Ford Performance NXS Notes and Quotes
Winn Dixie 300 – Talladega Superspeedway
Saturday, May 2, 2015
Ford Finishing Order:
1st – Joey Logano
6th – Chris Buescher
7th – Elliott Sadler
10th – Aric Almirola
20th – Darrell Wallace Jr.
22nd – Dakoda Armstrong
32nd – Ryan Reed
JOEY LOGANO – No. 22 Discount Tire Ford Mustang – VICTORY LANE INTERVIEW – HOW DID YOU DO THAT? “It’s such a fast Discount Tire Ford. Tab Boyd, my spotter, he’s on it. We spent a lot of time before Daytona to figure out these superspeedways and we watched some more footage before we came down here just trying to understand the differences between Talladega and Daytona and it’s just so cool. It’s like a combination of the old school draft and the cars hooking up and bumping, so it’s kind of a combo of what’s going on out there, but it’s so fun and so intense. I’m still trying to catch my breath, but it’s so intense out there and you’re looking at everything in the mirror the whole time, so it was cool to get this thing in victory lane. Our pit coach, Brian Haaland, his dad passed away this week so we know he was riding along with us.”
CHRIS BUESCHER – No. 60 Bit-O-Honey Ford Mustang – “We were close. The 22, it’s a product of this racing, he moved up and he blocked us when we had that final run that we needed there at the end. We just couldn’t do anything with it. This Bit-O-Honey Ford Mustang was fast today. We knew it was good in the draft. We had a good chance out there, it just didn’t quite work out.” ONCE YOU GOT EVEN IN THE OUTSIDE LANE DID YOU THINK YOU WERE GOING TO GET A PUSH TO PASS HIM? “Yeah, the 33 did a heck of a job pushing us there, and honestly it would have been enough, but we just got a block thrown on us there at the end. It is what it is. It’s Talladega. Restrictor plate racing.” HOW HARD IS IT TO HOLD YOUR POSITION WITH ONE TO GO? “It’s wild. Guys are constantly moving you around and we were free. We had guys really shoving us hard and just made it really loose and hard to hold onto there at the end. It was tough to just hold onto that position and keep it until the end. A lot of things could have gone a little bit better there at the end and a lot of things could have gone a lot worse, so not a bad day for us.”
DARRELL WALLACE JR. – No. 6 Sponge Bob Square Pants Ford Mustang – “I think I’m batting 1.000 on not causing any wrecks, but always being caught up in somebody else’s. It was a frustrating day from really lap two. It’s a good thing we’ve got a break so we can regroup and head into Iowa. Talladega hasn’t always been good to me, so we salvaged a top 20 finish and we’ll just have to build off of it.”
RYAN REED – No. 16 Lilly/American Diabetes Association Ford Mustang – “It was frustrating. I knew getting to pit road there was gonna be a fiasco and they were like, ‘You know what, you’ve got plenty of fuel just bail out of there.’ But people just tried to force the issue and make something happen when they didn’t need to and I got caught up in someone else’s mistake. We had a fast Ford Mustang. Me and Chris were trying to work the top and I felt like we got it going and we were really just experimenting, and I knew we were gonna be fine if we got to the end and obviously didn’t get that opportunity. We tore up a fast race car, which is bad, but we’ll go to Iowa and get them there.”
ARIC ALMIROLA – No. 98 Shelby American Ford Mustang – “I really thought I was in the catbird’s seat coming to two to go with where I was sitting, and then the 60 surprised me. The 60 jumped out a little sooner than I thought he was going to. To jump out and try to make a move with two to go, I thought, was pretty bold. I think we might have had something with him if we would have stayed hooked up for maybe another lap, but he made the move and that kind of hosed us. The 7 was behind me and he just couldn’t keep up. I don’t know if he had too much damage or what, but he couldn’t keep up and push. That was kind of the turning point for our race with two to go, but other than that it was a great day for us. I’m really proud of everybody at Biagi DenBeste Racing. I think that’s two restrictor plate races in a row we had a shot to win and we were right up there in the front in the closing laps. All in all it was a good day for us. I wish we would have gone to victory lane, but it was a lot of fun nonetheless.”
DAKODA ARMSTRONG – No. 43 WinField Ford Mustang – “The first part of the race we were good. We were up there running third and went to pit and all of that wrecking happened. We were already on pit road, so we just decided to pit and they penalized us. That got us stuck back in the rear and then we got caught up in that last wreck. We fixed all the damage and then someone blew up in front of me on the restart and they penalized me for passing, so we had to do a green flag pit stop at the end and that ruined it for us. The car seemed good, but we just didn’t survive it.”
