Ford Performance NSCS Notes & Quotes:
SpongeBob SquarePants 400
NSCS FRIDAY MEDIA AVAILABILITY
Friday, May 8, 2015
Joey Logano, driver of the No. 22 Shell Pennzoil Ford Fusion, presented a check to Folds of Honor from his Joey Logano Foundation to help military families in need of education assistance. After the presentation, Logano met with media members Friday morning at a soggy Kansas Speedway and fielded one question pertaining to the race weekend.
JOEY LOGANO FOUNDATION PRESENTATION
JOEY LOGANO, No. 22 Shell Pennzoil Ford Fusion – “When we were in Atlanta a few weeks ago it was the Folds of Honor 500 in Atlanta and before the race started I try to attend the MRO chapel service before the race after the drivers meeting. Major Dan was there and told an amazing story about how the Folds of Honor Foundation started and what he was doing with it. It hit a spot for me. I was sitting there with my wife, Brittany, and told her it was an amazing story and how it lined up perfect with what we do at the Joey Logano Foundation. The Joey Logano Foundation is based on second chances. Our mission is giving someone a second chance. For people that work really hard and need a little help getting their life back on track again. Whether it is natural disasters or military stuff, it is pretty wide the people we can help with the foundation. This year we are trying to pick it up a notch and try to give away a lot more money. So in the spur of the moment I walked up to Major Dan at driver intros and told him that if we won the race I was going to donate my winnings to him. Unfortunately we didn’t win. I think we finished fourth. We were close but even when we were done I still wanted to do something with Folds of Honor just because of everything that happened that day and the stories I heard of what they do. So the Joey Logano Foundation decided to write a check out for $50,000 to Folds of Honor to help give a scholarship to some great families for what they do.”
RACE COMPETITION QUESTIONS
CAN YOU TALK ABOUT THE TIRES ISSUES WE HAD HERE IN THE FALL AND HOW THAT AFFECTS YOU FOR THIS RACE? “I think anytime we come to Kansas we are a little nervous about tires just because of what we’ve seen in the past and a lot of what happened here in the fall race where a lot of the fast cars were blowing right fronts out. It always makes you a little nervous but at the same time we put our faith in Goodyear to make the right decisions and we feel fine about it. Our 22 car didn’t have a problem last time but I know we were on the verge of it because a lot of cars were. I think it is something we will keep in mind today in practice and when we are setting up our cambers and air pressures to make sure we are keeping all that in mind.”
As part of Saturday night’s SpongeBob SquarePants 400, several drivers are sporting Sponge Bob character paint schemes in the race, including Ford drivers Michael McDowell and Greg Biffle. The duo were part of a media session to talk about the race and what it is like to represent the iconic Nickelodeon cartoon brand.
MICHAEL MCDOWELL, No. 98 WRL/Larry the Lobster Ford Fusion – TALK ABOUT YOUR EXPERIENCE SO FAR. DID YOU GROW UP A SPONGEBOB FAN? “I don’t know if you know but I am a large individual in this sport so when you put a character on my fire suit it is a fairly big character so I have a gigantic lobster on my back. It is probably the size of David Ragan. I didn’t grow up watching SpongeBob but I have kids and my six-year old son thinks I am the coolest dad ever because I got to drive the Ninja Turtle car and now I get to drive the Larry Lobster car. I am definitely winning cool points with my kids. This is really cool to engage the youth and bring in a new fan to NASCAR and that is an important aspect for all of us for all our partners moving forward in the sport. It is exciting.”
GREG BIFFLE, No. 16 Cheez-It/Patrick Star Ford Fusion – YOU HAD A PRETTY FAST CAR IN FINAL PRACTICE AND A GREAT LOOKING CAR OUT THERE. ARE YOU HAVING FUN WITH THIS? “Yeah, I am having fun. I am mopre excited that it is pretty fast. Every time I have had characters or super heroes on my car I have been able to find victory lane. Hopefully it brings me some luck. I can echo what these guys are saying. My daughter is three and a half and she loves watching SpongeBob and she asked before I left if I could bring him back with me. I told her he would be at the race track and she wasn’t able to come this weekend. I don’t know if he is interested in coming back with me or not but hopefully I can take a trophy home anyway. I am glad to represent the brand and it is a fun promotion we are doing and hopefully we can reach the young kids.”
