Ford Performance NSCS Notes and Quotes
Folds of Honor QuikTrip 500 Qualifying – Atlanta Motor Speedway
Friday, February 27, 2015
Ford Qualifying Results:
1st – Joey Logano
8th – Sam Hornish Jr.
12th – Brad Keselowski
19th – Greg Biffle
20th – Ricky Stenhouse Jr.
23rd – Aric Almirola
24th – Michael McDowell
26th – David Gilliland
28th – Joe Nemechek
29th – Trevor Bayne
JOEY LOGANO – No. 22 Shell/Pennzoil Ford Fusion – POLE-WINNING PRESS CONFERENCE – “Hopefully, we’ll finish where we start. It’s been an amazing few weeks if you think about the Daytona 500 and everything that comes along with that, and then coming down here to Atlanta and starting first is special, especially for me here at this race track. I remember sitting in the corner and watching drivers up here talking about their qualifying run and racing Legends cars out front here for years, so there are a lot of memories here. You guys see the picture over there when you walk in with David and Reed when were young and racing here. Obviously, anything to be in victory lane here is a very special place for me. I don’t know what’s going on lately. Everything is going well and we’re just trying to keep the old train rolling here. It’s going great and we’ll see what happens on Sunday.”
HOW CONFIDENT WERE YOU IN THAT FINAL ROUND OF QUALIFYING? “I felt like we definitely left some out in the second round. The first round we went out and the car was money. It felt perfect. I told Todd, ‘It’s good. I don’t know what to tell you.’ That’s special because you don’t get those cars very often, so we didn’t touch it and we got a little bit too loose. I had to lift off of two on the second run, so we gave up some speed there and were still second. I said, ‘OK, as long as we tighten this thing up and I run it just as hard, hopefully we can win the pole.’ I felt confident that my car could do it, I just had to hit the line just right. You’re going so fast around here that if you hit the bump just the wrong way it will jerk your car up a lane and it’s over, it will make your car looser. If you overcorrect just a little bit, you lose the yaw in your car and you’re up the race track. It’s a fast, technical race track, which is a big challenge because I remember the first time I came here I qualified 42nd, and was completely confused on what to do. I actually told Todd, ‘This isn’t a place that we qualify very well,’ and we haven’t in the past before. Once again, this is one of those tracks we focused the whole time in practice on qualifying trim today. We never came out of qualifying trim and focused on trying to make speed with our race car and it paid off once again. As long as we keep working hard, we’re seeing results.”
WERE YOU SURPRISED TO RUN THAT KIND OF LAP ON THOSE TIRES ON A TRACK THAT IS SO ABRASSIVE? “Yes and no. Our first run today in practice we went faster on our second run on scuffs, so I knew there was grip that stays in the tires for at least two runs. I didn’t know about the third run, but apparently a third run also, and the track temperature obviously came down. It’s really cold out there, so I think with the track temp coming down and tires, for some reason, they hold some decent speed in them still. It’s probably right at the limit, though. Probably the next run after this we probably would take a pretty big jump down on lap times. I’m a little bit surprised, but maybe not that much.”
JOEY LOGANO CONTINUED — YOU WERE ONE OF THE LAST ONES TO GET THROUGH INSPECTION. WERE YOU NERVOUS? “We drew 47th on the draw, which is where you go through tech for qualifying and obviously where you line up on pit road. So we only went through it once. That was our original time, so without that 20-minute delay we would have been late getting out there, and if we didn’t make it through the first round in tech, we wouldn’t have qualified. We would have been in the same boat as everybody else. I think you’ve got to be able to have the opportunity to go through there twice. I’m sure we’ve learned from the experience and we’re gonna change something. Obviously, this is not acceptable. I’m sure we’ll make the right decisions moving forward to make sure it doesn’t happen again, but it is scary. A lot of times when you roll through the laser platform, and especially looking at it now and saying, if you didn’t make it through, you wouldn’t have even qualified. That’s scary, especially for the go or go-home cars. Imagine you’ve got to go and you don’t even get to go. That’s a tough situation. I’m sure we’ll make the right decisions to fix that and we’ll move on.”
