Ford Performance NXS Notes & Quotes:
Buckle Up 200
XFINITY SERIES POST RACE
Saturday, May 30, 2015
CHRIS BUESCHER POST RACE PRESS CONFERENCE
CHRIS BUESCHER, No. 60 Roush Performance Products Ford Mustang – YOU WERE SAVING FUEL, DID YOU THINK YOU WOULD MAKE IT TO THE END? “Honestly I never know what to believe when it comes to the end of these races. Scott always tells me we are a couple short but you just never know how much you need to save. We saved quite a bit there at the end and that whole run really we were just trying to be easy on the throttle. Toward the end of the run we started to have to clutch it and let it coast at least half of the straightaway which is really tough to do. I felt like we were going so slow and it is hard to convince yourself to do it. We had just enough left to do the burnout and we got ourselves another win.”
SCOTT GRAVES, crew chief, No. 60 Ford Mustang – TALK ABOUT YOUR PERSPECTIVE THOSE FINAL LAPS AND WHAT IT WAS LIKE ON THAT PIT BOX. “It is nerve-wracking for sure. You are close and you don’t know exactly how much is being saved but I knew by lap times and what he was doing we would be okay once everybody else came in to pit and we had a lap to play with at that point. The last five laps he was doing everything he could and once we got down to that point I was feeling better about it but it is nerve-wracking for sure.”
JACK ROUSH, owner, No. 60 Ford Mustang – THREE WINS FOR YOUR ORGANIZATION THROUGH 12 RACES. TALK ABOUT YOUR STRONG PERFORMANCE. “This has been a great year for us. We started off with good cars at Daytona and our speedway program has been in great shape for a number of years but we have been able to be successful there and with Chris’ two recent wins it has made a banner year for us. The cars have gotten better and I think the speed we had in qualifying was an indication of where the cars have progressed to. There are a lot of ways to lose these races. There are 38 teams out there that didn’t think fuel economy was going to do it so they made decisions that didn’t work out. I had the horror of seeing two of my cars and and image in my mind of two of our cars running out of gas on the beginning of the last lap. As it turned out, Bubba had a flat tire which was unfortunate. My 28 years of being in the business here racing these NASCAR cars that is the first time we have had an incident between two of our cars that resulted in one of them not being able to finish due to a flat tire. We will have to sort that out. I know that nobody meant to have contact. Bubba didn’t and certainly Chris didn’t. We will have to work on the feelings and get everybody feeling good about being teammates going forward.”
YOU QUALIFY FOR DASH 4 CASH IN INDIANAPOLIS “Yeah, that is a pretty neat program that XFINITY carried over and it is exciting to be a part of it. We missed it in Charlotte or this would have been a really good way to win one and be in that position. To be qualified for the Indy race is pretty cool. I am looking forward to getting back to it. It is a neat program and a lot of money up for grabs not only for drivers but some lucky fans as well. It is pretty neat. It is just an added bonus on a win. It has been a good beginning of the season. We just have to keep it rolling.”
CHRIS BUESCHER CONTINUED – IS PART OF YOUR MOTIVATION THIS YEAR TO PROVE YOU CAN GET TO THE SPRINT CUP SERIES? “I would say so. It is a result of a lot of hard work through the offseason and some new people on board at Roush Fenway Racing and race cars we are bringing to the track that are really competitive. At the end of last year we felt we were making really good headway and were starting to get a couple top-five and be competitive at the end of races. It is unfortunate that Homestead ended it. We had momentum on our side. Everyone worked hard in the offseason and we started where we left off and even better. It has been a smooth start to the beginning of the year and a lot of races in the top-five and competitive and knew that as long as you run that top-five area you will get some wins. We were just trying to do what we can each and every week to win races. If we do that, everything else comes with it.”
JACK ROUSH CONTINUED – WHAT IS THE BIGGEST REASON IN THE TURNAROUND OF YOUR TEAM THIS SEASON? “We have got great drivers and of course the Ford Mustang XFINITY car is a mature package that really had very little change last year. The guys worked hard and we had some influx of a couple staff members that have brought some information that has been useful from other teams and we also lost some staff members that moved off. NASCAR has a way of moving the technology around based on the people that change jobs from program to program. We benefited on an influx of information and we had continuity and the manufacturing side has gotten us nice consistent cars and the aerodynamic part has come on good and Ford technology has been great with the simulator effort they have behind us. It takes a combination of things. You can be off just a little bit and not be able to win a race and we had circumstances work out for us three times this year where we might not have won but have been able to. I am grateful for that. It has a way of averaging out though. I expect to give some of it back in the future.”
YOU DON’T WANT TO HAVE CONTACT WITH TEAMMATES AT THE END OF THE RACE. WHAT HAPPENS GOING FORWARD WITH CHRIS AND BUBBA? “I didn’t see what happened. I had a glare on the monitor in front of me and I couldn’t see the screen behind me so I didn’t see what happened. I will have to have an interview with everyone involved and try to reach a determination of things that we might do in the future that could possibly preclude that from happening again. A team owner has no worse horror than to have two competitive programs in position to win a race and have them have contact with one another and one of them not be able to finish in the position he was otherwise entitled.”
CHRIS BUESCHER CONTINUED – “Yeah, there at the end of the race we were both on similar strategies and trying to save as much fuel as possible and we were keeping on a little quicker pace and when everybody is lifting halfway down the straightaway it is hard to start a pass, let along finish it. I felt like we were in position to make the pass a couple of times and with traffic and some lap cars and everything where it was we got the door close on us pretty hard on a couple of occasions. That looked like our opportunity and we had a good run up off the corner and figured we could run hard for a lap or two and not worry about fuel but I just underneath it there and we were really late into a tire run and fuel run and it just got a little free on the bottom and didn’t have much air on the right side. Other than that, we will talk about it. We are heading to the same place right now so we will get it all straightened out.”
ON THE RADIO DARRELL SAID IT WAS THE ‘THIRD STRAW AND SOMETHING HAS TO CHANGE’ HAVE YOU GUYS HAD INCIDENTS IN THE PAST AND DO YOU FEEL LIKE A COMPETITION WITH YOU TWO TO BE THE NEXT ROUSH CUP DRIVER IS ESCALATING THINGS? “That is our first incident so I am not sure where the rest of it goes but going through the rest of it, we are obviously always looking for an anchor partner, someone to come on board and fund our full season and we feel we have gotten to a good point where if someone comes on board to support our program we can put on a good show for them. We are always auditioning I guess. We are trying to make a name for ourselves and run as well as possible. That is not going to change the fact that we are all racers. We are all out here trying to do what we can and we are just out here driving hard and we will see where that leads.”
