Ford Performance NSCS Notes and Quotes
Duck Commander 500 – Texas Motor Speedway
Saturday, April 9, 2016
Ford Finishing Results:
3rd – Joey Logano
15th – Trevor Bayne
16th – Ricky Stenhouse Jr.
18th – Brad Keselowski
24th – Aric Almirola
25th – Landon Cassill
27th – Brian Scott
28th – Chris Buescher
29th – Ryan Blaney
35th – Jeffrey Earnhardt
39th – Greg Biffle
GREG BIFFLE – No. 16 Safety Kleen Ford Fusion – “I got hit by the 5. I’m not sure what happened. He just got in the back of me and turned me around and got me up in the fence. It’s unfortunate. We had a decent run going and a pretty good night. We were fighting for the lucky dog to get on the lead lap. We were faster than quite a few of those guys on the lead lap at the back of the field, so it’s unfortunate we didn’t get a chance to race with them.”
RICKY STENHOUSE JR. – No. 17 Zest Ford Fusion – “Our Zest Ford was really solid all night. We ran in the top 10 the whole race and didn’t get the finish that this team deserved. They brought a really good car and we were really fast and felt good about our performance, so that’s what we’ve got to look at. Our pit road was really good today. That was another solid thing. Anytime you start moving up and running further up front those pit crews up front are a lot better than the ones we’re used to competing with, so it was good the guys on pit road did a great job, especially since we had a fill-in there on the rear, but all in all I’m really happy with the weekend with our qualifying effort and the way we ran. It’s just a bummer that we got a little damage there at the end. I didn’t really have a chance after that.” WHAT DID YOU SEE WITH THE 3 CAR AND THE DIRECTION HE WAS TRYING TO GO? “It looked like at first I thought he was gonna come down the track and then it looked like he was gonna stay up on the top. I kind of committed to turning underneath thinking he was gonna stay at the top, then all of a sudden he came down and I got as much brake as I could and avoided him as much as I could. We just barely clipped him ever so slightly and it got us too much damage.”
TREVOR BAYNE – No. 6 AdvoCare Ford Fusion – “We were hoping that debris caution didn’t happen. We probably could have had a shot at the win there, I think, if it stayed green. We were done pitting. We were good to the end on gas and those guys were gonna have to come again. We were on fresh tires, so we went for it and it just didn’t work out unfortunately. I was really happy with my car today and at times we were the fastest car on the track and that’s all you can ask for, so I’m real happy with that.” STAYING OUT WAS YOUR BEST WAY TO WIN THE RACE, CORRECT? “That’s exactly right. At that time we had kind of fallen off a little bit. We were a sixth, seventh, eighth-place car. On the long run we could maybe be better than that, but they had a little bit of a head start on us, so going for it like that you’ve got a sure shot at maybe being able to win the race and we at least led some laps. It just didn’t work out, but if it didn’t work out we probably would have still finished in the top 10, but we got in that wreck on the backstretch and finished 15th. It’s a gamble we were willing to take.”
BRAD KESELOWSKI – No. 2 Miller Lite Ford Fusion – “It wasn’t as good of a night as we wanted, but we tried some out of the box things trying to be better here for when the Chase comes, which having a win gives us that luxury, but it just didn’t pay off.” HOW WERE TRACK CONDITIONS AFTER THE RAIN? “I didn’t really see anything big after the rain. It’s just night time and the track is fast.”
CHRIS BUESCHER – No. 34 Love’s Travel Stops Ford Fusion – “We made some progress. It was a long night with the rain delays and everything early on, but once we got rolling we were able to keep a pretty good pace. We started working on it and got it a lot closer as we went, so I’m really proud of the guys for that. It was a big improvement from where we started the race and we’ve got some good notes for the next time we come back.”
LANDON CASSILL – No. 38 DMS Transport Ford Fusion – “The car was really finicky today and just made it hard to decide what kind of feedback to give Donnie. I had to really think hard today about what the car was doing. Fortunately, our best adjustment came at the end of the race when it matter most and we were able to pick up a few spots in the last 50 laps.”
JOEY LOGANO – No. 22 Shell/Pennzoil Ford Fusion – “I’m proud of what my race team did. This Shell/Pennzoil team executed perfectly today. We may not have had the fastest car, we obviously didn’t have the fastest car, but we executed into a top-three finish, and I’m very proud of my team for that. We had great pit stops and great calls, so everything worked out well. Everyone did their job. That’s kind of been our weak point this year is that we haven’t had the speed, but we haven’t been executing perfectly. Now it seemed like we executed right and we’ve got to work on our speed now.”
