretty well. I made a pit road mistake a little bit earlier that got us behind, but got up to fourth and had a shot at winning the race. Kevin was really strong, but we were just starting the pit sequence and one of the slower cars in front of us was pitting and so was Denny Hamlin, who was running second or third there, and he just made the decision to pit from the middle lane and clogged the whole track. That kind of ruined our day with the Alliance Truck Parts Ford.”
MARCOS AMBROSE – No. 9 DeWalt Ford Fusion – “It’s gonna be a bad night for us. It’s too bad. We were fighting to get our lead lap back and was working hard at it, but it just wasn’t meant to be. Something happened going into turn two with the engine. It didn’t give any warning, and there was nothing I could do.”
JOEY LOGANO – No. 22 Shell/Pennzoil Ford Fusion – “The position we’re in is points don’t mean anything. We’re locked in the Chase and all you have to do is go for a win, so I saw my opportunity to try to win the race and I went for it. It was there and then the 27 blocked the 4 and I was right there with nowhere to go. There’s not much we could do. You either finish eighth or possibly win the race or finish second depending on how that move turned out. Unfortunately, we got crashed, but that’s what we’re gonna do. We’ve got one more week of checkers or wreckers and that’s what we’re gonna have. I mean, you start someone up there with two tires that hasn’t been up there all day you have a mess. I think we all saw it coming.” YOU WERE IN THE TOP 10 ALL NIGHT. “We were there. We were fighting track position sometimes and then we’d get back up there. For a minute there I just thought we were a second-place car. That’s where I thought we deserved to finish and it looked like we were gonna get a decent top-five even after we had a little pit road issue, and then all hell broke loose.”
CARL EDWARDS – No. 99 Subway Ford Fusion – “That was crazy. Those last couple of restarts were really fun. I hate that we tore up a bunch of cars, but it was definitely exciting. It’s always fun to race here at Atlanta. I love this place. It was crazy at the end. I thought if that restart would have gone a little differently, I thought we actually had a shot. I think everybody felt that way, so I’ve got to thank Subway, Ford and everybody for bringing us a good car.” WHAT WERE YOUR THOUGHTS ON THAT LAST RESTART BEING ON THE OUTSIDE? “I thought we had something there. I thought being on the outside, our Subway Ford was fast the first two laps of every restart. We had a plan, but Kurt moved to the top and he did what he was supposed to do and I was stuck going to the middle and it didn’t work out the way I wanted it to. But it was a really fun race. We struggled in the middle, but having a couple shots at the end was a real blast.” DID YOU THINK YOU’D FINISH IN THE TOP FIVE? “I didn’t think we would be in the top five, so I was pretty proud of that at the end. The car was just amazing the first couple of laps, so everybody on this Subway Ford did a good job. We still have some work to do. We had a good test at Chicago and hopefully we’ll be good at Chicago here in a couple of weeks. I hope we’re ready for the Chase. It’s getting better.”
GREG BIFFLE – No. 16 Ortho Ford Fusion – “There was a lot going on. We got in a little bit of that wreck, but what probably saved us was we had a bad pit stop on the last one of the night. We went from sixth to 13th and that backed us way up, but that wreck was right about where sixth-place was so maybe that saved our bacon. It was a tough night. We were way off, but we got her into the top 10 but we weren’t quite where we needed to be around those leaders. We’ll keep working on it and we’ll get there.” WITH KAHNE WINNING IT TAKES ANOTHER WILDCARD SPOT AWAY, BUT YOU CURRENTLY HAVE THE LAST ONE. HOW DO YOU FEEL ABOUT HAVING TO RACE YOUR WAY IN AT RICHMOND NEXT WEEK? “If the 5 wouldn’t have won, we would have been close to getting locked in with the way all the points shook out. I don’t think we would have been able to lose two spots, but it is what it is. We’ve got to race as hard as we can. We know if one of those guys behind us wins next week it bumps us out, so we’ll run as hard as we can.”
ARIC ALMIROLA – No. 43 Eckrich Ford Fusion – “We had a solid night. It was good at time, it was bad at times, it was just average at times and there at the end somehow on that green flag pit stop, with the way the caution worked out, it trapped us a lap down but we ran on the lead lap all night. We just couldn’t get the grip we needed and struggled getting the car in the race track just like we needed to, so I’d be tight, I’d be loose, but never really had the balance I wanted so we just fought that all night. It was a good comeback and anytime you can walk away from Atlanta with a top 10 after the last six weeks that we’ve had, it was nice to walk away with a car that wasn’t crashed.” YOU WENT FROM 14TH to 9TH ON THE LAST RESTART. WHAT HAPPENED TO GAIN THOSE SPOTS? “I just went through one and two and ran wide-open. I hooked my left-front around the top seam and it was just like the seas parted and I drove right through there. It was kind of nice.”
