Ford Performance NASCAR Notes and Quotes
GEICO 500 – Talladega Superspeedway
Sunday, May 1, 2016
KESELOWSKI CLAIMS SECOND WIN OF 2016, TAKES TALLADEGA CHECKERS
· Brad Keselowski’s win today is his second NASCAR Sprint Cup Series victory of the season (Las Vegas)
· The win is Keselowski’s 19th of his career.
· The win is Fusion’s 73rd NSCS triumph since becoming Ford’s flagship vehicle in 2006.
· Ford now has 639 all-time NSCS victories.
· Team Penske has now registered 49 NSCS wins with Ford, including 22 over the past three years.
FORD FINISHING RESULTS
1st Brad Keselowski
9th Ryan Blaney
10th Trevor Bayne
11th Landon Cassill
16th Ricky Stenhouse Jr.
17th David Gilliland
20th Greg Biffle
25th Joey Logano
27th Aric Almirola
30th Brian Scott
37th Chris Buescher
BRAD KESELOWSKI – No. 2 Miller Lite Ford Fusion – VICTORY LANE INTERVIEW – HOW WAS THE RACE FROM YOUR SEAT? “I didn’t have a great frame to see what happened to everyone else. The guys at Team Penske gave me a great Miller Lite Ford and this Fusion was hauling it. One of the best tickets to stay out of the wrecks at Talladega is if you can stay up front, and you’ve got a great shot of not getting wrecked. But this No. 2. Daytona didn’t go the way we wanted it to go. We thought we were gonna be better than that, but we just didn’t show the speed in the 500 and the guys went to work and they brought me a really strong care here for Talladega. I’m so proud of everybody at Team Penske. To be back in Victory Lane with two wins this year, and we feel like we can get a lot more. We’re growing as s team. We made a lot of changes at Team Penske and this feels really good, really good.”
YOU STARTED ON THE OUTSIDE ON THE FINAL RESTART. WHAT DID YOU KNOW WAS GOING TO WORK FOR YOU ON THE OUTSIDE? “I didn’t. The last three or four restarts before that the high lane had went and as the leader a lot of it is out of your control. You need the cars behind you to push and a couple of them they did and a couple they didn’t. That’s just part of racing and there was nobody at fault with that. We actually lost the lead and got a better run. Jamie McMurray behind me gave me a great push and then Kyle Busch gave me a push that was big to clear the 41 and without those two I couldn’t have made it to the front, so thank you to them. It’s Talladega. This is my fourth win here. I never thought I’d win at Talladega four times and I’m super-pumped. This is awesome.”
RYAN BLANEY, No. 21 Motorcraft/Quick Lane Ford Fusion (Finished 9th)
“It was a good day. We felt like earlier in the race I couldn’t pick a lane that was worth a dang. We kept going backwards. Hopefully this turns around for us. There was one run before we got in that wreck where we got up through there into the top-10. I think we got to fifth actually again and then lost spots on the last pit stop. We got in that wreck too. They did a good job fixing it. It ran fine after that. I didn’t want to see that last caution. I thought we were set up good to go to the end there and I wanted to keep digging. Everyone bailed to the top and I didn’t have a lot of help on the bottom. That was unfortunate but overall a decent day for us.
DID IT FEEL CRAZIER THAN NORMAL OUT THERE. “Yeah, a lot of hard racing and people being aggressive. I don’t know what caused that. A little of it might have been the weather threat. I think early in the race for sure. With 40 or 50 to go they said there might be some more weather so that might have played a role in it.”
TREVOR BAYNE, No. 6 AdvoCare Ford Fusion (Finished 10th)
“We were on the bottom on that last restart and when they all went to the top I might as well just be driving out of the rear view mirror trying not to get run over. We pushed the 41 to a really good start. I think he might have cleared the 2 and I had help from the 21 but I think the damage on the 21 deterred some help. They all went to the top and we ended up 10th. I thought we had a great race car. I am proud of what my guys brought to the track this weekend but we finished 10th.
YOU GUYS SEEM TO HAVE TURNED THINGS AROUND. “It is so refreshing to come to the race track and have a change. I feel really good about the pieces they are giving me. It is all about the race cars. You can’t drive any harder, they just are giving me better race cars. I am proud of my guys. We had a pretty event free day other than the pit road penalty but we recovered from that for the most part.
