Ford Performance NSCS Notes and Quotes
Quaker State 400 Advance – Kentucky Speedway
Friday, July 10, 2015
NASCAR Sprint Cup Series drivers got almost one hour of practice on Friday morning in preparation for tomorrow night’s scheduled Quaker State 400. Ford drivers Joey Logano, Brad Keselowski and Trevor Bayne talked about what they learned from NASCAR’s new rules package and what kind of race to expect if there is no more practice time.
JOEY LOGANO – No. 22 Shell/Pennzoil Ford Fusion – (Logano posted the fourth-fastest practice time) – HOW DID THAT HOUR WORK FOR YOU? “They don’t drive good, that’s for sure. They slide all over the place. What happens in traffic is still probably an unknown, but there was a lot of slipping and sliding around and trying to figure out which way the car is going when you go into the corner is kind of hard. We’ll see.”
IF YOU DON’T GET ANY ADDITIONAL PRACTICE TIME, WHAT KIND OF RACE DO YOU EXPECT? “I feel better than what I did with no practice. I don’t think we’re that far off speed-wise compared to the field. It doesn’t drive very good, but I don’t think anybody’s car drives good. I think there are just so many unknowns that you’ve just got to expect the unexpected at this point.”
BRAD KESELOWSKI – No. 2 Miller Lite Ford Fusion – (Keselowski posted the second-fastest practice time) – WHAT DID YOU LEARN DURING THAT PRACTICE? “I think we have a really good car. I’m not sure we learned a ton, but I think we have a really good car is probably the biggest takeway.”
HOW DID IT HANDLE WITH THE NEW PACKAGE? “They’re a handful, but it’s a race car it should be a handful.”
IF THERE IS NO MORE PRACTICE WHAT DO YOU EXPECT TOMORROW IN THE RACE? “I don’t know. Right now, it’s not enough of a sampling to give you a great idea.”
TREVOR BAYNE – No. 6 AdvoCare Ford Fusion – (Bayne was 29th in practice) – WHAT DID YOU LEARN WITH THIS NEW PACKAGE? “I learned there’s a lot less grip with this package. I feel like if there was such a thing as a cushion here I would be running it, but I’ve always enjoyed having to work on forward drive and managing your tires. It didn’t seem like the tires were falling off a lot. I don’t know how that will go after 20-30 laps, but I’m sure they will. The cars are sliding around a ton and Kentucky is already a tough place to drive anyways with all the bumps and the way you slide into turn three. Now with less downforce you have even more of that, so in the race you’ll definitely have to do a good job managing your equipment. I would have loved to have more time to work on our car. I feel like we could make more progress. Getting a package for the first time there are always big gains to be made and I feel like we still have those to find. On long run speed, I thought we were OK. Short run speed is where we need to work, and that’s what Bob and I have been talking about.”
AN HOUR IS BETTER THAN NOTHING FOR PRACTICE? “It’s better than nothing, but, then again, it just kind of teases you a little bit because you don’t know where to go with the information you have. We know what the car did and we can sit back and look at that. We’ve just got to bounce everything off of each other and really communicate between the teams and try to use every bit of data we can from that hour.”
WHAT KIND OF RACE WILL WE SEE? “It really depends. Ricky and I were just talking about how you look at the lap tracker and one guy runs a 30.60 and the next lap he runs a 31.30 because he hits a bump wrong or slides up the race track, so that could create opportunities to make moves if people are hitting the bumps wrong. On the other side, if you know that your car might slide up the race track, it might be hard to have the confidence to drive it inside of somebody getting into turn three if you don’t know when your car is gonna stop. You’ve got to be smart. I think the groove will move up more than we’ve seen in the past just to help forward drive. I don’t know how everybody’s car drove, but it was really hard to get forward drive off the bottom, so I don’t know how they can make that work.”
