Ford Performance NSCS Notes and Quotes
Bass Pro Shops NRA Night Qualifying – Bristol Motor Speedway
Friday, August 19, 2016
Ford Qualifying Results:
4th – Ryan Blaney
9th – Brad Keselowski
10th – Joey Logano
12th – Chris Buescher
17th – Aric Almirola
22nd – Trevor Bayne
25th – Ricky Stenhouse Jr.
30th – Brian Scott
32nd – Landon Cassill
34th – Greg Biffle
38th – Jeffrey Earnhardt
GREG BIFFLE – No. 16 EcoBoost Ford Fusion – WHAT HAPPENED WITH THE SPIN IN QUALIFYING? “I was just a little bit too loose. It was gonna be a great lap. It was gonna be a sub-15.00 lap for sure, and I got in the corner really deep and got on the throttle and I didn’t even feel the back move. It got away from me really fast on exit over there. It’s unfortunate, and then we had to put used tires on, tighten the car up, and then was just too tight to transfer to the next round. The unfortunate part is we have a really, really fast car and now we’ve got to start 32nd with it, but it’s a long race. It’s 500 laps and we’ll work our way up.”
TREVOR BAYNE – No. 6 AdvoCare Ford Fusion – “We qualified in the top 10 here last time, but we also went to the back three times for damage and me hitting the commitment cone and not coming to pit road. Track position is important, but here you can recover. I’m not just trying to paint a better picture than we have. I think if your car races good, you can make it up. There are a lot of opportunities to gain track position on pit stops here and that’s basically what we did last time. We got up there on some restarts, restarted on the top and made it happen and that’s what we’ll have to do tomorrow. But basically the hardest part about qualifying bad is that first run in the race. If it goes a long green-flag run and everybody is boxed in, you don’t want to go a lap down. You’ve got to fight for your life because lap times are so fast, but I don’t see that being the case for us tomorrow. I think we have a decent race car and we should be able to do that all day.”
CHRIS BUESCHER – No. 34 Love’s Travel Stops Ford Fusion – “I jokingly said I was worn out, but if I’m worn out after three rounds of qualifying, I’m in trouble. Our Love’s Travel Stops Fusion is pretty good. I been happy since we unloaded off the truck. I love Bristol. The team has done an excellent job and that’s about all you can ask for right there is to keep making progress. This is the first time this year that we’ve made the third round, so that’s pretty exciting for our team. We just keep plugging along here and we’re getting to where we need to be and this is definitely a good start for what we need in the point standings.” IT MUST FEEL GOOD TO GET TO THE THIRD ROUND FOR THE FIRST TIME. “Yeah. I tell you what, Pocono put a little pep in everyone’s step around here. It was really cool. A lot of these guys it was their first win as well as mine, so it’s neat to get everybody excited past halfway through the season and gives us something to shoot for again. This has pretty much changed our goals for the year. It went from trying to get top-15 finishes and run as consistently as possible to let’s make the Chase and that’s pretty special to be in our rookie season with a new group of guys and a new crew chief for me and all of us to be working in this direction. It’s pretty cool.”
RYAN BLANEY – No. 21 Virginia Tech Ford Fusion – “It was a pretty good day for us to be honest with you. I thought we were fast unloading and tweaked on it from there. We found some things that worked and found some things that didn’t work, and it was just an overall fairly good day for us. It’s nice to get a good qualifying spot. I don’t know how many times I would have killed to start on top and now I’m gonna start on top, so that’s just the way it goes. But I think we had a good race car as well. I don’t think our Q setup is the only good part of our car. I think our race runs were pretty good and it’s just a matter of putting 500 laps together and seeing where it ends up.” DOES STARTING UP AT THE FRONT PUT A LITTLE MORE PEP IN EVERYONE’S STEP? “Yeah, it does for sure. It always gets the weekend going on a good foot if you start up towards the front. If you start back in 20th or something, they kind of question how good your race car is and the team is kind of down, so starting up front is really good and luckily we were able to do that this week and hopefully we can stay up there.” YOU CAN’T SEE WHAT THE CAR LOOKS LIKE FROM THE INSIDE, BUT DOES IT FEEL ANY DIFFERENT WITH THE VIRGINIA TECH COLORS ON THE EXTERIOR? “No. As long as it’s fast they all look good to me. I think our car actually looks really, really good. I saw some pictures of it on the race track and it looks good, so I’m slowly becoming a Virginia Tech fan.”
