Ford Performance NXS Notes and Quotes
Zippo 200 at the Glen – Watkins Glen International
NXS Post Race
Saturday, August 5, 2016
FORD FINISHING RESULTS
1st Joey Logano
5th Trevor Bayne
9th Ryan Reed
24th Brad Keselowski
29th Darrell Wallace, Jr.
JOEY LOGANO, No. 12 Snap-On Ford Mustang – Finished 1st
“It was far from easy. What a great Snap-On Ford Mustang. It was awesome for this 12 team to come together. It is a bunch of guys and girls we put together at the shop to have some fun and we come up here to Watkins Glen and it is a lot of fun to win at this racetrack. Brad gave me a run for my money that is for sure. He was just as fast as me, maybe faster. I never ran so many qualifying laps inside the car. I was running as hard as I possibly could and I wasn’t sure if my car would last running that hard but she held together just long enough. I couldn’t be more proud to be here in Victory Lane. This is big for Team Penske and the XFINITY side of things. Great to get a win for them. I am proud to drive the Snap-on Mustang today and ready for tomorrow.”
YOU HAD TO HOLD OFF BRAD BUT ALSO BE IN COSERVATIVE MODE. HOW DO YOU BALANCE THOSE? “There is no conservative mode. Maybe in the caution. Once it was go time I had to run hard because I couldn’t afford to give up the lead. I ran as hard as I could. It is so hard to drive away from people in these XFINITY cars because the draft on the straightaway is so big. Anytime you get any kind of a gap they suck it right back up on the straightaway. It was a lot of fun and a great race.”
NEW PAVEMENT, YOU GO BACK-TO-BACK AND TOOK THE BROOM OUT LAST YEAR. WHAT DID YOU LEARN TODAY THAT YOU CAN USE TOMORROW? “We learned some important things I think. I am not going to tell you but we did learn some good things. I will talk to Todd Gordon here in a little bit when we get done celebrating and having fun and we will get back to work on tomorrow.”
BRAD KESELOWSKI, No. 22 Fleetwood/REV Group Ford Mustang –
YOU WERE DOMINANT UNTIL THE MECHANICAL FAILURE. “Yeah, it looked like a bad weld broke. I don’t know what to say about that. You can’t win races in the garage.” YOU HAD A DOMINANT CAR MOST OF THE DAY THOUGH.“Yeah, it was good. Joey and I were both really fast and if either one of us got in the lead it was obvious we were going to drive away. That is something to be really proud of. We had very fast Ford Mustangs today and congrats to Joey on the win. It is good for the program to see Team Penske get in Victory Lane today. I wish it could have been us, but I am happy for Joey and all those guys.”
TREVOR BAYNE, No. 60 Ford Mustang – Finished 5th
“The goal was to get laps and we met that. We had a decent run and got a top-five but we would like to win these things. To run top-five in our first start in a long time was fun. I am hoping I learned a lot for tomorrow. I think we gained at the end. Our last run was the fastest by far. There was no risk. I could try things and if I ran off track or spun out there was no risk. I was able to try a lot for tomorrow.”
DARRELL WALLACE JR., No. 6 Cheez-It Ford Mustang – (Involved in Lap 18 accident)
WHAT DID YOU SEE OUT THERE? “All I see is we have bad luck and it is getting old, my friend. It is unfortunate for my team. We come here and I messed up on the first lap in the first practice we had and then we were sitting pretty for the rest of the weekend. It is just getting old. We will go on to Mid-Ohio and try to have some luck there. I want to thank Cheez-It. It is just a bummer, we hate it.”
WHAT HAPPENED? “Just bad luck. We continue to have it. Hopefully we can shake it off when we go to Mid-Ohio. Better luck next time.”
WHAT WERE RACING CONDITIONS LIKE? “We were fine. We were just logging laps and felt good where we were at. My team gave me a great Cheez-It Ford Mustang, it just was not our day.”
