Ford Racing NSCS Notes & Quotes:
NASCAR Chase Media Day
Thursday Sept. 11, 2014
The 2014 NASCAR Chase for the Sprint Cup championship kicks off this Sunday afternoon at Chicagoland Speedway with the first race in the Challenger Round. Five Ford Fusions will be represented, all going for the ninth NASCAR Cup championship in Ford Racing history. Brad Keselowski, the top-seed, teammate Joey Logano as well as Carl Edwards, Greg Biffle and Aric Almirola met with media in downtown Chicago to kick off festivities.
JOEY LOGANO, No. 22 Shell Pennzoil Ford Fusion – HOW DID YOU CHASE ACROSS NORTH AMERICA GO? “It was good. I went to Birmingham, Alabama and did a couple radio stations and then went to the Children’s Hospital of Alabama and saw some of the kids there. We built some wooden race cars and walked around and did some cool pictures and stuff like that. It was neat. Each race track could really pretty much pick whatever they wanted to do and Talladega was kind enough to choose a hospital. I felt good about it because you are using this for a good cause. I thought that was pretty neat. They could have done anything to support a sponsor or something like that but they decided to go see the kids and give back to the community and I thought that was really cool of them.”
ANY PROBLEMS OR ISSUES? I HEARD CARL HAD SOME TROUBLE GETTING BACK ACROSS THE BORDER. “Oh no, I just went to Alabama. Sometimes it feels like a different country. From Connecticut, Alabama is a different country but I made it. I am okay. No, no drama for us. Everything went as planned. My PR guy Jeremy was all over it.”
IF NOT YOU, WHO DO YOU THINK WINS THIS CHAMPIONSHIP? “I don’t care. If it isn’t me I don’t give a crap. No, just kidding. If not me I would hope Brad does but I am focused on my own thing. I know my teammate has the ability and I know our car definitely does. I would think the guys you have seen all year, you can never count the 48 out right? The 24, the 88 possibly and the 4. You never know. The thing is you can’t count anybody out of this thing. You never underestimate your competition and that is everybody in this Chase and everybody racing that isn’t in the Chase. You never know what is going to happen. That is why you have to work as hard as you can. You never are perfect and never where you want to be in racing and that is what keeps you driven to be better. You are always trying to get better and it is a lot of fun doing that. Especially when this Chase starts I want to pick it up a notch. There may be someone different that kicks off this Chase and does it all the way to Homestead that you don’t expect sitting here today. Hopefully that is us but you never know.”
LAST YEAR THERE WAS DRAMA LEADING INTO THIS THING FOR YOU LAST YEAR. WHERE DO YOU COMPARE A YEAR AGO RIGHT NOW TO THAT? “I am more prepared. A lot more prepared knowing kind of where we are. I feel like these last 15 weeks or so we were doing our thing and won the race in Texas and now we were just going for wins and to gain momentum and get our team prepared for the Chase. That is really what the last few weeks were all about. We have been able to do that. We have consistently been top-five and got a couple wins since Texas and have been able to build our team stronger and stronger for Chicago, the biggest race we have had so far since we’ve gotten into the Chase. We need to hit these next 10 races hard. I feel a lot more confident this time than last year in my team and myself. We’ve had a chance to rest up and be ready for this and we will hit this as hard as we can and take it one week at a time and decide how hard we need to run and how important a win is or how important a consistent finish is depending on how we run the previous race. We will go out there this weekend and try for the best finish we possibly can, if it is a first place we will take it and if not we will try for a solid top-five or top-10 and move on to New Hampshire.”
DO YOU HAVE TO DO ANYTHING TO KIND OF RAMP THE TEAM UP? “When you think you are doing everything you can, like you think you were all year and that you are putting everything you can to this and everyone on the whole team feels the same way, there is always something left somewhere in there. There is a little bit left in the tank. The best and the champion will find that. They will find that little bit left in the tank to be a little better, work a little harder, find a little more speed, think things through more and make better decisions on the race track. Every area we have to raise it a little bit and find that little bit more in the tank. A little faster pit stops, all that stuff has to come together to be able to do this. The champion will do that. Really, probably the top four cars will do that. We have to make sure we do our part.”
