Ford Racing NSCS Notes & Quotes:
NSCS Ford EcoBoost 400 – Homestead Miami Speedway
Sunday Nov. 16, 2014
FORD FINSHING RESULTS
3rd Brad Keselowski
16th Joey Logano
19th Aric Almirola
22nd Ricky Stenhouse Jr.
27th Marcos Ambrose
30th David Ragan
31st David Gilliland
34th Carl Edwards
41st Greg Biffle
42nd Trevor Bayne
JOEY LOGANO, No. 22 Shell Pennzoil Ford Fusion (PIT ROAD INTERVIEW) – “It was a heck of a race up there. I screwed up and hit the wall early and we were able to recover then had the mistake on pit road which didn’t give us enough time to recover from that. It is unfortunate. Execution was our strong point all year and we just didn’t do it tonight. For that reason we finished fourth after I think we scored the most points this whole Chase. We finished fourth in a season I feel we had a great championship run going. At the same time, we can’t hold our heads down. It is frustrating after all that to say you finished fourth when I feel like this team deserved a lot better.” GREAT EFFORT BY YOUR TEAM ALL SEASON THOUGH. “Yeah, I am proud of them but it is hard to be proud right now after coming home wherever we finished in this race. I don’t even know what that is. I don’t even care. You don’t get shots at championships often. Hopefully we get another next year. This car had a lot of wins and a lot of top fives and it doesn’t mean a thing.”
TODD GORDON, crew chief, No. 22 Shell Pennzoil Ford Fusion (PIT ROAD INTERVIEW) – A DIFFICULT ENDING TO A GREAT YEAR. “If you look at the whole deal, all the work, there is a lot to be proud of this season. Five wins and getting ourselves into the championship round are good things. I felt like execution would be the dictator tonight and we didn’t do that. That is the long and the short. We had issues and had them late enough that you can’t recover from them. We had a few and we just didn’t execute. We have to find a little more speed coming back and it is disappointing right now. It isn’t anything you want to smile or anything about but as you get back and get days in I think we will reflect back on the five wins and making it to the championship round and recognize it as a step forward in the second year with Joey and something we can build off of going forward.” WALK US THROUGH THE FATEFUL PIT STOP.“The jack slipped off the post and then unfortunately it happened late enough that the tires were off and the car was sitting on the jack stop. It is just one of those deals. I think that is the only time this year that we have had that happen. The guys have done a good job. It is unfortunate that you have your miscue that late in the race because there was no time to recover.” WHAT WENT THROUGH YOUR MIND AND WHAT DID YOU TELL JOEY? “What went through my mind? Hopefully that we would have cautions. I think there was 28 to go when that happened. I was hoping we would have a caution with 12 to go and force guys to a split strategy of how they were coming. We didn’t have enough guys come to pit road to stay out and make track position. We had to find a way to do something they weren’t. We just never recovered from it.”
BRAD KESELOWSKI, No. 2 Miller Lite Ford Fusion (PIT ROAD INTERVIEW) – “It was a good night. To have another sound finish and bring home the white deuce with a third is not bad. We certainly wanted to be able to win and Kevin made a great move on that next-to-last restart and got through traffic and by us for the lead. That was pretty cool to see actually. It was a solid season for everyone here at Team Penske. We had six wins and I think 17 top-fives, the most top fives and wins in the series and that is a lot to be proud of. It was a decent night. Not exceptional but a pretty good night. We end up third with some ups and downs and got caught on pit road under a yellow. The team did a great job recovering from that. It was a solid to finish to what has been a great year for us.” WHAT ABOUT THIS CHASE FORMAT NOW THAT IT IS OVER? “The fastest car all season won the championship. I think that is right. The most consistent car was probably Jeff. He finished sixth in points. We had the most wins and finished seventh. You can argue every case for a championship scenario but the reality is that we all knew what it took to win going in and Kevin and his team did it.”
CARL EDWARDS – No. 99 Fastenal Ford Fusion – “I had a flat right-rear. I was having some fun racing with some of those guys. I went under Austin Dillon and I heard a noise and I thought, ‘Oh, somebody’s engine is blowing up,’ and it was my tire flapping and I just drove in there and backed into the fence. If I would have been just a little bit quicker realizing what was going wrong I think we would have still had a good finish, but I had a good time. We finished the race and got to race a little bit there at the end with Michael Annett and that was fun.” WHAT ARE YOUR THOUGHTS ABOUT THESE LAST NINE YEARS? “Overall it’s just been an honor to work with everybody here. If it weren’t for Jack Roush and Ford and everybody that has worked so hard I definitely would never have had all the success we’ve had, so the 99 will always be a part of my life.”
MARCOS AMBROSE – No. 9 Stanley Ford Fusion – “It’s been the story of our year, just fighting and gouging and trying all the way to the very end. I finished all the laps here tonight and finished 23rd in points, so we’ll take it. It wore me out.” HOW DO YOU SUM UP THIS CHAPTER OF YOUR CAREER? “I’m just tired, to be honest with you. I’m feeling the effects of a hot night here in Miami. The car was handling rough and I was fighting it, but that’s what makes NASCAR so great. I’m gonna miss it, no doubt about it. It’s bittersweet for me, but I’ve got a lot to look forward to and a lot to be thankful for.”