MICHAEL MCDOWELL CONTINUED – CAN YOU GIVE US AN UPDATE ON WHAT YOU HAVE FOUND OUT ABOUT THE SHOP? “I don’t really have an update. The team might. Obviously we had a fire this morning and they are still figuring out what that all looks like. For me, when I got here this morning and heard about it, it is very easy to break your focus and start thinking about next week and all these things but we have to get into this race today so I tried to rally the guys around and told them we would worry about it when we get home Sunday and we can’t change it. We have to do our job here today. I don’t really know exactly where we are at with everything. There is still a lot of things happening there obviously. We will get back and assess the situation and do everything we can to be ready to go to Charlotte.”
GREG BIFFLE CONTINUED – WHAT WILL YOU DO WITH THE TROPHY IF YOU WIN? “That is easy, it will go in my daughter’s bedroom.”
WHAT HAS BEEN THE CONVERSATION AMONG THE DRIVERS ABOUT HAVING THE SPONGEBOB RACE? “It is kind of funny how the kids go in cycles. There are a lot of young kids and a lot of new dads in the garage right now so I think a lot of us were kind of excited to have an opportunity to represent SpongeBob and promote the brand and everything. There has been some discussion. We were talking about it on the plane ride up here. I rode with Ricky and Danica and we were talking a little about it. It has been a topic and we are really excited to be associated with it and I am glad to be able to race this Kansas race, like David (Ragan) said, it is one of our premier races under the lights on a Saturday night.”
FORD QUALIFYING RESULTS
1st Joey Logano
3rd Brad Keselowski
7th Greg Biffle
14th Aric Almirola
20th Ricky Stenhouse Jr.
26th Sam Hornish Jr.
30th Trevor Bayne
31st Michael McDowell
34th Cole Whitt
38th David Gilliland
39th Brett Moffitt
40th Josh Wise
SAM HORNISH JR., No. 9 Medallion Bank Ford Fusion – “Our Ford Fusion was a little better in qualifying than what we had in race practices. I feel like we made some positive changes. The big thing for us is to continue the chemistry. We made the car better for the second run of qualifying there. We were in for a second but were too close to the edge to feel like we are comfortable. The big thing for us is to feel like we go into tomorrow’s race and make good changes throughout the race and just continue to build upon it. This week isn’t a throwaway by any means but we also know we are up against it this week with all the things going on. It is a great learning session and hopefully we have a real good run on Saturday night’s race and we get it in.”
GREG BIFFLE, No. 16 Cheez-It Patrick Star Ford Fusion – “We just got a little better speed in our car and this racetrack has been pretty good for us. We barely made the first round and barely made the second and then I just drove it – over drove it. I just said I was going to go for it. I didn’t care what happened. I was 11th so I kind of had nothing to lose and that is a hell of an improvement and a great accomplishment. The fact is though that we have to find that speed for the race now and we are celebrating a seventh and three years ago we would be mad right now. I am excited we are seventh and not 27th but at the same time we will keep our head down and keep improving on it. The real thing is going to be where we end up tomorrow night at the end of this thing. If we end up in single digits or low double digits I think we will be happy with that because that is an improvement and shows we are headed in the right direction. We will keep working on it.”
RICKY STENHOUSE JR., No. 17 Zest Ford Fusion – “We made the second round and have been more consistent lately which is good. We are still trying to figure out what we need to do to continue to get better in this second round. We have been talking about that here a little bit. We are paying attention to what other guys are doing down pit road and just trying to get better. I think we are on to some things. We didn’t really get it done this round obviously but the Zest Fusion is something to work with I think. We don’t have a winning car right now but I think we have a car that can run up decent hopefully through the field. We are starting 20th, starting in the first half of the field, so that is good.”
ARIC ALMIROLA, No. 43 Farmland Ford Fusion – “We only made qualifying runs in practice on stickers and never made a second run on the same set of tires. We played a little bit of a guessing game for that second run there and we maybe over adjusted the car just a little bit. All in all it was a good day for us. The car has been really fast all day long and it is a lot better starting spot than we have had here in the past. The past nine weeks I think we have averaged like a 27th place starting spot. We will take a 14th and get ready for the race.”