WHEN YOU THINK ABOUT THE NEW FORMAT, DO YOU UNDERSTAND IT COMPLETELY? “Yeah, I get it. I agree it is probably confusing for a lot of people, including myself for a little while but basically you have to run each race with the right mindset to get through the next segment. If you do get bumped out, you can still finish up there in points because it goes back to the old points in that you can still have a solid year out of it. It is never just that you got the win and go on to the next round and you don’t care about the next two races. It won’t be like that. You want the best finish you can because if you do get knocked out later you will revert back to those points and you will want them. It is 10 races as hard as you can.”
YOU COULD FINISH LIKE SEVENTH FOR 10 STRAIGHT RACES AND PROBABLY WIN THE CHAMPIONSHIP. DO YOU CHANGE HOW YOU RACE BECAUSE OF THIS FORMAT? “It is the same thing as last year. If you finished second every single week last year you would have won the championship also. You have to have that average finish throughout. The guys that win the championship have average finishes that are remarkable. We’ve been able to do that leading into the Chase but need to do it in the Chase. It won’t be easier, it will only get harder. At times if we have a bad race like something that happened to us in Chicago last year we will have to win to get to the next round but right now we will head to Chicago with a clean slate like we’ve got and do what we have been doing.”
WHEN YOU LOOK AT THE OVERALL PICTURE OF THE CHASE ARE YOU LOOKING RACE BY RACE OR ROUND BY ROUND? “Race by race. I think that is how you have to do it. At least I think so. We will see if I am right or wrong but I think that is how you have to do it. I think you have to look at your points and how you can get to the next round after each race.”
DID YOU TAKE THE MY CHASE DRIVER QUIZ ONLINE? “No, I didn’t know about that.”
BRAD TOOK IT AND IT GAVE HIM KYLE BUSH AS THE DRIVER MOST LIKE HIM BASED OFF HIS ANSWERS. “Really? Ha. That is funny. That is really funny to me. Now I kind of want to take that quiz.”
CAN YOU REALLY NOT COUNT ANYBODY OUT? “I am not going to. I am not going to take that chance. I may be the only guy that says that here but I am not going to take that chance. I have learned the hard way not to underestimate your competition and what they are doing. You may think you are working the hardest but you’re probably not. That is the mindset you have to have as a competitor to be successful here. There are probably a lot of people counting a few guys out right off the bat but I am not going to. I am going to treat them all like they are serious contenders.”
YOU’VE NOW HAD ONE REGULAR SEASON TO REASSESS THIS CHASE QUALIFICATION PROCESS. DO YOU THINK THIS WIN AND YOU ARE IN FORMAT CHANGED THE RACING ONE WAY OR ANOTHER? “I think it has made it better because there are a lot of people racing just for wins. I think the perfect example is Atlanta a couple weeks ago. Here we are in a car capable of winning, we put four tires on and restarted sixth and gave up our shot to win and then Harvick tried to go and I was like, “Screw it, what do I have to lose, if we crash we crash.” At that point I had two weeks to drive like I have nothing to lose. Now, would I do that this weekend, probably not. I wouldn’t take that same move. I want a decent finish and wouldn’t put myself in position to crash like we did. There were races previous to that where we were finishing second, third or fourth and it was like so what. We finished third and it doesn’t help a thing so you go for it. That is the attitude guys that already had the wins had. There were a small group of guys racing for points to get in and then other guys outside of the Chase that weren’t going to make it in points that were racing the same way I was racing and going for it that way. You are going to go for it. There were more guys going for it which I think puts on a better race. More guys throwing caution to the wind which is the right way to point us and I think what the fans want. Guys throwing caution to the wind and going for wins – we will still have that through the rest of the season. There will be guys trying to be consistent and guys that are third down and trying to get in and are going to go for it because you have to unless your championship hopes are gone. The main goal is to win the championship, not finish fifth or eighth in points. You do what you need to do to get to the next round.”
HOW DOES IT FEEL TO BE ONE OF THE FAVORITES TO WIN THE TITLE? “Pretty sweet. I tell you, my career has been a roller coaster for sure but I have loved every second of it. I have been through some harder times and trying to figure out where I was going to race, if I was going to race. Now to be in a position to feel like I have a legit shot at winning a championship, that is cool. That is awesome for me. I am excited about that and my whole team is very excited about that and we want to do that. Man, it has been fun. I am glad I went through all that because I wouldn’t be who I am today without it but it is definitely a little sense of accomplishment already feeling that I have a shot at this. People were talking and we are one of the top contenders at this thing and I believe that. My whole team believes that. We are going to fight to the end here to make this a dream season the best we can.”