JOEY LOGANO, GREG ERWIN, MIKE NELSON POST RACE PRESS CONFERENCE
JOEY LOGANO, No. 12 Snap-On Ford Mustang – YOU HAVE HAD QUITE THE SUCCESS HERE AT WATKINS GLEN IN THE LAST 12 MONTHS. TAKE US THROUGH THIS WIN. “I am just glad they didn’t put me in a bulldozer and rip the track up again. It is definitely a special day. It was a really great Snap-On Mustang. We were fast in practice and obviously in qualifying and then being able to lead a lot of laps today was big. They weren’t easy laps to lead. It was a hard-fought win for sure. Racing for Brad, my teammate, at the end was a lot of fun and a great thing for Team Penske in XFINITY. It is no secret we had a rough start this year so to have those two cars racing up front for the win was great. I was out there making qualifying runs for 20 laps and was pretty sure my car wasn’t going ot hold together. I had nothing to lose. I was out there basically all or nothing. I don’t know what happened to Brad’s car but after that my car was pretty much shot. Paul (Menard) started catching us as well. I am glad we had enough cushion to hold them off at the end. I am proud of this team. Greg Erwin did a great job putting together this racecar from the race shop and a team, Mike Nelson and all those guys, thank you for putting together a good team for us. It is nice to see the depth we have at Team Penske when we can throw together a team and come out here and win.”
MIKE NELSON, VP of Operations, Team Penke – TAKE US THROUGH THIS FROM A TEAM PENSKE PERSPECTIVE ON WHAT THE WIN MEANS. “Just to echo what Joey said, it is really good for us. We have struggled a bit this year and it was nice to get over the hump and have both cars run 1-2 near the end of the race and having a shot to win and then getting it done. It is a big boost for everyone back and home and hopefully it will lead into some momentum going into the next few races.”
JOEY LOGANO CONTINUED – WHAT DID YOU SEE FROM THE TIRES AND WHAT WILL YOU TAKE TO TOMORROW’S RACE AND ALSO HOW MUCH CONFIDENCE DO YOU TAKE HERE NOW AFTER THE SUCCESS THE LAST COUPLE OF YEARS? “About the tire, that has been the biggest question since we got here. People keep wondering what are the correct pressures or how hard you can push them or how long you can run them with strategy. There have been a lot of question around the tire. I think we learned some valuable things today. I will not tell you what we learned but we did learn some things for tomorrow which I think will help. I saw Greg and Todd (Gordon) talking in Victory Lane, so I was excited to see that. As for confidence about being here, yeah, anytime you can come to a racetrack and win the last three races here with XFINITY and hopefully we can get another one tomorrow and break the broom out again. It is a lot harder to win on Sunday. Here today there were a solid five or six cars that were capable of winning. Tomorrow there are about 15-20. It is hard to get track position and will be tough to pass but big things will happen like typical Watkins Glen. We have seen craziness on restarts today. I would expect the same thing – maybe not as many crashes but definitely some chaos when everyone goes off into the bus stop. It will be a hectic race tomorrow and definitely it is a lot about your brakes and how good your brakes last. It seems like that is where the falloff is. Confidence is high. I was mad at myself we didn’t get the pole in Cup qualifying earlier. I think we were able to pick that up earlier today and get another trophy.”
GREG ERWIN, crew chief, No. 12 Snap-On Ford Mustang – WALK US THROUGH THE RACE FROM THE TOP OF THE PIT BOX. “The race falls into the same thing we have had the last couple of years. Both of these Penske cars are very strong. The front row starts and practice speed and Joey being able to sweep last year. We came this year with the repave and the new tire, which threw us a bit of a curve. Brian and I worked pretty hard to get these things sorted out through the practice sessions with a lot of adjustments. We got them better and quite honestly I felt the 42 probably had as much pure speed. Obviously we won’t know about the 18 with whatever ended up happening to them. It is good for our team and company. It has been a little bit off to start the season but in general this has been a good solid place for us. It is good that we have this roll coming up with three out of four weeks of road course racing. This should help our company. From the race side, I think that right away being able to start up front like we did was super. I felt we had a pretty good short run car. Every time we were stuck in traffic we were able to make passes on restarts early in runs and then this guy here kept the rear tires under it for the remainder of the run. We would need to go back and kind of readjust. That is what we did during the race; try to get the car better for the long run. I felt we had good short run speed. We think we know where that is at.”