JOEY LOGANO POLE WINNER PRESS CONFERENCE
JOEY LOGANO, No. 22 AAA Insurance Ford Fusion – WHAT IS YOUR OUTLOOK FOR THE WEEKEND? “Pretty good when you are starting at the front because track position here is key. We have all seen what clean air can do to our race car. I feel like I have a fast AAA Fusion and in race trim it has good speed out there. It seemed like in race trim we just have to figure a way to make it last longer. It was fast for a few laps and would then fall off. Hopefully we make the right adjustments for tomorrow night and make sure we have speed in it. It is cool to get another pole. Last year it too us pretty much the whole year to get one pole and we won a lot of first and second sessions and would fall on our face in the third session. It is good to figure out the third session and have speed in our car when we get there. You don’t get anything for winning the first and second round. That is what I figured out last year.”
WHAT IS YOUR OUTLOOK GOING FORWARD THE REST OF THE SEASON WITH THE MOMENTUM YOU GUYS SEEM TO HAVE GOING? “Just keep on racing hard and being aggressive like we do. That is what this team does best, attack. We have been able to since last year race that way and we will keep moving forward. We are fortunate to have that Daytona win and be able to race hard like that. We will keep pushing hard. This is an important race for when we come back here in the fall for the Chase so we want to make sure we have good speed in it. Obviously we do right now. We will see what happens in the race. This is one of the important races to make sure you are fast when we come back. The cars will change a little going into the fall but since the last race there was the rules changes that completely changed the race car. It is neat to see we still have speed with a completely difference race car.”
DOES IT MAKE IT EASIER BECAUSE YOU HAVE THAT WIN? “You have to keep building momentum. I realize it is a lot more fun running up front than it is in the back. We want to keep racing hard and show we deserve to be in it. It makes you feel better and more comfortable when you have a win to run back on. When you have a crash it doesn’t hurt as bad. It still sucks but it isn’t as bad as it would be if you had to still rely on points if you don’t get a win before the Chase. Right now it is about building momentum, keeping our team together and working hard and keep building faster race cars like we have been.”
WHEN YOU HAVE SUCCESS HERE LIKE YOU DID IN THE FALL, DO THE NOTES OR ANYTHING CARRY OVER TO THIS RACE? “A little bit. I think you have to be able to look at your notes and understand what happened in the weekend and what to do and not to do but you also have to be open minded and willing to adapt to what is new. I talked a minute ago about how the car rules have changed and that changes the setup so we have to be open minded to that but as far as the way the race went and strategy and lines on the racetrack, most of the time those trends continue. As a driver you have to be open minded though because just because the line I ran in the fall may not work this time. I think I qualified a different lane this time than I did last time. I am trying to figure out what is fastest for my race car and you never have two that are the same. As a driver and as a team you have to be open minded because the cars are way different.”
DO YOU FEEL YOUR QUALIFYING PROGRAM IS AS STRONG THIS SEASON AS IT WAS LAST? “It is better. I think the 22 team in general has gotten better at qualifying. I feel like our first and second rounds last year were always our strong rounds and then the third round we were never able to make it happen. We only had one pole last year. It is hard to say we were great with only one pole. Todd and I talked about it a lot and learned some things going through the sessions on what to do to make sure we were fast in the third session. You have to learn the strategy that goes into these qualifying sessions. It isn’t like it used to be with one lap. We were good if it was one lap last year. We would have had a bunch of poles. This year it is fun to be able to stack them up right now in these last rounds. It makes it fun. It is nice to start up front and nice to have a nice pit stall and it really helps throughout the race quite a bit.”
HOW MANY TIMES DO YOU ADJUST ON THE TRACK BAR AND WHAT IS IT LIKE WITH THAT GOING FROM DAY TO NIGHT? ARE YOU ABLE TO GET TO THE SETUP FASTER? “I think it depends on the driver. I use it quite a bit. I think most drivers use it quite a bit. The thing is that it is a fine line. You can go too far with it. You can only move it so much before it starts reacting to other things on the race car and then the whole car is all bound up or doing something just completely wrong. It is not the ideal setup. Eventually you start crutching the car. There is a fine line of what you can do to adjust the balance and if you go further you are taking overall grip from your car to try finding balance. Sometimes you have to do that but I think when you come to a racetrack like this, the balance changes from the beginning to 10-15 laps in the run. You can adjust your car a little that way and that is nice. The balance you need from the bottom to the top is severe here and very different. I think there is some adjustment that might be able to help you and I think as the track widens out in the race we will be on it. There is only so much you can do as a driver still, even with that track bar, before you crutch up the rest of the car. The crew chief still has a role there and that is why communication is more important this year than last year because you have more to talk about but at the same time if your car is complete junk you can at least crutch yourself until you get to the next pit stop.”
