Ford Performance NSCS Notes and Quotes
CampingWorld.com 500 – Talladega Superspeedway
Sunday, October 25, 2015
LOGANO SWEEPS CONTENDER ROUND WITH TALLADEGA WIN
• Joey Logano’s win today is his sixth NASCAR Sprint Cup Series victory of the season and 14th of his career.
• In addition, it’s Logano’s fifth career Chase triumph, and third straight.
• This marks the first time a driver has swept all three races in a Chase round and Logano becomes the first Ford driver to win three consecutive NASCAR Sprint Cup Series races since Rusty Wallace did it in June of 1994 at Dover, Pocono, and Michigan.
• The win is Fusion’s 70th NSCS triumph since becoming Ford’s flagship vehicle in 2006.
• Ford now has 639 all-time NSCS victories.
• Team Penske has now registered 47 NSCS wins with Ford, including 20 over the past three years.
• This marks Ford’s 31st all-time NASCAR CHASE victory.
JOEY LOGANO, No. 22 Shell Pennzoil Ford Fusion – VICTORY LANE INTERVIEW – THAT LAST RESTART YOU CHOSE THE OUTSIDE LANE INSTEAD OF HAVING YOUR TEAMMATE BEHIND YOU. WHY? “The 24 was just so fast. We had seen it in qualifying how fast he was and I saw through the race how he was a great pusher. When you realize someone is that much faster you have to go to that lane. It also seemed the top was a little better on restarts. I felt with those two things that was the lane I had to choose. It worked out the way it needed to be. It would have been interesting if the race played out what would have happened. I am so proud of this team. Three in a row in unbelievable. I don’t even know what to say. I am speechless.” THAT LAST RESTART, DID YOU KNOW YOU WERE OUT FRONT WHEN THE CAUTION CAME OUT? “Yeah, I did. I had a good start and then the 24 was pushing me and the plan worked perfectly but the inside lane started pulling back up. I saw the lights come on when I was still in the lead and I thought we had it. It is all about how the timing loops are and the camera to make sure that is what happened. It is such a crazy race. That were such long green flag runs, you never see that. To pull it into victory lane here at Talladega is so cool.” WHAT WAS THE DEAL ON THE SECOND TO LAST RESTART? “Everyone just stacked up behind us. They were trying to time the restart so much and if the leader goes late in the box it stacks the field up a lot. That is a product of everyone laying back and timing the start and the start not going how they planned it.” IF I HAD TOLD YOU BEFORE THIS ROUND STARTED THAT YOU WOULD SWEEP IT WITH THREE WINS IN A ROW, WHAT WOULD YOU HAVE SAID? “I would have said you were crazy. It is amazing. Dreams come true I guess. We have to keep this dream rolling. We have a long way to go. We are back to zero going into Martinsville so we need to make something happen in the next three races.”
BRAD KESELOWSKI – No. 2 Miller Lite Ford Fusion – “We did exactly what we needed to do. We stayed up front when it counted and took care of our race car. The guys gave me a good car. We worked together well with our teammates, Joey Logano and Ryan Blaney, and at the end we just finished it up strong. That’s exactly what we needed to do and I’m really proud of everybody.” YOU ADVANCE TO THE NEXT ROUND AFTER GETTING THROUGH THIS TOUGH BRACKET. “This is, to me, the toughest bracket to get through. I feel like we tested Phoenix and were awesome. I’m looking for a lot of good things there. We finished second at Martinsville in the spring and probably had a shot to win it. We just need to capitalize.” THOUGHTS ON THAT LAST RESTART KNOWING WHERE YOU WERE IN POINTS AND WHERE YOU WERE ON TRACK. “I’m here to win. I never got an opportunity, honestly, with the way the restarts played out, but I’m glad if I didn’t win my teammate did.”
GREG BIFFLE – No. 16 Cheez-It Ford Fusion – “It was really unfortunate. We had a great strategy and had a great car. We were really close to winning it. It’s unfortunate that one of those cars blew up and brought the caution out. There’s nothing we can do about that.”
MATT PUCCIA, Crew Chief – No. 16 Cheez-It Ford Fusion – “We were gonna make it if it went green for sure. We were gonna make it to the end, but we just didn’t need that. I guess the 1 car blew up down the back and oiled the track down. It’s just a shame. We could have possibly made it, but I just didn’t want to be that guy who was gonna wreck the whole field if we didn’t get it going on the restart. It’s unfortunate.” TALK ABOUT YOUR STRATEGY. “Using our worst mileage we were two to three short and using our best mileage when we were back in the back and just saving gas we were gonna make it right to the end. I just told Greg, ‘All you have to do is save, save. That’s our play.’ I knew the whole field had to stop, so we started saving as soon as they threw the green flag on that last restart on lap 136 or whatever it was. We just saved and saved and were gonna make it, but the caution bit us.”
TREVOR BAYNE – No. 6 AdvoCare Ford Fusion – “That’s a crappy way for Harvick to have to get in the Chase is to wreck somebody – what I believe to be on purpose – maybe it wasn’t. The restart before that he had engine problems and got out of the way. I think he realized if the caution came out he was gonna be fine, so I go by and get hooked in the left-rear. Harvick is a really good driver. I think he knows the limits of his car and where it’s at, so that’s why I think it was intentional. To me, we had a really good AdvoCare Ford Fusion. I ran really good all day and was able to work my way toward the front. I felt like we had a top-10 run, no doubt, and then you finish like that it ticks you off a little bit.”
RYAN BLANEY – No. 21 Motorcraft/Quick Lane Ford Fusion – “It was a good day for us. We had a good car and we were just starting to make our way toward the front then we lost oil pressure and unfortunately it gave up on us. These guys worked really hard to give me a fast race car and the Motorcraft/Quick Lane Ford Fusion was going to be really good today. It was a lot of fun out there for sure. Plate races are always a lot of fun. Roush Yates does a great job for us, so we’ll go to Texas and hopefully we’ll have a better run there.”
MICHAEL MCDOWELL – No. 95 K-LOVE Ford Fusion – “We had a really fast car. The K-LOVE Ford was really quick. We ran up in the top-10 most of the day and then I sped on pit road and got us behind. We got back on the lead lap and then just got caught up in the mess, really it was just because we were back there where we shouldn’t have been.”
SAM HORNISH JR. – No. 9 Jacob Ford Fusion – “I felt like our Jacob Companies Ford was pretty good. We could never get all the way to the front, but the couple times that it started to even out a little bit I felt like we could get fifth, sixth, seventh, eighth – somewhere in there – and then when it got down to race for it at the end that we were able to move forward, but I just tried to protect the car all day. The last pit stop we had under green I couldn’t get to the bottom quick enough in the middle of three and four, so I had to drive it a little bit harder off of four than what I wanted to, and just like right at the last minute it locked up the right-front. I’m not sure if it would have made it or not, but I thought it was better to be safe than sorry and we took tires when a lot of the other guys didn’t. We lost eight spots probably because of it, and then on the restarts there it’s hard to make a decision on what to do because you can’t pass a guy and then if he’s got an issue you can kind of clog up the whole lane. I was trying to get turned down, but there were cars beside me and then the hole just kind of closed up right in front of me and we got wadded up. It’s unfortunate. The car was good. It didn’t have a scratch on it, and it probably cost us a few spots. If I would have just pulled out of line, we could have probably been 10th, but you don’t know if you’re gonna get black-flagged for pulling out too early. We knew the 4 wasn’t gonna get going, but it’s still a hard thing to do.”
