Ford Performance NSCS Notes and Quotes
IRWIN Tools Night Race Qualifying – Bristol Motor Speedway
Friday, August 21, 2015
Ford Qualifying Results:
5th – Joey Logano
6th – Brad Keselowski
8th – Ricky Stenhouse Jr.
15th – Ryan Blaney
17th – Greg Biffle
22nd – Trevor Bayne
26th – Sam Hornish Jr.
27th – Brett Moffitt
30th – Michael McDowell
31st – Aric Almirola
33rd – Cole Whitt
37th – David Gilliland
ARIC ALMIROLA – No. 43 Smithfield Ford Fusion – “We had a test here a few weeks ago and we were very happy with our car at the test. I put us behind. The car bottomed out and I wrecked it off of turn two early in practice and we thrashed for two hours just to get the car back on the race track. Cosmetically, we were able to get the car back on the track, but there’s still a lot of work to be done to get the aero back where it needs to be. You wouldn’t think it would matter at a place like this at Bristol, but it does. We’re going so fast around here and the aero matters. There is some stuff the guys have to work on tonight to get the aero back in the car and we’ll be OK. I hate it that I put us all behind, but we typically run really well here and the setup that we’ve got is really close to what we’ve typically run here and we had a really good test, so we’ve got notes to go off of.”
RYAN BLANEY – No. 21 SKF Ford Fusion – “You’re never satisfied with 15th, but the SKF Ford Fusion isn’t bad. It’s not the starting spot we want, obviously, but it’s a long race and in 500 laps a lot can happen. We’ll try to stay clean and be good for my first night race. I’m pretty excited. I’ve got the XFINITY race tonight and I can’t thank them enough. I’m part of the Dash 4 Cash deal, so I’m really excited about that. Hopefully, the fans enjoy tonight’s race and tomorrow’s.”
JOEY LOGANO – No. 22 Shell/Pennzoil Ford Fusion – “Everyone did their part today. It seems the 22 team’s strength is when there’s adversity. It seems like we can keep our heads cool and when you’re calm you can make more rational decisions. The guys did a good job getting me through the first round just pumping the tire up with a lot of air and just hoped it would hold enough to make a lap a little faster than what we ran the first time. Then they allowed us to change the tire and put a scuff on, so we were able to put our mock qualifiers back on and then we got to the next round and qualified fifth.” THAT SITUATION WAS BIG BECAUSE OTHERWISE YOU’RE STARTING IN THE MIDDLE OF THE PACK. “It was good. I’m proud of everyone. Like I said, everyone kept their heads cool. Starting positions are so important and Bristol is one of those places where things happen quick. The further back you are there is a lot of danger. Obviously, we can probably get a pretty good pit stall starting fifth.”
RICKY STENHOUSE JR. – No. 17 Fastenal Ford Fusion – “So far, so good. We’re always confident coming here. One of the things we really wanted to work on was qualifying because we’ve been starting so bad that we’ve got a lot of cars to pass and we always need a lucky caution on that first run to keep us on the lead lap with the leaders coming. It was a heckuva job by the guys making good qualifying adjustments for us because we’ve been qualifying 23rd to 25th everytime and racing really well, so hopefully we can do both now. We qualified good and got a good starting spot. We’ll go into the race with a lot better starting position.” HOW WERE YOU IN RACE PREP? “In race prep I thought we were good. I thought we got a bad set of tires to start, so we were tightening our car up a lot and ended up getting it too tight because when we changed tires I think our one set of tires was just off a little bit. I felt pretty good with our Fastenal Ford. I think it will race good. I thought we had a 15th or 10th-place car, somewhere around there. If we keep working on it, maybe we can make it even better.”
RICKY STENHOUSE JR. PRESS CONFERENCE – “The race has always been pretty decent for us. Qualifying we’ve really struggled here, so we spent second practice – we were gonna spend the whole time doing qualifying runs – but we had two really good runs and put it back to race trim. I wasn’t really sure how long the last round was. I had to ask (laughing). I don’t think we’ve made the last round all year, so that was really good for our team – a really good starting spot. We’ve started around 23rd-25th here over the last three or four races and I really had to catch a caution at the right time that first run to be able to stay on the lead lap, make an adjustment on our car, and then be able to race forward from there. We generally get better as the race goes on, so hopefully starting closer to the front will be a little bit better for us.”
