Ford Performance NASCAR Notes and Quotes
Pure Michigan 400 – Michigan International Speedway
Friday, August 26, 2016
NSCS QUALIFYING
FORD QUALIFYING RESULTS
1st Joey Logano
7th Ryan Blaney
18th Brad Keselowski
21st Chris Buescher
22nd Greg Biffle
24th Trevor Bayne
26th Aric Almirola
29th Ricky Stenhouse Jr.
30th Brian Scott
33rd Landon Cassill
JOEY LOGANO, No. 22 Shell Pennzoil Ford Fusion – Qualified 1st
“I was surprised after the first couple of rounds when we weren’t as fast as the last time we were here. We were eighth going into the final round but great adjustments to find a little bit more speed out of this thing. I was down there waiting and Todd said, ‘Take it!’ So I said, ‘Yeah, I am going to take it.’ So I got pumped up and I had the attitude that we were going to grab it or we were going to crash. It worked out well.”
RYAN BLANEY, No. 21 Motorcraft/Quick Lane Ford Fusion – Qualified 7th
“We were kind of tight in the second round and we tried to adjust it to get it better for the third round and didn’t quite get enough. I probably could have gone up on the track bar more and helped it. We were tight over in one and couldn’t roll the speed. I have to look at my comparisons with Joey and see where he beat me. I am sure it is all in one and two. I probably tried to get too much there but it wouldn’t turn. Oh well. It is a good start to the weekend and we will see how we are tomorrow when we get into race trim. We did all Q runs stuff today so we will have to switch over to race trim tomorrow and see how we are.”
RICKY STENHOUSE JR., No. 17 Zest Ford Fusion – Qualified 29th
“We were really tight in practice. The Zest Fusion wasn’t exactly ideal. Our qualifying efforts lately haven’t been as good but our racing package has been better. Earlier in the year I felt like we qualified really well and then wouldn’t race as good. For whatever reason we haven’t been able to get them both dialed in together. I definitely think we will work on our Fusion tomorrow. The guys on the Zest team work really hard. We will get it dialed in tomorrow and pass a lot of cars come Sunday.”
JOEY LOGANO POLE WINNER PRESS CONFERENCE
JOEY LOGANO, No. 21 Shell Pennzoil Ford Fusion – WHAT WOULD IT BE LIKE FOR YOU TO JOIN DAVID PEARSON AND BILL ELLIOTT AS THE ONLY THREE-TIME MICHIGAN WINNER FROM THE POLE? “Anytime you can put your name with a Hall of Fame member of any sort is really special for me. That is crazy, that is a really neat stat. We have to do it though. Obviously starting up front here is an advantage for sure when you talk about track position and safety on restarts being how crazy it is with the low downforce package on restarts. Having the first pit stall is probably the most important of all that. The first pit stall is one of the only good ones on pit road here. Having that one really helps us keep track position throughout the day. I am excited about it. I thought our car was really good in race trim earlier and we were probably the second best car in race trim. In qualifying trim I didn’t think we would make it happen today but that last run Todd made some good adjustments and gave me a pep talk and it was game on. I was ready to go. I was going to drive the heck out of it and hope for the best. Once you get to the last round and you are eighth on the board, what is the difference between eighth and 12th? You might as well hammer down. I was able to drive in harder than my brain should tell me to do and it stuck. We made good adjustments for it to stick and the car did what I told it to do. It was a good job by the whole team to give me the car to make it happen.”
WHY IS YOU PIT STALL SELECTION SO IMPORTANT AT A BIG TRACK LIKE THIS? “Your pit road speeds are pretty fast here and where they score the cars off of pit road is very close to pit stall one so you don’t have to get back up to 55. That is a pretty big advantage. The amount of time that you are not going slower than 55 is a big advantage here in that pit stall. That is it.”
HOW MUCH DIFFERENTLY DOES YOUR CAR BEHAVE IN RACE TRIM THAN QUALIFYING TRIM? “When we go to qualifying trim or back to race trim the big difference is air pressure in the tires and tape on the grille. Those are things we adjust to make our car fast on the long run. When you adjust those two things, all the other parts of the car have to change as well to get the car back balanced and take that much front downforce off the car after you take the tape off will change everything. We have to have a setup that will last long. Michigan has been known for long runs and also if you look at the spring race, you have to look at recent history, we have seen a lot of cautions breeding cautions. It seems like cautions on every restart. That is why it is important to be up front. The setups are completely different, not even close to being the same. We have a typical offset from qualifying to race and we have a couple hours of practice tomorrow to work on it.”
WOULD IT EVEN BE POSSIBLE TO RUN A RACE IN QUALIFYING TRIM? “It might work for two or three laps but then you will blow a motor up and your tires would be overinflated and they would fall off really hard. You would blow up before you fell off on the tires though. Todd would be mad, Doug Yates would be mad. I tell you what. Doug Yates has it going on right now. This is a horsepower race track man and that felt good!”
WHAT MAKES MIS A UNIQUE TRACK AND HOW HAS THAT HELPED YOU HAVE SUCCESS HERE? “It is very unique. For one, you are going 220 miles per hour. That is freaking insane. It is a lot of fun though. I think that the race track itself is two distinct corners. Turn one has a big sweeping entry. Turn three is flat and sharp and opens up a lot on exit. The corners are completely different in what it takes from your car to go fast. For that reason it is pretty unique. There are no big bumps yet. That proves they did a really good job paving this place with the winters they go through up here to not have bumps yet is impressive. They did a great job when they paved this racetrack. It is all about the corners here. That is where most of the speed is. You carry momentum through it and that is where you make your passes if you can maintain momentum. It is a horsepower track though and you have to get down the straightaways here. They are really long and really fast.”
JOEY LOGANO POLE WINNER PRESS CONFERENCE
THE TOYOTA CARS DIDN’T HAVE THE DOMINANCE TODAY THAT THEY HAVE IN OTHER WEEKS. DO YOU FEEL LIKE THIS 2017 PACKAGE CREATES MORE PARITY? “I think if you look at the last few with this low downforce package, races, I think the field has been a little more equal. When I say equal I mean the Gibbs cars aren’t as dominant as they usually are. We can say they aren’t dominant but Denny (Hamlin) qualified third. It is just qualifying. Earlier in the day I was watching Kyle Busch make laps in race trim and he was the fastest car here. I wouldn’t say the Gibbs dominance is over. Do we feel we are a little closer? Yeah, I do and that is a good thing. That is a good direction. I don’t know what that is trying to tell me. It is trying to tell us something. We all have six different reasons for why that could be. I don’t think it changes it a whole bunch. Good race teams are still good race teams no matter how you look at it. With this rules package everyone does it in a different way and then figure out what the best way is and everyone migrates in that direction of how they setup their cars or build their cars back at the shop. I think you have seen some of the changes from first Michigan to second Michigan with this package. Who knows where it is going to go in the future. That is part of motorsport and part of development. There will always be changes and no one sits up top very long if they don’t keep trying to move forward.”
WHAT IS THE FASTEST SPEED YOU HAVE EVER DRIVEN? “How fast did I go today? 220 or so? That is probably the fastest I have ever gone. It was probably just now, today. It is crazy because I went in the corner into turn one and the motor is cranking a ton of RPM and we are getting into the corner so fast and you want to lift but you can’t because you want to go fast at the same time. Your brain is telling you to lift but something else in your body has to fight that urge. That makes it a lot of fun and kind of crazy. I don’t recommend doing that when you get your drivers license but if you are on a race track it is okay.”