ARIC ALMIROLA – No. 43 Smithfield Ford Fusion – “It was a good year for us. We won a race. We made the Chase. We did all the things we set out to do this year, but we would be a dangerous race team if we could figure out how to get the speed out of our cars week in and week out. We do it some weeks and then other weeks we aren’t able to do it, so I’m sure this off-season all the guys will go to work and figure out how to make our cars better and we’ll hopefully have more consistent speed throughout next year. Hopefully we’ll go win another race and get this car back in the Chase. Now that we have a little experience with it we’ll be able to make the most of it.” HOW WAS YOUR RACE? “It was just a long night. We struggled with our car and we just never could get it right. We kind of fought the same thing we’ve fought the last two months, so we made the most of it. We ran all the laps and we’re ready to go home and get to work for next year.”
BRAD KESELOWSKI POST RACE PRESS CONFERENCE
TALK ABOUT YOUR RACE TODAY AND YOUR SEASON. “It was a heck of a season, not just for me but all of Team Penske, the 2 Cup car, 22 Cup car and 22 Nationwide Series team. It is a year we will look back on with a lot of pride. I am kind of wishing it wasn’t over. We still have some work to do to continue to work and get better. We just, all season long Rodney Childers and his 4 car just did an excellent job having speed and certainly capitalized at the end. We had great speed this year which is something I am proud of but were just always a little tick behind. I think in the end they leveraged that very well. We have to go back and work a little bit harder and find a little more speed and try to keep up with that. All in all it was an incredible season for us and something we are really proud of. In some ways I had to see this season come to an end and I am honestly ready to be at Daytona next week for the 500 but that is probably not the most popular comment in the world but sometimes I am not the most popular guy. I am happy with the year and I think everyone has a lot to be proud of. It is a great season, not just for Team Penske but for the sport. I am proud to be a part of that as well.”
EVALUATE THE CHASE FORMAT “What I wanted to do was grow the sport and put us in a stronger position for years to come. I am not looking at it in a short term perspective. I can’t say I have the answer for that. I think sometimes we get caught up in too much of the rhetoric around what a champion should reward, consistency or wins and those things. I think I am too close to the fire to provide an objective answer. All I care about with the format is that it takes the sport to another level for years to come. I think the jury is still out on that but it looks like it is going to be good. That is the whole point. That is where I think everyone has rallied behind it – a format to grow the sport. I don’t have an answer until we see some numbers, good or bad. I don’t have any complaints either.”
HOW DID THIS RACE APPEAR AS KIND OF A SPECTATOR AND HOW IT UNFOLDED? “It kind of unfolded rather conveniently with for a great finish with a lot of yellows and pit strategy. I think any race would end that way with those opportunities to mix things up. I thought it was a pretty good race in general. There was a lot on the line and like I said, NASCAR has to be thrilled to death with that. I hope our fans are too.”
JOEY LOGANO POST RACE PRESS CONFERENCE
JOEY LOGANO, No. 22 Shell Pennzoil Ford Fusion – TALK ABOUT HOW THINGS PLAYED OUT FOR THE 22 CAR. “Obviously not too good. This has been an awesome season for the whole 22 bunch. We were up there is a lot of top-fives and a lot of wins. Coming into today we knew what we had to do, we just didn’t execute. From every angle it seems like. I got the wall early in the race and lost the shape in the car and lost a little track position for that. We were able to recover toward the end of the race to where we were all in line and then we came down pit road and I just had a mistake on pit road and we went all the way to the tail end of the lead lap there. We were trying to fight back with 15 to go but unfortunately a great season like that makes the overall finish fourth because of one mistake but that is what the rules are. We understand that. This team did a great job of consistently being fast. In previous years that would have been perfect. Coming into this race and the way the points go, it doesn’t pay anymore. We just didn’t execute perfectly tonight and for that reason we will finish fourth. We still feel like we did a lot better than fourth this season.”
YOU HAD MISCUES ON PIT ROAD. DID THE PRESSURE GET TO YOUR GUYS AT THE END? “Obviously I haven’t re watched the pit stop or what happened there yet but when you are pushing hard to try to make 11 second pit stops or better mistakes happen. We can’t have that happen. We can’t afford to have a mistake like that. Without re watching the tape I am not going to say it was pressure or what it was. We were all trying hard to go as fast as we can. It is like everyone running as fast as you can out there and eventually you make a mistake. We knew coming into this race you can’t afford to make one mistake to put yourself behind. We made a couple tonight which put us back. Obviously our pit crew has done a good job this year. I am not putting them down over one thing. It was just bad timing on one of them.”
DURING THAT PIT STOP, WHAT WERE YOUR EMOTIONS AND DID YOU KNOW YOU WERE DONE? “I did not have good emotions in the car. I was pretty pissed off if that is an emotion. You knew your chances went down a lot. I didn’t say it was over. We didn’t give up. At that point I was trying to pass as many cars as we could and really hoped those guys wrecked each other. That is all I had going for me at that point. When you are that far back, 24th or 25th, you can’t make that up with 12 to go or whatever it was. It is just too hard to make that up. All you can do is try. It was an amazing opportunity to be here and it would be dumb to give up. You keep trying and hopefully something happens. We put ourselves in that boat to have to have to be able to pull that out. It was too hard.”
WHAT WAS THIS EXPERIENCE LIKE? “This was an awesome experience. This is the first time I have had a shot at winning a championship and the first time I won more than one race in a season. It has been a spectacular year. I have a biased opinion right now and I am probably too close to the fire to comment much on how it went. As the car that scored more points than anyone in the Chase it is hard to say you are in love with it but I think it was a good thing for the sport and the race was exciting today. It is unfortunate we didn’t execute today but it was a great experience and we had fun with it and learned a lot for next time in my career that we get to compete for a championship and how to maybe do a few things differently and learn from my mistakes.”