DOES THIS NEW PACKAGE PLAY INTO YOUR DRIVING STYLE A BIT BETTER THAN BEFORE? “Maybe, I don’t know. It seems like it. It is more towards an XFINITY car. You’ve got less horsepower and less downforce. We’re going towards that direction, so it does drive similar to that after being in the XFINITY car today also. So directionally it could be a good thing for me. Obviously, this is the first time we’ve been on the race track with this new package. Not only is there less downforce, but the aero shift towards the front percentage-wise is a big change for everyone to get used to and understand what they need setup-wise and chassis-wise to fix that and overcome the percentage change to the front. I think we need to see what happens in the race, but it does take a little bit of a different style, but I think as the tires wear and the track temp comes up a little bit I think you’ll get closer and closer back to the old car. I think there’s more change now because the track temps at 40 degrees out there and we’ve got less horsepower, so the speeds in the corners are way up. I think as temperatures come up and tires wear out, I think it will get more close to what we’re used to. And we’re also used to being here when it’s 90 degrees out. There is just a lot of change being here right now.”
WHAT DO YOU THINK OF DAVID RAGAN’S OPPORTUNITY WITH THE 18 CAR AND DO YOU SEE SOME SIMILARITIES IN HIS AND YOUR PATH IN NASCAR? “Yeah, for sure. David and I grew up racing together, so when I heard that he was in the 18 car I was pretty excited about it. I sent him a text and congratulated him because that’s an amazing opportunity. That’s a second chance right there, and to see him in practice today. He was third on the board for a while and I was like, ‘Wow.’ He was in front of me for a little bit and I was like, ‘Holy cow,’ because all he apparently needed was a car. You can’t expect him to just jump in this thing and go. You’ve got to get used to the team. There’s a lot of learning curve ahead of him with a new team like that, but it was cool to see him up there running fast in that car. I’m rooting him on. I don’t want him to beat me, but I’m rooting him on out there because we’re obviously friends and grew up together and it’s kind of cool to see him get a shot like that again.”
JOEY LOGANO CONTINUED — WHAT HAPPENED ON LETTERMAN WITH THE ‘TON’ THING? “You’re a jerk (laughing). I thought it was like a figure of speech, like a ton. Like, ‘Oh, it weighs a ton,’ but whatever. I get it. I know. OK (laughing).”
YOU’VE HEARD A LOT ABOUT IT? “Oh yeah, you’re not the first one (laughing). I get it from everyone, believe me. I’ll never let that one go. Of course, it was the biggest thing we did the whole time, so beautiful (laughing).”
SAM HORNISH JR. – No. 9 Medallion Bank Ford Fusion – “This is a great way to start this portion of the season where we have a little bit more of an opportunity. I said at Daytona that we just missed a little bit and got going a little bit too early. This week, we just kind of let it come to us for what we had in practice this morning. We felt like our Ford Fusion was really good yesterday over the long run, but trying to do short run stuff we didn’t have the speed. I felt like it was gonna be much better today and then the car wouldn’t turn this morning. For everybody to regroup and go to work on the car and to find some changes that allowed us to get to the last group and qualify eighth, it’s not a pole but it’s pretty good. I feel like we’ve got a lot to do, but a Ford got the pole so that’s good. I’m really happy with the Medallion Bank Ford Fusion and everybody at Richard Petty Motorsports.”
GREG BIFFLE – No. 16 Ortho Ford Fusion – “These cars seem really sensitive, so I’m guessing if you have it just perfect you can get one good lap out of it. That’s sort of the way it feels to me so far, but Atlanta is always a difficult place to judge off of. I think I’ll have a better idea after next week and Phoenix to judge where we’re at overall. This is a difficult race track and it’s always been a little difficult for us the last few years, but we’ll keep working on it.”
MICHAEL MCDOWELL – No. 95 Thrivent Financial Ford Fusion – “I guess that was the race today was to get through inspection. Everybody at Leavine Family Racing, we do a really good job preparing and we were able to race through the tech line. It’s unfortunate for a lot of people, I realize that, but it was a good qualifying session for us. We learned a lot. We had a little less pressure because of the situation, so we could be a little more aggressive and try a few things. We were able to make it to round two and worked on it a little bit more and it’s good that we did because it will help us the next time we come back here.”
