Ford Performance NXS Notes and Quotes
Powershares QQQ 300 – Daytona International Speedway
Saturday, February 20, 2016
BUBBA WALLACE – No. 6 Selfeo Ford Mustang – WITH HOW THE WEEKEND STARTED, YOU HAVE TO BE HAPPY WITH HOW IT ENDED? “Yeah, absolutely. Man, I’m getting a little bit emotional just to finish one of these deals. It feels like I won, so it’s cool. I can’t thank Selfeo enough for making this deal happen. We’re continuing to fight for sponsorship and to start the season off with this sponsorship on the car is outstanding. It’s only a one-race deal and I think it’s back to Ford for Atlanta, but I came on the radio and I said, ‘I want to see purple on our car next week.’ It was a great effort by my guys from the practice deal. We just rebounded. We never gave up. We continued to work hard on this car. We didn’t have the speed we wanted right away, but it came to us here in the long end. My spotter, Freddy, did an amazing job. I don’t give him enough credit, but, hell yeah, it’s a good day. This is awesome.”
YOU NEVER SEEMED TO PANIC AFTER THE ACCIDENT. YOU WERE CONFIDENT IT WOULD WORK OUT AND THAT WAS REWARDED TODAY. “It truly was. I don’t know what to say. There’s been so much going on in this off-season. I’m trying to mature. I’m trying to learn more about this racing deal and I’m just a little young punk kid that happens to be lucky enough to drive a race car and trying to make the most of it. When you surround yourself with the right people – Seth, making the great calls all day. It’s fun to come to the race track and have a good day, so this is a win for us for sure. I don’t care if Chase won, we won.”
WHAT WERE YOUR THOUGHTS AT THE END KNOWING A WIN WOULD GET YOU IN THE CHASE? “Right before that last restart I told Freddy, ‘Keep my emotions in check, please.’ My whole goal here was to get a top-3. Ryan was top-3 last year when he won the race. Joey is so good here. He’ll fake you out so quick, so it makes it hard to trust him, but I got to third and I was good. ‘I’m riding. I’m not moving.’ I put that in my head. Although I wanted to move up with him, there was that chance of him dumping me so I didn’t want to do it, but it was a good day for us.”
GUYS WERE COMPLAINING ABOUT NASCAR NOT MAKING CALLS FOR GUYS LOCKING BUMPERS. IS IT NECESSARY FOR THIS SERIES OR SHOULD THEY JUST LET YOU GUYS RACE? “I’ve wrecked plenty of times, so, yes, it’s necessary. I’m glad we did not wreck and we’re back here in one piece. We’re all going for it. We’re all competitive, so you’ve got to do what you’ve got to do. They might need some bigger glasses.”
HOW DO YOU MAINTAIN ALL OF THIS? “I just have to keep it all in check. This is big. We had a lot of good races in 2014 in the Truck, but we always had to bring ourselves back down to go be successful again that next weekend. I’m trying to build off of 2014 and 2015, and pile it all in. This is going to be a good season for us.”
JEB BURTON – No. 43 J. Streicher Ford Mustang – WHAT HAPPENED IN THAT INCIDENT THAT SENT YOU SPINNING THROUGH THE GRASS? “I was behind Chase. I wanted to stay with Chase because I felt like we were working together good throughout the race. I was on his bumper and he checked up and I hit him and got him loose, and he hit the guy in front of him. They started wrecking and I checked up and the 33 just drilled me and put me in the infield. It’s frustrating.”
YOUR FIRST RACE WITH THIS TEAM WASN’T WHAT YOU WERE HOPING FOR, BUT IT’S A LONG SEASON. “It could have been worse. We could have finished thirtysomething, so at least we got some points and we can go on to Atlanta and start getting better and better every week. I know this team is capable of a lot better than 25th, so we just have to keep digging and go to Atlanta.”
THE NEW FORMAT ALSO MEANS A WIN GETS YOU IN THE CHASE AND A TOUGH DAY LIKE TODAY ISN’T THE END OF THE WORLD. “That’s right. We just have to buckle down and gain as many points as we can, so we can lock ourselves into that Chase and then everything will get back to even and we can go and try to win a championship.”
ARIC ALMIROLA – No. 98 Fresh From Florida Ford Mustang – WHAT WERE YOU THINKING AFTER GETTING THE LUCKY DOG AND BEING BACK ON THE LEAD LAP FOR THAT FINAL RESTART? “I was thinking we were gonna go up there and mix it up and, really, the way it fanned out everybody just kind of committed to the bottom two lanes and the top lane just kept getting shuffled out. It was really hard to do anything and make any moves, but, all in all, it was an OK day for us. I made a big mistake early in the race thinking that they were gonna wreck and I decided to ride at the back of the pack and I lost the draft, so then I had to race incredibly aggressive to try and get back on the lead lap, which we were able to do. But I’m disappointed. These guys work really hard and we come down here and just strictly racing for fun, and I would have loved to have gotten them a better finish. The high note for the day was I pushed Logano back to the lead when it looked like he was in big trouble.”
