Ford Performance NSCS Notes and Quotes
Duck Commander 500 Qualifying – Texas Motor Speedway
Friday, April 8, 2016
Ford Qualifying Results:
2nd – Joey Logano
5th – Ricky Stenhouse Jr.
7th – Ryan Blaney
8th – Brad Keselowski
12th – Trevor Bayne
14th – Greg Biffle
24th – Aric Almirola
27th – Brian Scott
33rd – Landon Cassill
34th – Chris Buescher
38th – Jeffrey Earnhardt
RICKY STENHOUSE JR. – No. 17 Zest Ford Fusion – “I felt we weren’t as fast on the speed chart yesterday, but I felt really good about it. I got really loose in our first run during practice in our qualifying run, so we didn’t ever put a new set of tires on and were down in 19th, but we did that on our second run on tires, so I felt pretty good about it. The first run, I think we had to make some adjustments to be better that second run – just a little bit too loose – and then the second run we were a little bit too tight, but, fortunately, we were able to keep making it to that next round. Nick made some good changes there to make it a little bit better for that third round. We’re close to second, not close to Carl there, but I’m definitely happy with our Zest Fusion. Hopefully, we’ll get it dialed in here. It’s gonna be a long race and I think we’re gonna wear the tires out a lot. It’s gonna be real similar to Atlanta. It’s getting more and more like Atlanta, so we’re gonna look at our notes from that and see if we can get a good long run car.” BEING A SPRINT CAR GUY ON OLD TIRES. THAT’S GOOD, RIGHT? “I love it. It’s funny, I used to like in the XFINITY/Nationwide Series I loved the old race tracks. I loved Texas, loved Atlanta, and then I came over to the Cup side and we just couldn’t get our cars to handle like we needed to to have fun at those place like I did before. But this year, so far, we’ve made huge improvements on our mile-and-a-half, especially the older race tracks, the ones where the tires wear out. Last year, the year before, we never thought about making it to the third round on a mile-and-a-half, especially one that wears the tires out, so this is big. This is good wind in our sails and hopefully we can keep going.” TREVOR WAS IN THE FINAL ROUND TOO. “Yeah, and Greg was fast. He had to go out in that first round, unfortunately, twice and I think that kind of hurt him making it to the third round, but all the cars seem pretty good. We got setups that are close to each other. We’ve had setups that are not close to each other and we’re still pretty decent, so it seems like every week one of our cars is where we want to be running. We just have to make sure we can try to do that every week.” DOES IT FEEL GOOD TO BE ABLE TO RAISE YOUR OWN EXPECTATIONS ABOUT WHAT YOU’RE GOING TO BE DOING ON A WEEK TO WEEK BASIS? “Yeah. Last year I wasn’t really focused on the top 15. I was focused on top 25 at the beginning of the year, and that was a tough feat. Luckily, we built on that and top 15s were something we were capable of the last 10 races last year, so coming into this year I was hoping to at least be top 15, but on the mile-and-a-halves I think we’re a top 10 car most days. If we can keep doing everything right and no mistakes, whether that be with setups or me out there driving or on pit stops, I think we can finish top 10s, and then we snuck out a top 5 at California running in the top 10. That’s where those good runs, consistent runs throughout the whole race come into play is those restarts at the end. If you can be in the top 5 you could squeak out a win somehow. That’s what we’re aiming for.”