DID IT SEEM MORE INSANE THAN NORMAL? “Very, very insane. You get butterflies in your stomach even thinking about coming here because you don’t know what will happen. You can have a great day and win. Even in the overtime I was sitting third and could have won or ended up on a wrecker with the roof torn off. It is hard to race here without being nervous or anxious.”
JOEY LOGANO, No. 22 Shell Pennzoil Ford Fusion (Finished 25TH)
WHAT HAPPENED TO CAUSE THAT ACCIDENT? “I haven’t seen a replay yet. We crashed. That is part of Talladega. 75-percent of us crashed I think. Congratulations to my teammate. That is great for them. It is a bummer for us though. We were in position decent toward the end. I don’t know. Something happened up top and cars came down across my nose. It is what it is.”
MATT KENSETH HAD SOME THINGS TO SAY TO YOU. WHAT DID HE SAY? “Not much. It’s unfortunate. We had a pretty decent car. I wouldn’t say it was the fastest car out there. It took us all day to get towards the front, but we positioned ourselves well at the end there with around 20 to go up there in the front row and in the lead. I was proud of what our Shell/Pennzoil team did. We worked hard all day, but unfortunately didn’t end up as well as we’d like to two days in a row. A couple big hits, so I can’t wait to get out of this place.”
SOUNDED LIKE HE WAS PRETTY UPSET WITH YOU. “Okay. He can get in line with the rest of them.”
ARIC ALMIROLA, No. 43 Smithfield Ford Fusion (Finished 27th)
WHAT HAPPENED TO CAUSE THAT ACCIDENT? “I was on the outside lane and I thought I was going to be good. I saw the 10 get squirelly and I thought someone got in the back of her. She went left. I thought that would be good for me. She came back right and hooked me in the left rear and we all went wrecking. I am not really sure what caused that.”
LANDON CASSILL, No. 38 FR8Auctions Ford Fusion (Finished 11th)
“I think we have a pretty good superspeedway car. They draft well. I am proud of my guys getting it fixed. There were just a ton of wrecks here today and it is a really tough race. I am proud to bring this Fusion home in 11th today.”
CHRIS BUESCHER, No. 34 Love’s Travel Stops/CSX Play It Safe Ford Fusion (ACCIDENT QUOTES)
“I just saw the replay. It was so quick I never had any time to react. We got clipped in the right rear and as soon as it turned it went up on its lid. I thought we were clear of the wreck. I saw it happening in front of us and checked up and the next thing I knew I was upside down. I am pretty sick and tired of speedway racing at this point. It has been a rough year for that. We felt we were decent this race. We were holding our own and waiting but here we are. It is unfortunate. I really hate it for the guys.”
DID YOU FEEL THE TENSION BUILDING OUT THERE? “No, not really. We knew we were getting ready for pit stops and everyone was shuffling around a little bit. We were in a good spot. We were on the bottom and going to be able to hit pit road easily. It just happened out of nowhere.”
BRAD KESELOWSKI, PAUL WOLFE, BUD DENKER POST RACE PRESS CONFERENCE
PAUL WOLFE, crew chief, No. 2 Miller Lite Ford Fusion — PAUL, THIS IS THE SECOND VICTORY OF THE YEAR, YOUR FIFTH TOP 10. Talk about the run out there today. “Yeah, it seemed like a bit of survival at points. I think the key today for us was, first off, having a pretty fast Miller Lite Ford, and qualifying well, getting a good pit stall. From there, it was about keeping the track position. We kept the track position, were able to stay out of the wrecks. There was a lot of good cars that got caught up in that. As I talked to Brad in the closing laps, there was a lot of cars in the top 10 that we hadn’t seen all day because so many good cars had gotten caught up in the wreck. From there a lot of it came down to the spotter and the driver and their communication of getting the lead and managing the lead. I think they did a great job of doing that today and found ourselves in Victory Lane.”
BUD DENKER, executive vice president, Team Penske – TALK ABOUT WHAT THIS WIN MEANS TO TEAM PENSKE. “Brad had a great car today. We had some great Ford Performance power today. I stand up in the top of the grandstands, watched the race. Anytime we were by a Toyota or side‑by‑side with a Chevy, we had strong power today. Paul, you saw it. In fact, I think our car was better today than we had in Daytona. I think the fact that Brad could stay out in front, manage low, high like he was doing. And Joey, the spotter, he did a terrific job today. He’s one of the MVPs of our team today. Paul executed great pit stops, great calls on pit lane in terms of two tires or gas as well. Timing is everything. We also have the CEO and his wife from MillerCoors, Gavin Hattersly, down from Chicago today. So I think timing is great, isn’t it?”
