Ford Performance NSCS Notes and Quotes
Quaker State 400 Advance – Kentucky Speedway
Ryan Blaney, driver of the No. 21 Motorcraft/Quick Lane Ford Fusion is doing double-duty this weekend at Kentucky Speedway. He stopped by the infield media center to talk about the repaved surface and how his season has gone to date.
RYAN BLANEY – No. 21 Motorcraft/Quick Lane Ford Fusion – CAN YOU TALK ABOUT HOW THE RACING HAS BEEN THIS SEASON AND THE START OF THE SECOND HALF? “I think the racing has been really good. The new rule packages and everything NASCAR has been doing has been good for the sport and I think you’ve seen it at Michigan and then this weekend with a little bit different rules package. I think it’s a step in the right direction, for sure, so the racing has been a lot of fun. It’s been great to be at the race track every week with the Wood Brothers and it’s actually hard to believe we’re already halfway through the year, to be honest with you. It’s gone by really fast and I guess time flies when you’re having fun, so it’s been a good year so far for us and hopefully we can keep getting better and better for the second half of it.”
WHAT IS YOUR FIRST IMPRESSION OF THE NEW TRACK AND WHAT ARE YOUR THOUGHTS IN KNOWING WITH THE RAIN THAT THE TRACK WILL DRY QUICKER? “I thought the repave is different, for sure. I had the opportunity to test here three or four weeks back and it was definitely different. They changed the whole shape of turn one and two and gave it more banking, so that’s noticeable. That took us awhile for our teams to kind of get used to it, but I think you’ve seen it in practice and I saw it last night in the Truck race that it did widen out a little bit, which surprised me, and it’s a good thing. So that’s very promising for the XFINITY race tonight and the Cup race tomorrow. I think it’s coming in pretty good. I know Goodyear has done a good job of developing a tire for both series for the new surface. That’s always a hard thing to do whenever you come to a fast, new race track. They also did a great job of building, I don’t know if you’ve seen that tire monster that they’ve been having. I think that sped up the process a little bit of rubbering in the race track, so they did a really good job on that deal. There are certain things we like and don’t like about repaves, but one good thing is it dries very fast. This was probably the hardest place to get dry and even when we did get it dry there were always wet spots on the race track that we couldn’t help. Now, it’s gonna be very fast to be able to dry this place, so that’s the promising side of it. I’ll get my stopwatch out whenever it stops raining and see how long it takes to dry.”
HOW DO YOU FEEL ABOUT WHERE YOU ARE IN THE POINTS AND MAKING THE CHASE THAT WAY IF YOU DON’T GET A WIN? “I don’t really pay too much attention to the points situation. We go out and try to win every single race each weekend and that’s the mindset that we have. The rest of it will figure itself out. We just want to do the best job that we can and if we perform like I know our team can perform, and run up front every week and run top 10s, then that other part will take care of itself. Right now, we’re focused on going for wins. We’re not gonna be conservative. I want to go win races. I’m not gonna back out of a situation where I think I can win a race just to points race right now. I want to be aggressive and go try to win a race, so I don’t really give that side too much thought.”
HOW DO YOU FEEL ABOUT THE FACT YOU AND CHASE ELLIOTT – TWO ROOKIES – COULD MAKE THE CHASE? “It could be possible. Obviously, he’s sitting really good right now. They’ve done a really good job all year, but that would be great. That would be really neat. I think it would be awesome for the sport to have a couple of rookies in it, and some young guys. There are some other young drivers that could be in it. Austin Dillon is sitting in a good spot and Larson is starting to come back up to a spot, so that would be really great if we could get some rookies and then some younger drivers too into the Chase.”
HOW HAS WINNING IN THE XFINITY SERIES HERE HELP YOU IN CUP? “It helps. It helps self-confidence when you can come back to a race track where you’ve had success. Honestly, Kentucky has probably been my best race track. Now it’s completely different and a new race track and new surface, so it changes but it’s still the same Kentucky and your same mindset coming back here of, ‘Hey, I’ve won here and have had good runs.’ It definitely helps boost your confidence up a little bit, and then that helps your team too if the driver is confident. It’s just nice to come back here. This is a neat facility. Even though it’s a little bit different, the driver still has the same kind of mindset coming back.”