TREVOR BAYNE – No. 6 AdvoCare Ford Fusion – “I feel really confident about what we’re doing at Roush Fenway. I feel like we’re making progress at the mile-and-a-halves especially. We had all three cars in the top 14. Without us having to play a little defense with a run in the second round, having to go twice, I think we could have been in the top 10 pretty solidly. I’m really happy with what we’re doing here and really like what I’m seeing.” YOU HAD TO GO OUT IN ROUND 2 JUST BECAUSE YOU DIDN’T KNOW IF YOU WOULD GET BUMPED. “I made a full lap and I didn’t know until I got off turn four if we were gonna be Ok or not, but it was too late to save any tires at that point. Last year, I would have been ecstatic to make it to the final round. Even to make it to the second round half the time last year was a big deal for us, so we’ve made huge gains. I’m just happy to be a part of it.” YOU MADE YOUR CUP DEBUT HERE WITH THE WOOD BROTHERS A FEW YEARS AGO AND HAVE ALWAYS HAD GOOD SUCCESS AT TMS. “Yeah, big things have happened for us in Texas. It’s always been a good place for me. I made my first Cup start and finished 17th and got my first XFINITY win here. We were leading two years ago and blew a right-front tire. We’ve always been pretty good here. In the Cup car I’ve struggled a little bit more than the XFINITY car – I feel like we’ve had better success – but I’ve just always battled being tight in the center with the momentum you carry in the Cup car. It just won’t cut the center like I need it to, but our cars have a lot of speed here today and if we can just get them to drive right and last, I think we’ve got a really good shot at a top 10 run this weekend, if not a top 15, so I’m happy with what we’re seeing.”
RYAN BLANEY – No. 21 Motorcraft/Quick Lane Ford Fusion – “It’s not bad I guess. We got a little bit better each time. It’s just at the end we just didn’t have a ton of grip. It was really close from second on back and we didn’t quite have enough there. Everyone was slower except the 19. Maybe we didn’t make the right adjustments before the final round. We’ll see how our car is in race practice here in a little bit. Having a good starting spot and a good pit stall doesn’t hurt at all.”
CHRIS BUESCHER – No. 34 Love’s Travel Stops Ford Fusion – “We were a little bit tight under landing while trying to get through the center of the corner. We needed a little bit better turn there, but it’s something that was the exact opposite in practice. We were just really free there, so we’re on the other side of it and now we have to find a happy medium. We haven’t made any race runs yet because it’s all been mock qualifying runs to this point, so we’ll switch over and see what we can do.”
JOEY LOGANO – No. 22 Shell/Pennzoil Ford Fusion – PRESS CONFERENCE – “It wasn’t enough, but, overall, I’m proud of the effort. I felt like going to sleep last night that we had a car that could quite possibly be on the pole today. We came close. Every round we were definitely pretty fast and we were really good in one and two the first two rounds, and three and four we lost quite a bit of speed to the 19. The last run was the complete opposite. I went into one and two and it didn’t turn like it was, and then we fixed the car in three and four to where it did what it needed to do down there. I just kind of flip-flopped the last round. I was second either way, apparently, but if we could have had both we would have had something for Carl. Second is not awful. It’s not the best, but it’s close to it at least. We’ll have a good pit stall and look forward to the race. It’s gonna be a lot of fun out there. There’s a lot of slipping and sliding and it seems like it’s falling off more than Atlanta, it seemed like in practice yesterday so in qualifying you can imagine how that was with tire fall off was definitely quite a bit different with each round.”
HOW PIVOTAL IS THIS RACE BEING THE ONLY INTERMEDIATE TRACK OVER THE NEXT TWO MONTHS? “I didn’t know that, but I think we attack it the same way as we always do. Whether we’re at Martinsville or Talladega it’s all about trying to maximize the potential out of our car and it takes something different everywhere we go, so to answer your question of being one of the few mile-and-a-halves on the schedule here as of late. We’re constantly trying new things and constantly trying to see how we stack up, so we’re still early in the season with the new rules change and setups are changing a lot quickly as people kind of find what new packages work for these cars and as aero development continues with this new package and people figure out what it takes to maximize the performance out of their cars. There’s still a lot of low-hanging fruit that we can grab with this new rules package, so it’s about staying on your game right now and being able to develop quicker than anybody.”
HOW IS THE TRANSITION TO THE FIRST NIGHT RACE OF THE YEAR? “It’s nothing big. The nice part is we’re gonna have a later practice than what we typically do, so the track will be closer to what we race. Typically when we have night races we still practice in the heat of the day, so it’s a really big guessing game on what the track is gonna be like when the race starts, so we’ll have a closer idea this time, which is nice. As far as a night race, it affects your rhythm a little bit as a driver and preparing for a race. Obviously, the mornings are a lot more relaxed than what it is if you were racing at one or two o’clock, so obviously that changes it a little bit, but it’s like you have a night schedule and a daytime schedule for races as a driver as your prep stuff.”