JOEY LOGANO CONTINUED – ARE YOU IMPRESSED WITH HOW QUICK THIS CAR WAS OUT OF THE GATE? “Yeah, the depth with our race team and organization is very deep and I am proud to be a part of that. Any time you take a team that is not used to working together every single week and you come to a racetrack, everyone doesn’t know exactly what their role is. Who helps who? Who picks up the slack when? You look at a lot of the race teams on the Cup side, they are really god at changes in practice. They are able to make changes very quick and all know their position when you come in. When you do certain adjustments everyone has a routine. It is planned out just as well as what you see on pit road when guys are changing tires in 11 seconds. The same thing happens in the garage during practice. We may not see it all the time but that team, the road crew guys, they have that chemistry you have to have to be successful and when you don’t race very often it is hard to have that. When you have a good set plan like Greg had going into practice of items we wanted to try and change and they were prepared for it and ready and able to communicate well enough to get through practice and have a fast car and make good adjustments.”
GREG ERWIN CONTINUED — “I need to add in, we have guys on this crew that have won 50 races here at Penske. We have guys that have been car chiefs for 15-20 years and guys that have been Cup racing for 15 years. They know the drill. They know what to look for and what is important and what is not. Then we have people that haven’t been to the racetrack probably three times in their life. We have a pretty big mix of experience and people we are trying to groom for positions within the company. Obviously I lean on the experienced guys a little more to help guide the younger, less experienced folk. We have guys here that have never sat on a pole and three guys that had never won a race. They checked the box today. That is kind of fun.”
JOEY LOGANO CONTINUED – WHEN YOU ARE BATTLING WITH BRAD LIKE THAT AND HE BREAKS WITH SIX TO GO, IS YOUR EMOTION RELIEF OR DISAPOINTMENT? “I wanted a Team Penske 1-2. I didn’t want it to be very hard to win, I can tell you that much. I had Mike Nelson up in the esses and he was up there yelling and screaming what the distances were and there were a few times Brad was all over me because he had a better turn one than I did which let him take air off my spoiler. Brad and I, we really understand how hard we can race each other and it if fun racing against him because I know him and he knows me very well and we know our techniques and things he is doing in his car and he knows what I am doing in my car. It is fun to race with someone like that. A lot of times you kind of are guessing a little bit and you kind of have a notebook about people you are racing but you don’t know anyone better than your teammate. That is the guy you know the best. It was a lot of fun racing against him knowing what he was doing and him knowing what I am doing and battling each other. We both wanted to win. Overall you look at the big picture and two Team Penske cars battled for a win for a long time. Unfortunately something happened and at least one of us still got to Victory Lane. It was going to be a hell of a battle, believe me. There was never going to be a point where I could pull away. It was going to be tight to the end.”
WHEN MENARD CUT THE LEAD FROM FOUR SECONDS TO 1.2, IS THAT A CASE OF LAP TRAFFIC, YOU EASING OFF A LITTLE, HIM GETTING BETTER OR ALL OF THE ABOVE? “D, all of the above. One, my car was pretty much shot because I ran 20 qualifying laps in a row and the car was yelling back at me so I started giving up some speed that way. Two, the 21 spun out in front of me and probably cost me a couple seconds worth. I went pretty slow around him. I wasn’t sure if he was going to gas back up and the last thing I wanted was someone to gas back up and drive into our door when he was trying to get back straight. He was right in the middle of the track and I had to make a pretty big move to get around him. He was just a little faster because my car was wore out at the end.”
MIKE NELSON CONTINUED – DID YOU FIGURE OUT WHAT WENT WRONG WITH KESELOWSKI’S CAR? “Yeah, I think it was something related to the track bar based on what I could see on the race track. We will have to investigate a little further but I think the track bar broke or something related to the track bar based on how it was moving around on the track. It looked that pretty typical for that type of issue.”