JOEY LOGANO PRESS CONFERENCE – THIS IS YOUR THIRD XFINITY WIN OF THE SEASON. “There’s never a Talladega win that comes easy or not intense at the end of the race. You never know you’ve got it until the end, just like every other superspeedway race that we have. We were doing good. We got up to the lead towards the middle part of the race and as soon as we started making our green flag stop they were wrecking all over the place. I think everyone is OK on pit road. I didn’t really hear if anyone got hurt. I hope everyone is alright because that was a scary hit on the inside pit wall. There are a lot of people standing on that thing a lot of times and really close and I had a front row view of that and it scared me watching it. Hopefully, everyone is alright there, but when that happened we lost all of our track position back to 12th or so, and then the next restart we were in the wrong lane and went backwards to 15th and then we got in the right lane and started moving forward and being able to get ourselves some track position back throughout those restarts. Towards the end it was having the right people behind you, making the right moves, making the right blocks and trying to get yourself that clean air in the front, and then really it’s just all in the mirror. I kept looking in the mirror trying to figure it out. It’s cool to get our third win of the season right now. This is a pretty special season so far. I’ve had some really fast race cars and everyone is doing an awesome job. Tab Boyd, my spotter, once again on the superspeedways did an awesome job today giving me the information I needed to make decisions out there.”
GREG ERWIN, Crew Chief – No. 22 Discount Tire Ford Mustang – “It was pretty exciting. I love racing probably as much or more than anybody standing in the stands out there. I’m excited. I’m excited to watch this 22 car go to victory lane. The whole program has been so close to a speedway win for the last couple of wins. If you think back to last season and 2013 and even Daytona we’ve been right there. We lost a couple of them by hundredths of a second, so I’m happy for all the guys that bolt these cars together and our aero program and the plate program, the engine shop, a terrific job. This is kind of a catapult thing to finally break through and get that cloud out from over your head. You watched those last races and I just sit back and kind of cheer because Tab and Joey did what they did at the Daytona 500 and wound up winning the race. You’ve got to give it to him.”
JOEY LOGANO CONTINUED – HOW FULL WERE YOUR EARS OVER THE FINAL LAPS FROM GREG AND TAB? “Actually, we were talking right before we came back down for the green and it’s important for me to know how many laps are left, and I wanted a countdown. Greg said he would give them to me, but I was like, ‘No, no, feed them to Tab and let him call them off.’ There’s so much information that the spotter is feeding you here and you’ve got to be able to take it all in. If Greg was to get on the radio for one second that might have been that piece of information I needed to stay out front or get in the front because two people can’t talk at the same time. That’s what I’m trying to say. I didn’t want them talking over each other, so I just needed one person to be able to listen to everything he’s saying and try to process it and take it all in and try to picture in your mind what he’s saying and at the same time looking in the mirror and seeing what you can see, and then making those decisions from there.”
WAS THERE ANY POINT ON THE FINAL LAP WHEN THEY JUST SHUT UP? “No. I’d be mad if they did. Tell me something. Tab has as much emotion as me, if not more, and I think that’s really cool. He wants to win these things just as bad as I do and I think he screams on the radio louder than I do when we’re about to get the win. Winning superspeedway races are a lot of fun because you just don’t know until you get there. When you get there it’s so large because you just don’t know until you’re there. Off of four you still don’t know you’ve won the race. Typically off of four you know if you’ve won the race or not, but here you have no idea until you get there.”
WHAT’S GOING ON WITH PENSKE WINNING ALL OF THESE RESTRICTOR PLATE RACES LATELY? “Just like every other race track it takes the whole package to make it work. I think you’ve got to have a fast race car to go out there and have a chance to win a race, and you have to have a car that can drive good also. Sometimes a fast race car that’s out of control isn’t quite the answer either. You’ve got to have something that you can, as a driver, make aggressive moves and do those things to get yourself towards the front. Today, we had a Discount Tire Ford that could do that, and at the same time it’s about the spotter and the driver being able to jell and be able to basically I need Tab to be able to know what I’m thinking, so he can give me the information to make the move that he knows I’m thinking. The more the two of us can communicate about it and talk about it and we watch it just so he understands where my head is at during certain parts of the race and as we’re building runs he kind of has an idea of where I’m going to go with it, what I’m going to do, so he can help me make that happen.”
HOW CRAZY WAS IT GETTING THROUGH TRAFFIC AND STAYING OUT OF TROUBLE? “It’s always crazy, for sure. When you’re sitting 15th with 20 to go it’s like, ‘This is kind of where the crashed happen around 15th or 10th and this is not where I want to be,’ so you just want to get through it as quick as you can and position yourself. You’re too late to really wait for a crash, you’ve got to go and get up there. There are definitely plenty of close calls. There are a lot of close calls the first lap of the race, the first two laps I saw it in front of me. They about crashed there and they ended up crashing on the backstretch.”
GREG ERWIN CONTINUED – “We got up to fourth and then they wrecked right back where we were running at the restart, so he had to go.”
JOEY LOGANO CONTINUED – “There’s no safe place. I’ve been crashed running third here before and I’ve been crashed running 30th. There’s no safe place. For that reason it’s just intense the whole time. You can’t ever relax for a second.”
