Ford Performance NXS Notes and Quotes
Drive4Clots.com 300 – Auto Club Speedway
Saturday, March 21, 2015
Ford Finishing Results
5th – Chris Buescher
8th – Brad Keselowski
10th – Elliott Sadler
11th – Ryan Reed
12th – Darrell Wallace Jr.
36th – Dakoda Armstrong
37th – Sam Hornish Jr.
CHRIS BUESCHER – No. 60 Fastenal Ford Mustang – “That was a pretty good day. That’s more than I expected out of this Fastenal Ford Mustang today. These guys worked really hard this weekend and made a ton of changes, so I’m really proud of them. They did a nice job. We got a penalty on pit road, but we were able to march right back through there so that was good to see. There’s no doubt we were fast today, but we just needed a little bit more track position.”
YOU SAID ON FRIDAY THIS RACE WAS STILL YOUR FOCUS, SO ARE YOU HAPPY WITH OUT THINGS TURNED OUT? “Absolutely. I think this was a really good day for us because we gained over half of our points deficit, so that’s nice. It looks promising going into these next two off weeks. I think the effort was here and they know it, so now that it’s over we have to put the effort on the Cup side.”
DO YOU LIKE HOW YOUR SEASON HAS STARTED GOING INTO THIS BREAK? “I think so. We always have work to do and we know that. Until you’re winning every race you’re gonna say the same thing every Monday, so we’re gonna keep working at it. Everybody is working really hard.”
WHAT A RALLY AT THE END. “That was a wild ending. I was just really proud of these guys. They worked really hard all weekend to get this Fastenal Ford Mustang up toward the front and it was a challenge. We worked really hard for it. It was a wild race. Some of these restarts, the track is so wide that we get spread out and it’s a little hairy, but I’m really proud of these guys. They did a nice job and now it’s over and we’re looking forward to tomorrow’s race and run for the first time on Sunday.”
DARRELL WALLACE JR. – No. 6 Roush Performance Ford Mustang – YOU WERE UP FRONT ALL DAY AND THEN CIRCUMSTANCES PUT YOU BACK IN 12TH. “The circumstances were in the seat. We’ll have to go on to Texas. The guys brought me a great race car for sure because we were running second. Harvick was a little bit better than us, but all-around it was great performance by my guys and the whole RFR camp, so we’ll just go to Texas and have some fun.”
HOW DID IT FEEL TO RUN UP FRONT AND MIX IT UP WITH THOSE GUYS. THAT HAD TO FEEL GOOD. “The way I messed up overcomes that, but we’ll be alright. We’ll just relax these two weeks and build.”
RYAN REED – No. 16 Lilly/American Diabetes Association Ford Mustang – “It started off as a horror story for sure. We were about a mile off. We just started off so loose, so we’ve got to go back and figure out how we started so loose. I felt at the end there we were a top-10 car. When we took our second-to-last pit stop we were only running two to three-tenths off the 88 on the long run, so we have to figure out our short run speed situation. It’s similar to what our Cup guys are saying, but we’re getting better. To battle back, we were a 20th-place car to start and we ended up finishing 11th with a top-10 car. That’s how you stay up front in points is when you have a bad day figure out how to turn it into a decent day, so we’ll just keep doing that until we can find speed in these things.”
A LOT OF FAMILY AND FRIENDS HERE TODAY. DID YOU MAKE THEM PROUD? “Now that I’m out and have a chance to reflect I would have been really upset if I would have finished 20th in front of my hometown crowd, but 11th isn’t what we come here for but when you see progress you have to at least smile a little bit. The good thing is we know where we need to work on it and where we need to improve, so we’ll just keep going and doing that.”
ELLIOTT SADLER – No. 1 OneMain Financial Ford Mustang – “We still have a lot of work to do. The guys are working hard, but we need this two weeks off to kind of regroup and get some things together before we go to Texas and Bristol and all. We made some gains through the weekend and our teammates, the 60 car ran pretty good, so it was probably the best weekend we’ve had in a while as an organization. The guys are making improvements as a team and it’s starting to show on the race track. We’ve just got to keep digging and keep our heads down and hope we get some better finishes ahead.”
THE TIMING OF THE PIT ROAD ISSUE HURT YOU TODAY. “We’ve had four issues out of five races this year and that’s killed our finishes. Today for that to happen there at the end with 20 laps to go and have to restart at the tail-end, that hurts your chances of making up many spots. I know those guys are trying hard, so we’ll button all those things up and improve on them and be better the next time.”
