Ford Performance NASCAR Notes and Quotes
Firekeepers Casino 400 – Michigan International Speedway
Friday, June 10, 2016
Aric Almirola, driver of the No. 43 Smithfield Ford Fusion, spoke to media members at Michigan International Speedway about the upcoming race weekend and his role in a NASCAR PSA about diversity.
ARIC ALMIROLA, No. 43 Smithfield Ford Fusion
ARIC, YOU ARE THE FACE OF A PSA ON ACCEPTANCE AND DIVERSITY, GROWING UP AS A CUBAN-AMERICAN, TALK ABOUT WHY THIS WAS SO IMPORTANT TO YOU. “This is important for me to be a part of mainly because the NASCAR diversity program meant so much for me to get where I am at today. In sport and in life everyone needs some sort of break to make it where they are at today. For me, that was my break, the fact that Joe Gibbs racing and Reggie White along with NASCAR got involved and created a diversity program and I sent in a resume and because of the fact that my family was from Cuba and my background and heritage it gave me an opportunity and that was the opportunity that got me to move from Florida to North Carolina and go drive a race car for a living. To have that opportunity has been very special and very meaningful for my career. It has been a great opportunity for me to try to give back and continue the awareness and knowledge about diversity in our sport and really just creating inclusion and equality in our sport and I think NASCAR has done a spectacular job of that over the years in continuing to grow that demographic and really making our sport a lot more reflective of the demographic of our country. It has been fun.”
YOU WERE HERE FOR THE TIRE TEST, GIVE US A SENSE FROM INSIDE THE CAR WHAT YOU FELT THEN WITH THIS RULES PACKAGE AND WHAT YOU FELT TODAY. “Today it wasn’t much different from what we experienced at the test. We only ran maybe 10 laps before the rain came in with this package at the test. Me, Austin Dillon, Kyle Larson and Truex were all part of the test and as soon as we ran it we all felt we should give it a try. Obviously with less downforce we hope and are all pretty confident that it will create better racing. At least with the cars behind they won’t be affected as bad with the dirty air we talk about all the time. I feel like continuing to make the race cars sleeker and get more and more downforce off the car is going to continue to allow more air to flow to the cars following and that will in turn put on a better race. I am really excited about the fact that not only is it really cool to go 220 mph at the end of the straightaway but then we have to slow down to 180 mph in the corner. For a race car driver, 220 mph is fast and it is fun and honestly not that scary because you have to let off the gas to go in the corner. What is scary is running 200 mph at the end of the straightaway and 198 at the end of the corner and it really hurts when the right front tire blows out and you hit the wall. I think the speed is relative and I am excited that we are letting off the gas and using the brake at a big track like Michigan and getting the corner speeds down. When you get that variation in speed it creates opportunity. When you are at the end of the straightway at 200 or 205 and slow down to 195 or 198 mid-corner because the car has a lot of downforce and a lot of grip because you run practically wide open, there is not an opportunity to pass because the variation in speed is not there. Now with the variation in speed it gives guys opportunity. You can drive in the corner a little deeper. You can lift a little sooner. It really opens up the driver’s tool box if you will.”
THE PSA WE JUST VIEWED, WE ARE SEEING IN PRO SPORTS A LOT OF ATHLETES AND ORGANIZATIONS TAKE A STAND AGAINST A LOT OF TOPICS. WHY IS IT IMPORTANT FOR NASCAR TO HAVE A VOICE IN THESE SOCIETAL ISSUES? “I am going to talk for Aric Almirola being a part of NASCAR, I am not going to talk for NASCAR. I will let them do that. For me, growing up watching the sport as a young boy it was very evident that the sport was built in the south. It was very traditional, 45-year old male, white, Caucasian sport back in the 80’s and 90’s when I was watching the sport. Our country was still sort of that demographic as well. It was heavily populated by that demographic. Over the years with immigration our country has changed drastically. I am a prime example of that. My family came to America in 1966 from Cuba. Over time the demographic of our country has changed and I think NASCAR saw that and understood that and really embraced it and tried to make their sport – I think the sport all along has been an All-American sport – now America has changed over the years so now to create that inclusion and equality for our sport is making our sport still the same old All-America sport, it is just that All-American is changing.”
WITH RPM GETTING MORE AND MORE AUTONOMOUS, DO YOU FEEL YOU ARE BEHIND AT ALL WHEN A RULE CHANGE LIKE THIS HAPPENS? “I think so. You can look at our results and compare them to years past and the proof is in the pudding sort of. We start off the beginning of the year running respectable like we did last year and then we got off. It seems the harder we try the worse we get and then we kind of revert back to last year and that is no good either because everyone else has made progress. If you go back to last year you are behind still. Absolutely we are behind. It is not from lack of effort, I can tell you that. We have guys back at the shop burning the midnight oil. We are working these guys to death to get back on track and get more speed in our cars and run top-15 like we could for the last two years. The effort is there and the ambition and willingness to do whatever it takes to get back on track is certainly there. I am really proud of our company and race team for that. But year, this sport is tough and there is certainly some steps along the way that we have either missed or miscalculated in getting more autonomous and so we have not going back to the drawing board, we are just still at the drawing board and trying to figure out how to get back to a baseline for us. in years past it was pretty easy for us to try things and sort of try to figure out how to get faster and on a race weekend if we were off we could always get back to a baseline and knew if we put that setup in the car we could go run 15th, meanwhile we were trying to figure out ways to run 10th. Right now we don’t have that. We don’t have anything we can go put in the car and go race and feel good about it. We are still looking for a baseline and trying to find more speed in our cars.”
COMPARE WHAT YOU FEEL TODAY ON THE TRACK WITH WHAT YOU WOULD FEEL AT BRISTOL OR MARTINSVILLE OR RICHMOND. IS IT COMPARABLE WITH THE SPEEDS IN THE CORNERS? “No, I don’t know if you have noticed but we are going like 200 mph here and at Bristol we go like 140, so it is very different. The short track racing with the lower downforce has been better because of the tire that Goodyear has been able to bring. We have a lot of fall off and that has been fun. The challenge is what you have seen over the course of the year, continuing to get the 1.5 mile and two-mile racing better. I think this is another attempt at that. Like I said a few minutes ago. Going 220 mph is absolutely fast, no doubt, but the fact we are slowing down so much to go through the corner because the air pushing down on the car creating downforce is so much less that our cars will not allow us to run wide open. There is not enough grip there. You have to revert back to mechanical grip and setups over the last several years have been more driver toward aero and just not worrying about mechanical grip, just trying to create as much downforce as you can. We are starting to see that trend back up from there. As you take more downforce away it becomes less important and you have to get grip another way. For us we are reverting back to getting mechanical grip.”