PAUL WOLFE CONTINUED — PAUL, YOU TALK ABOUT BEING A RACE OF SURVIVAL. HOW THANKFUL ARE YOU THAT YOU WEREN’T INVOLVED IN ANYTHING? TWO CARS THAT GOT UPSIDE DOWN TODAY. ANYTHING THAT CAN BE DONE ABOUT THAT? “Like I said, it did seem like somewhat of a survival race, as we saw a lot of what I would consider some of the top cars or faster cars get caught up in wrecks. It just seems like everyone is very aggressive. I think there’s opportunity for a lot of cars to win races. The key to that for us today was just keeping the track position, like I said. That comes from I think a little bit of it can start in qualifying with pit selection, having a good day on pit road. I think I saw the 11 car get knocked around on pit road a couple times as an example of how pit road can go the other way. We had a good pit stall. The guys did a good job on the pit stops. We were able to hold track position when we had to pit. With tire wear not being big here, the fuel dictates whether we’re going to do two tires, four tires, or as we saw at the end, a lot of cars do fuel only to show how important that track position was. Track position was huge. I don’t think we ever fell out of the top 10 at all today. I think that’s the first time we ever did that here and at Daytona. I think that was key to getting the win.”
INAUDIBLE QUESTION – “Obviously NASCAR works hard at that. I don’t think that’s anything new. That’s been going on for a long time. We continue to work on the roof flaps and things like that.But, gosh, I’m not saying there isn’t ways to do better than what we have. I’m sure there is. NASCAR does a great job of continuing to look into ways to do that. But kind of at the speeds we’re running, sometimes it seems like there’s not a whole lot you can do once you get sideways at that kind of speed.”
WHAT DOES THIS WIN MEAN TO THIS TEAM, GIVEN SOME OF THE STRUGGLES YOU’VE HAD THIS YEAR? “I think it’s big. Obviously we got our win early at Vegas. Felt like we had a great car there. After Vegas, it seemed like we weren’t exactly where we wanted to be on the intermediate style tracks. We had a great car at Martinsville, felt like we could contend for a win there. I think as a whole, if you look at the tracks we’ve run so far, we know we need to be better on the mile‑and‑a‑half style racetracks. So getting the win here obviously doesn’t mean a whole lot as we go to Kansas, other than it’s kind of a shot in the arm and a little momentum. A lot of times in this sport, that’s worth something. So even though it will be totally different style race cars heading into Kansas, with a win this week, it will be huge. Hopefully we can keep that momentum going.
BRAD KESELOWSKI, No. 2 Miller Lite Ford Fusion – TALK ABOUT THAT FINISH THERE. “What can you say? Talladega has been good to me. It’s great to be back on this podium as a race winner. Very, very proud and thrilled today. Never know what you’re going to get here. Talladega has always been that way. It’s always been very good to me. I’m, like I said, thankful for that. Crazy day. Somehow we managed to stay ahead of or out of all the chaos. A couple asked me about it. I didn’t see it thankfully because I was in front of it. But that’s how Talladega goes. Sometimes we run here and everybody kind of lines up against the wall, and sometimes we come here and it’s crazy side‑by‑side, wreck ’em up, flip ’em. I think that’s kind of the allure to coming here because you don’t know what you’re going to get. As a racer or driver, you have to be prepared either way to take advantage of the situation. We were able to do that today. Just an all‑around solid day. Nothing flashy today. Our execution was strong on pit road. We caught just a couple breaks there with getting the right pushes at the right time when we were side‑by‑side for the lead. All that added up to the victory we got today.”
35 OF 40 CARS WERE IN AN ACCIDENT TODAY OF SOME KIND. HOW DID YOU NOT GET INTO AN ACCIDENT? DO YOU LIKE THAT KIND OF RACING? “I like racing. As far as not being in any of those accidents, we ran up front. None of the accidents today were at the front. That’s your highest percentage shot, if you can run up front. It sounds real easy, it’s not, otherwise everybody would do it. We were fortunate to be second, third or better in every one of those accidents. I hated to hear about cars flipping and doing all those things. Nobody wants that. But I think some accidents here and there, we might not like to cheer about it, but it is part of our sport and always has been part of automobile racing.”
