Ford Performance NSCS Notes and Quotes
Food City 500 – Bristol Motor Speedway
Sunday, April 19, 2015
Ford Finishing Results:
4th – Ricky Stenhouse Jr.
13th – Aric Almirola
18th – David Gilliland
19th – Sam Hornish Jr.
22nd – Michael McDowell
25th – Chris Buescher
27th – Cole Whitt
28th – Trevor Bayne
30th – Greg Biffle
35th – Brad Keselowski
40th – Joey Logano
BRAD KESELOWSKI – No. 2 Miller Lite Ford Fusion – WHAT DID YOU FEEL. DID THE RAIN DROPS HAVE ANYTHING TO DO WITH IT? “It’s been raining since we started the race. It was just a really light sprinkle and the track was just barely dry. I don’t know. The rain was coming in and out and the car just took off on me. I would like to blame the rain, but I honestly don’t know. Usually when a car gets that far sideways and it’s kind of out of nowhere there’s a reason behind it. I just really hate that I tore up my teammate in the process. That’s really a bummer. I felt like I had a pretty normal line and it just flew crazy sideways on me. It’s a bummer for everybody at Team Penske to tear up both cars that way. I hate racing in the rain, but I understand the position that NASCAR is in. They want to get the race going and this is one of those days where it’s gonna just keep raining off and on and we’re trying to get as many laps in at a time as we can to give the fans the best race possible, but we’re racing in the rain to do it and that’s what happens.” CAN YOUR TEAM FIX THE DAMAGE? “It’s not good, but it could be worse. I’ve got a great team. I’m sure they’ll do the best they can and we’ll make something of it.”
JOEY LOGANO – No. 22 Autotrader.com Ford Fusion – WHAT HAPPENED? “It happened quick, obviously. You think you get early in this race and kind of want to settle in and just starting to get the top worked in a little bit there and Brad just got loose underneath that lapped car. You start checking up and it looked like he was gonna have it saved and he checked up more than I expected and the next thing you know I’m in the back of him and we’re both headed towards the fence. The last thing you want to see when you’ve got a rain delay here. We’re just gonna try to fix it and ride this thing out and get what we can out of the day. It’s unfortunate for Autotrader. This is the one race they do a year and unfortunately, we’re gonna be crashed, but we’ll do what we can.” WHAT DID YOU SEE? “It’s so early in the race and I hate to see that happen. Brad got loose in front of me. You see it coming and you’re checking up as quick as you can and the next thing you know we’re both going to the inside wall. It’s just such a bummer for both Penske cars. It’s unfortunate. I think both cars were fast and both were plugging along pretty good there, it’s just unfortunate for Autotrader. This is the one race we do with them a year and it looked like we were gonna have a good Ford today, but now it’s gonna rain and we’re gonna have to ride around. It’s gonna be a long day now.” ANY SOLACE NOW THAT YOU HAVE A WIN AND ARE LOCKED IN THE CHASE? “That doesn’t help anything. I want to win a race.” HOW WAS THE TRACK? “It was fine. It wasn’t wet yet.” IS IT WORSE THAT IT’S YOUR TEAMMATE? “That’s the last thing you want to see is both team cars get crashed like that. I don’t think his damage is that bad, actually. I got the worst end of the deal here, and it’s kind of unfortunate.” WAS IT TOO RUSHED TO START THE RACE? “No, it was fine. The track was good. I thought we were having some good racing. The Ford drove up to the front there and there was some racing. The top was starting to come in slowly but surely and he just got loose. His car was loose. You could tell from the beginning his car was free and just got a little too much, I guess.”
RICKY STENHOUSE JR. – No. 17 Zest Ford Fusion – THE LAST RESTART WAS WORTH THE WAIT. YOU WENT FROM SIXTH TO FOURTH. “Yeah. I wasn’t sure. We were sitting on old tires and a lot of guys were on new, but we worked really hard and fought really hard and made a lot of adjustments. The Zest Ford was decent all night. We still need a little bit to go up and contend and lead laps, but we always feel good coming to Bristol. It’s one of my favorite tracks and it was a good night for us. Hopefully, we can keep it going.” YOU WERE UP AND DOWN ALL NIGHT. “We started towards the back and Nick had some good strategy to leap frog us early and get inside the top 20. We just kind of maintained passing cars. I thought we were done for a while there at the end with old tires, but, all in all, it was a great night for our Zest Ford. I wanted to get a win for Jack’s birthday and it’s tough watching somebody do a burnout when you were that close to seeing him come across the line, but a great night for us. Thanks to all the fans for sticking it out with us.” YOU HAD A CLEAN CAR MOST OF THE NIGHT UNTIL THE END. “Yeah, we had a crash in front of us. I don’t know how they didn’t get it stopped. My ankle was killing me and I still got it stopped, so I don’t know what they were paying attention to, but that was good spotting. My spotter was on it really early on every wreck in front of us and I didn’t have to put myself in a bad position. It’s always good to have a great spotter here at Bristol and I really wanted to come home clean, but we’ll take a top four and go on to Richmond.” WHAT DOES IT MEAN FOR THIS TEAM TO HAVE AN EFFORT LIKE THIS? “It’s good. It’s tough because we always feel like we can run well here. It’s not 100 percent what every track is like and that’s the problem. We go to Richmond next week and the track is old and it gets slick and wears out and we need the car to turn a little bit better. We use the banking here to get the car to turn, so hopefully we can keep maintaining and getting our cars a little bit better each week.”