WHY IS IT A SURPRISE THAT BRAD IS ON THE DRIVER’S COUNCIL? “What do you think? (laughing) I think he’s been a great addition to the driver’s council for sure. He’s taken that role in being the Brad way, the way you would expect Brad to. He attacks the position there in that role and has really become one of the leaders of the council fairly quickly, so kudos to him for that. I think a lot of people seeing how he is, it wasn’t a surprise to me to have him on there. I think that was good. I think a lot of people who may not know him as well as I do and the way he handles situations in meeting scenarios, I think he does a really good job in meetings and stuff like that in really bringing up good points that are outside the box. I think he does a good job at that, so I think he’s a great addition to the council for that reason, and I think now that he’s in there and a lot of people have seen that, I think there will be a spot for him into the future I would assume.”
SOME DRIVERS COMPARE THE CONDITIONS TO ATLANTA. DO YOU EXPECT THAT TOMORROW? “I think it’s gonna be even more than Atlanta to be honest with you. The fall off is incredible. It was like 10-15 laps on your tires was like ice skating with dull blades. You’re slipping and sliding everywhere out there. That’s with 15-20 laps on your tires. Can you imagine when we get 40 laps in what it’s going to be like? I mean, it’s gonna be a lot of fun. I think it’s gonna be really interesting to see the way this race plays out. The cars are freer into the corner this year, so that may affect the amount of cars that run up by the wall, but the fact that you’re out of the gas more may drive more cars to run higher too, so I’m kind of mixed on thinking about which way the race is gonna go and how the track is gonna be, but I think when you look at turn four that’s a trouble area. It seems like that’s where a lot of cars kind of get into that slide and it’s like a never-ending slide and the wall really jumps out quick on you, so I would assume in the race I’d look for guys to pancake it or get the right-rear into the fence pretty easily.”
DO YOU THINK RUNNING THE XFINITY RACE HAS AN ADVANTAGE FOR THE CUP GUYS TONIGHT? “I think running the XFINITY race, I personally always think it’s an advantage at race tracks like this. Sometimes it’s a disadvantage because you have less time with your team, but here I feel like it’s an advantage to run that race. Obviously, it’s a night race. It’s been a little bit since we’ve run a night race here, so I think that will be interesting to kind of see the difference and I’ll be watching it and listening and picking Brad’s brain afterwards to see what he went through. I think it is an advantage to run that race with this tire that’s falling off the way it is right now.”
DO YOU THINK THE FALLOFF WILL TAKE TWO TIRES OUT OF THE EQUATION? “You would say at Martinsville it would have, but I saw some two-tire calls at the end of that race, and I’ve seen it here before. That’s how we won the race here a couple of years ago. Jeff put on two and we put on four and restarted third and was able to get him because we had newer tires and was able to pass him for that reason. That was a few years ago with a different tire. I would assume this way would drive you more that way, but the end of the race scenario and kind of depending on how the race has played out up to that point, if there are only a few laps left I wouldn’t be surprised if people take a swing at it. If not, I see people coming down early for tires like they do at Fontana or Atlanta.”
HAVE YOU GONE BACK AND FIGURED OUT WHAT WENT WRONG AT MARTINSVILLE? “We talked about it a lot, for sure. There was obviously a difference within the tire across the board throughout all the teams with the left side tire really not wearing. The package that we’ve worked on and developed over the last few years obviously didn’t work. Anytime you go from the pole to down a lap in one run makes you scratch your head a lot. I was proud of my team, though. None of us, and that’s an opportunity for a lot of people to steer the wrong way. You know how Martinsville is, one thing goes wrong and it can snowball down to a 40th-place finish, so everyone kept their head in the game and we fought back, got our lucky dog and got to the point we were an eighth to tenth-place car. That’s not acceptable on our team for sure, but if you look at it from being what I felt like was a last-place car on the first run, it obviously was because we went all the way there, to being a 10th-place car is a nice gain. It shows that our team stuck together and kept our head in it and I’m proud of that because a lot of teams can’t do that, so I’m proud of what we did there. We learned a lesson for sure. It’s something we saw in practice. We didn’t see the tire wearing like that and it transferred over into the race and it just caught us off our game.”