WITH THE TOPIC OF CARS GETTING UPSIDE DOWN, WAS THIS A TOPIC YOU DISCUSSED IN YOUR DRIVERS MEETING ON FRIDAY OR IS THIS A SUBJECT THAT COULD BE PRESENTED? HOW WOULD YOU LOOK AT PRESENTING THIS ISSUE MOVING FORWARD, ESPECIALLY WITH DAYTONA TWO MONTHS AWAY? “I haven’t seen a replay of accidents, in fairness, to be able to maybe have at least a preliminary thought. I don’t know what could have caused it. Of course, it’s not what we want to see. When cars get off the ground, bad things happen even more so. We kind of go beyond that acceptable risk factor. It’s something we’ll all have to look into and see what we can do better. Like I said, I haven’t seen them to know what happened, if they were more of a wedge‑style flip where a car picks another car up, or aero flip, I don’t know. My gut says the wedge‑style flips are just part of it, and the aero ones are the ones we can continue to science out and eliminate or reduce the risks of.”
YOU PICKED THE OUTSIDE. DISCUSS THE STRATEGY. “The strategy was pretty simple. The outside lane had won the battle on the last three or four restarts to get to the lead, kind of clear up front. That’s so pivotal here. Unfortunately it didn’t work for us on that last restart. We fell back to second or third. The key part, like I was talking about earlier, we got a push from the 1 car that helped me get a run to get up to the car of Kurt Busch. We were stalemate next to each other, pulling side drafts back and forth, back and forth, until eventually the 18 car came with a huge run, gave me the push we were looking for to clear and get up to the lead and kind of take ownership of that position. All those things kind of came together for us, but we put ourselves in position all day by running up front.”
THROUGHOUT THE RACE YOU WERE LEADING, YOU’RE BLOCKING, TRYING TO GET DRAFTS. FIRST OFF, WHY DID IT SEEM LIKE YOU WERE BEING SO AGGRESSIVE TO STAY IN THE LEAD THROUGHOUT? WERE ANY OF THOSE TIMES YOU MADE A MOVE AND THOUGHT YOU GOT LUCKY? “No, all the moves seemed to come together pretty well. We had good enough speed where we could make those moves. Part of this rules package, when we got rid of the tandem package, the only way we were able to do that was kind of create what the drivers all call the beach ball package, when the cars get close to each other, they squeeze a pocket of air. That makes blocking extremely successful because you can pull down in front of someone, hit that pocket of air, they beach ball push you away, for lack of a better term. That’s part of the racing, it’s what works here. It’s our responsibility as drivers to figure that out. Today was a day where my spotter and I worked together very well and we were able to do just that.”
WHEN YOU TAKE A LOOK AT TODAY OR ANY OTHER PLATE RACE, IS THERE EVER A TIME YOU THINK THAT YOU ARE JUST INSANE FOR DOING THIS? “Yeah, you know, racing has always been that balance of daredevils and chess players. Some weekends we’re chess players, some weekends we’re daredevils. This has always been the more daredevil style of track, which probably offsets some of the tracks that we go to where we’re the chess player. That’s what makes the NASCAR season so much fun and so unique. In other sports, the sports we think about, football, hockey, basketball, baseball, the field stays the same, or the court, whatever you want to call it, every week. Part of what makes racing so difficult and such an interesting dynamic is you compete against all the same people every week, and the thing that really mixes it up is the tracks are different every week. It’s a different field, a different court. This one is one where it’s in‑your‑face challenging to you know if you make a mistake, it’s going to be a really, really big wreck. You could go airborne, a lot of bad things could happen. That is part of the challenge, overcoming that thought in the back of your head. It’s difficult for people to do, but it’s part of what makes it special, is the fact that you know that can happen. Despite it, you’re going to make a move inches from another drive, cut them off, push them, you’re going to drive sideways, hang it all out there knowing something bad can really happen. I think it’s special under the circumstances and under that level of adversity. It’s a challenge I’ve always embraced.”
WHAT DO YOU SEE AT TALLADEGA PERHAPS HELP WHAT WE SAW TODAY? “I haven’t thought of an answer to that and I didn’t see the accidents. I wish I had a better answer for you. It’s a question that deserves a great answer. Unfortunately, I don’t have it. I don’t know really if anyone in our sport has the answer. But I would agree to some extent with Danica that the closer the walls are, the better the angles we hit at. But then it’s nice sometimes to be able to save a car because you had space. Those things can go either way. But, of course, I couldn’t agree any more with Austin. I think that was the point I was trying to make earlier. We don’t want cars to go in the air. There’s never a guarantee where they are going to land. We don’t want them to land in a fan’s lap. It’s a fair question. Sorry I don’t have an answer. I have an answer for a few things, just not that one.”