ARIC ALMIROLA – No. 43 Smithfield Ford Fusion – “We had a really good car. I was proud of Trent and the guys because they gave me a lot better car than what I had the rest of the weekend. We just had some stuff go wrong at the end and that kind of hurt our race a little bit. All in all it was a good day. I’ll take it. It’s a solid points day and we’ll move on.” YOU PITTED LATE AND CAME OUT 13TH AND COULD NEVER GET BACK IN THE MIX. “We just kind of struggled with that and there at the end of the race we had some mechanical things go wrong that was out of our control, so we had to settle for what we could get.”
SAM HORNISH JR. – No. 9 Nature Blast Ford Fusion – “I feel good about it. There were about five or six times tonight when I didn’t know if we were gonna be coming home with a running race car. A lot of the action just kind of happened around me and everybody just stuck with it. The big thing is we didn’t give up and brought the Nature Blast Fusion home with a top 20. That’s not as good as we want to be, but we can build upon that.”
CHRIS BUESCHER – No. 34 CSX Play It Safe Ford Fusion – “I thought Martinsville was rough, but this place here we got beat up. Overall, it was a good day for our CSX Play It Safe Ford guys. They did a heck of a job keeping up with me and being patient and letting me learn how to get around this place and learn how to pass. It was a narrow groove. It was really hard to pass tonight even more so than the XFINITY race, so that was frustrating, but I think it’s kind of been a characteristic of Bristol lately.” HOW MUCH DIFFERENT WERE THE TWO CARS HERE? “There’s a pretty big different. Just the way they were driving was a little bit different than what I remember from yesterday. We just had more side bite whereas these seemed a bit more rigid. The little bit more power is obviously nice. It was little things here and there, but I was definitely able to apply some things I learned yesterday to today.”
RICKY STENHOUSE JR. PRESS CONFERENCE – “It was great for us. We always look forward to coming to Bristol. It’s been a great track for us so far in my Sprint Cup career. It’s my best track, obviously, so after last weekend we had a little bit of momentum and compared to our mile-and-a-half runs lately and we were looking forward to getting to Bristol. We still lack a little bit to go up and lead laps, but here at Bristol I don’t think we’re far off, but we still have to work on our front ends some more and get our Fords turning a little bit better, but tonight was a lot of fun. I always enjoy running up next to the wall and those late-race restarts we were able to gain some spots and just a good night of racing.”
YOU SEEM TO HAVE THIS TRACK DOWN PRETTY WELL. WHICH ONE IS NEXT? “Richmond was a struggle for us last year, so hopefully we have made some gains at that, but we still have to get our front ends a little bit better. That’s what we lacked tonight was a little front turn to go up there and race and race for the win, I think. Richmond will be a test for us as bad as we were there last year, but Talladega and Kansas are good race tracks for us. I’m looking forward to getting to Kansas. We’ve led laps there and led laps late and cautions caught us off, so those are the next two that I’m really looking forward to getting to.”
DID YOU HAVE ANY IDEA THAT YOU COULD DO THIS TONIGHT WITH THE WAY ROUSH FENWAY HAS STRUGGLED? “Yeah, I felt really good about coming to Bristol and we always do. My first year here in the Sprint Cup Series we were fast and I would get into the fence and cause us to have a worse finish than where we ran. Last year, we finished second here and felt like we had a really good race car. It still didn’t show throughout other short tracks when we went, so I knew when we came back here it didn’t matter how we ran anywhere else that we could have a decent car. I wish we could get it to translate to other race tracks, but I think the high bank is what really helps us to get our car to turn here and being able to run the top. If it was a race track around the bottom here, I think we would struggle a little bit. When your car doesn’t turn and you can run a wider arc around the whole corner it generally just helps us a little bit. We struggled in practice. When the line moved up to the top we’d gain like 10 or 15 spots on the leaderboard in practice just because it moved to the top and I could make some better speed up there. I wish we could get it figured out a little bit better everywhere else, but it’s not for a lack of effort. Everybody is working really hard and we just have to keep our heads down and dig.”