QUALIFYING HAS BEEN CANCELLED. HOW DO YOU FEEL ABOUT HAVING MORE PRACTICE VERSUS QUALIFYING? “I think you said it right. A lot of teams scuffed tires yesterday. We had 16 sets of tires that Goodyear suggested that we scuff all of them. With the testing that they’ve done, they thought that was the best part of getting them hot, letting them cool down, and then recover just so we don’t have any problems in the race. So we didn’t get a ton of time changing our car yesterday. We didn’t change anything on our car today. In that little practice, we got I think we scuffed three sets of tires and it started raining, so that was unfortunate. I think it’s great that they’re allowing us to get more practice in. We needed it for multiple reasons. One, this new surface and the tires and the new rules package. We’re still kind of in the unknown about this new lower downforce package, so I was really upset that they cancelled qualifying for practice last year, but I’m really happy they did it this year, mainly because we missed the race last year because they cancelled qualifying, but I’m happy NASCAR made that decision. I think it’s good and I think that’s what most teams wanted.”
WHAT’S IT LIKE RUNNING FOR AN OPEN TEAM? “Being an open team and a non-charter team doesn’t bother me one bit. I know there was a bunch of talk at the beginning of the year and it was made to be a big deal, I don’t see it affecting us at all. They do a great job and it’s kind of just the title that you kind of wished you had, but it hasn’t hurt us yet and I don’t think it’s gonna hurt us in the near future. It doesn’t bother me one bit. I think we do a great job with just how it is and I don’t really view us as a non-charter team or an open team or anything like that. I view us as a very top-contending team that does a really good job.”
WHAT IS IT LIKE WHEN YOU SEE FOUR CARS LIKE THE GIBBS TEAM SO STRONG? “They’ve done a good job. You saw them really improve the second part of last year, and they’ve definitely carried that momentum and success over to this year, and they’ve done a really good job of adapting to the new rules packages. So they’ve been fast really everywhere we’ve gone and it’s basically five cars you’re running against over there with the 78 pretty much being a sister car to them. They do a great job. They get a lot of support from their manufacturer and we do too, so it’s just a matter of putting our heads down and getting better, and I think we’ve done that. Our team and the Penske team over the past month has made big steps and big gains to be closer to them and be able to beat those race cars. Props to that team, for sure. They’ve done a good job, but I think this sport goes full circle. You see teams rise up and be dominant for a little bit and then another team comes up and it’s pretty funny to me watching it all the years that my dad was running, of what teams would be really good for months or years at a time and then new teams or different teams find something that’s really good and then they surpass that team. It just comes full circle, but the only thing we can do is put our heads down try to work hard at getting better and better, and I think we’ve made a big step in the last month toward that.”
DO YOU FEEL THE EXTRA TRACK TIME OF RUNNING DOUBLE DUTY WILL GIVE YOU AN ADVANTAGE TOMORROW NIGHT? “Yeah, I think so. I think the XFINITY race is gonna be huge to run tonight and I’m fortunate that I’ll be able to run it. Thanks to everybody who let me participate in that, but it’s gonna be really big to get extra track time. Anytime we can go to a race track and run the XFINITY race or the Truck race before the Cup race is huge. It’s even more meaningful when we can do it on a newly paved surface. You just kind of figure out where the track goes and the best thing is they start at pretty similar times, so we’ll be able to compare a lot more notes from this race tonight over to tomorrow, and I think if we do it right, we can really learn a lot.”
HOW WAS YOUR TIRE WEAR YESTERDAY AND THEN TODAY? “It was interesting, but we’re on a different tire over there on the XFINITY side. We’re running the same tire that the trucks ran over on the XFINITY side, and we got some notes from the BKR guys from their race last night. They’re a really, really different tire feel-wise and we saw a little bit of blistering yesterday on the XFINITY cars if we made a long run, but the Cup stuff we haven’t seen anything. I think we’ll be fine tire wear-wise.”