YOU TALKED ABOUT MAKING CHANGES TO THE TEAM. CAN YOU CHRONICLE THOSE FOR US, GO INTO DETAIL. YOU’VE BEEN UNDER THE RADAR A LITTLE BIT THIS SEASON AS FAR AS BEING A LITTLE LESS DEMONSTRATIVE IN PUBLIC. “A lot of things have kind of shook up Team Penske, of course. The Wood Brothers relationship is one that we’re proud of. Also it required some movement. Over the last 16 months, Team Penske has brought on another IndyCar team as well. That shook some things up along with some of the interest in Australia and so forth. Seen some key personnel changes across the board. I would kind of feel ridiculous if I went through every one of them. Some pit crew changes as well. There’s been a lot of them. I carry this picture on my wall in one of our facilities that I hung up that has everybody on my team from when I won the championship in 2012. That was four years ago. Of that picture, we’re down to maybe 25, 30 percent of those people still on the team. That’s been a big change over the last few years. Of course, we want to go out and keep winning in spite of that. But I think that’s maybe the easiest way to showcase it.
YOU TALKED ABOUT HOW THIS IS TYPICAL TALLADEGA. AT WHAT POINT DOES IT GET TO A POINT WHERE THINGS MAYBE NEED TO CHANGE? CARS GOT AIRBORNE, VIOLENT WRECKS, MULTI‑CAR WRECKS. AT SOME POINT, RESTRICTOR PLATE RACING, ENOUGH IS ENOUGH, WE NEED TO DO SOME EVALUATION? “I’m a capitalist. I love capitalism. There’s still people paying to sit in the stands, sponsors still on the cars, drivers still willing to get in them. Sounds self‑policing and enough interest to keep going, so we’ll keep going.”
WHEN YOU CONSIDER ALL THAT GOES ON IN THIS RACE, HOW DIFFICULT IS IT TO MONITOR WHAT’S GOING ON BUT ALSO TAKE IN EVERYTHING THAT HE SAYS? “I mean, my spotter is definitely an all-star for sure. We did as good a job as we’ve ever done working together today. Really proud of that effort. Timing the runs here is so critical. His communication, his way of kind of verbalizing what he sees, is the key for me to be able to make the right moves on the racetrack. I don’t know. That might be hard to explain. Obviously I’m still holding the steering wheel. The information turns itself into the old ‘knowledge is power’ equation. You can have all the knowledge in the world, if you don’t do anything with it, it doesn’t matter. It’s a good 1‑2 punch. Proud of him for his efforts today. We’ll keep rolling on. It’s a good way to go. He’s been part of three of the four Talladega wins, and I don’t think that’s a coincidence.”
THIS IS YOUR FOURTH VICTORY HERE. IT SEEMS EVERY ONE OF THEM HAS SOME INDELIBLE MOMENT OF YOU BEING ABLE TO DO SUPERHUMAN THINGS. “I like the weird races here (smiling).
THEY’RE WEIRD, BUT YOU ALWAYS SEEM TO COME OUT ON TOP DESPITE THE ODDS. YOU’RE THE TOP‑FINISHING FORD AND THE NEXT FORD IS NINTH. WHEN WE TALK ABOUT RESTRICTOR PLATE RACES, I DON’T KNOW IF YOU GET YOUR DUE, BUT MAYBE YOUR NAME SHOULD BE AT THE TOP OF THE LIST. DOES THAT MATTER TO YOU? “Yeah, look, I’d rather be the guy that nobody talks about who has won here 10 times than the guy that everybody talks about who won here twice. I never got into racing just to have somebody say my name real loud or the billboards or lights or anything like that. I got into it because I love it, I love the challenge. I love the reward of success, the reward internally. Look, I’m not out here trying to toot my own horn or showcase my own press clippings. I just want to win. Winning four times means a lot here. It doesn’t mean as much as winning another championship would be. That’s my main goal at the end of the day. I found in this sport the more races you win, the easier it is to win championships. Talladega has been a track for us that’s been a great catalyst for success. I don’t know why that is. It’s a track where if you’re capable of winning here, I think you show a certain level of attitude and swagger that carries your way through the rest of the year. It’s just there in general. I like that. But, hey, you know, if nobody wants to talk about it, I’m fine with that, too. I’d rather keep on winning and being up front.”
