Ford Performance NASCAR Notes and Quotes
Charlotte Media Tour
Wednesday, January 25, 2017
RYAN BLANEY – No. 21 Motorcraft/Quick Lane Ford Fusion – WHERE AND WHEN DID YOU DECIDE TO CONCENTRATE ON NASCAR? “It was really where we grew up at pretty much. My dad and my whole family grew up in Ohio and that’s dirt central pretty much right there. I grew up in North Carolina in High Point about an hour up the road and there is no dirt period around here. There are only a handful of tracks and it’s really asphalt late model stuff. The pass tour and ASA stuff back then was still around, so it was just location and how we got started. Bobby Labonte built a fantastic facility in Salisbury, North Carolina – a quarter-midget track – and that sort of started my asphalt career and we just went from there with Legend cars at Charlotte Motor Speedway to late models and then up the ladder. I’ve dabbled in the sprint car world a little bit. My dad used to build them. He still builds his cars, and then when I got with the Penske group it kind of shut that whole operation down. It’s just location. If I would have grown up in Ohio, I’m sure I would have done the dirt route and who knows where we would be, but growing up in North Carolina changed that.”
CAN YOU SHARE THE STORY ABOUT GETTING A STANDING OVATION AFTER YOU WERE LATE TO A PENSKE FUNCTION? “The one thing you don’t want to be is late to a Penske breakfast. You’ve got everybody there. Mr. Penske is there and all the brass and I walk in late. I don’t know what happened. I don’t think I overslept. I might have overslept, but I got there and there was a standing ovation. That was like in 2012 or 2013, right when I got there, and you talk about wanting to walk out of the room. I started sweating bullets and was just as nervous as can be, and then you’ve got to go up and give a speech right after that. That was a rough day for sure, so I make sure I’m one of the earliest to the Penske breakfast.”
WHAT DID YOU LEARN MOST LAST YEAR AND WHAT DO YOU NEED TO IMPROVE ON? “I think you learn the most about trying to improve your car over the whole race, and the amount of preparation and setup time it takes to get these cars to where you need to be. Most of the time, if you’re not fast on Friday or Saturday it really makes for a tough weekend. The preparation before you even get to the track is key, to try to be as close as you can be. As drivers, we can only do so much about that, but trying to give the best information that you can throughout the whole weekend – Friday, Saturday and during the race on Sunday is so key. That was probably one of the biggest things I tried to work on and get better at. I spent a lot of time in the off-season trying to do just that, and then the communication side between myself and my engineers and crew chief. That’s been something I’ve been trying to improve a lot and trying to understand these cars more. I feel like some of those changes are the biggest ones that we’ve made in the off-season and hopefully for the better.”
THERE ARE SOME RUMORS PENSKE WOULD LIKE TO RUN SPORTS CARS AGAIN. WOULD YOU LIKE TO RUN THE ROLEX OR SOMETHING LIKE THAT? “I’d be very interested. With the Ford GT program starting up and it doing so well, I would love to do that. I would love to do the Rolex 24 or anything like that – one of the bigger races or even a smaller race. I’d just love to drive some of those cars. I love road courses and Ford has made a big commitment into the GT program and the Mustang program, so that’s something I would highly enjoy doing if I ever got a call or opportunity from Mr. Penske or Ford I would definitely do that in a heartbeat.”
WHERE DID THE DESIGN FOR YOUR DRIVER’S UNIFORM COME FROM? “The firesuit is really something we based on Darlington and the Talladega suit I wore last year. Darlington, when we had Pearson on the car, we just changed a couple things up with the colors and made Motorcraft and Quick Lane bigger and stuff like that. I really liked that suit. I know a lot of people enjoyed the throwback suit that we had and it was just like Mr. Pearson wore when he won the triple crown that year, so the Wood Brothers and I talked about trying to do a version of that and I think it turned out really well. Why not have an old-school suit for the oldest-running team in NASCAR? I’m happy we were able to do that. I’m really happy that Motorcraft and everybody let us do this, and I think it gives us a really good look and the right look for what the Wood Brothers represent, which is old-school racing.”
YOUR TEAM MOVED TO A NEW LOCATION IN MOORESVILLE, NC. HOW DOES IT COMPARE TO THE PLACE YOU LEFT? “Really, the biggest reason for the move was to try to get closer to our alliance at Penske. Logistically, it was really hard to get to Harrisburg, running cars back and forth or people back and forth. That was really tough. That’s a long haul, but now we’re 10 minutes down the road, which is really nice to have a good shop there in the Mooresville Drag Park, and for the Wood Brothers to have their own shop. The other one they part-owned with the JTG group, so to have their own shop now is really nice and they really enjoy that. They have plenty of room in there to have our cars in there and then for them to rebuild a bunch of old cars. Leonard has all of his projects, so the building we have now logistically makes a lot more sense and then it’s their own building, so I think that just improves our alliance with the Penske group, for sure.”
CAN YOU TALK ABOUT RUNNING FULL-TIME LAST YEAR AND BEING A PART OF THAT? “It was great to get them back full-time. That was their first full-time season in about eight years, so that was nice to do, and it was also a lot of change. That’s a big jump and big commitment to go from 15-18 races to 36. It’s a lot more preparation. It’s a lot more people required to do that, both at the race track and away from the race track. Ultimately, it was great to do, but it was a lot of work to try to get it there. I think now having a full year under our belt, not only myself but our team and the Wood Brothers in general, you kind of know what to expect week-in and week-out, and that’s just gonna make us stronger having a full year behind us and it really makes you look forward to the upcoming season.”
DO YOU HAVE TO HAVE A SEPARATE PENSKE STARCHED SHIRT COMPARED TO WOOD BROTHERS FUNCTIONS? “Yeah. I’ve never washed a starched shirt because I will mess it up, so they just get me a new one every single time. I’m pretty sure that goes for Brad and Joey, too. They just have a new one for us. I get them dirty and I can’t wash anything without shrinking it or messing it up, so I just get a new one. It’s nice, but, yes, I do have separate ones. The Wood Brothers ones are a little bit more laid back, but the Penske ones they’re definitely making sure we look good. I shaved today, which was nice. I did my hair, which was good.”
DAVID RAGAN – No. 38 Front Row Motorsports Ford Fusion – ARE YOU LOOKING FORWARD TO THIS YEAR? “It’s good to be back at Front Row. That goes back to what your parents teach you in different things when you’re growing up like, ‘Don’t ever burn a bridge. Don’t ever make people mad when you might be calling them again one day.’ So this was a good situation that I was able to align myself back with Ford Performance and Front Row Motorsports. They’ve obviously done a very nice job of growing that team on and off the race track the last couple of years with Chris Buescher’s big win last season and their spot in the playoff. It shows they’re continuing to make investments on and off the race track to make that team better. They’ve got a couple of wins under their belt in the last four years, and I think Landon Cassill is gonna be a fun teammate and we can challenge ourselves, push ourselves to work hard to try to beat one another, but I think we’ll also be able to help our organization to get better. We’ve got some really good partners that have re-signed and coming back for another season and Bob Jenkins continues to invest in the sport of NASCAR, so it’s a great situation for me and a lot of familiar faces and I’m really happy to be back with those guys.”
WHAT DO TEAMS DO TO GET BACK THE DOWNFORCE THEY’RE LOSING? “They’re working in the windtunnel every single day. These teams have shifts at the two windtunnels here in North Carolina 24 hours a day, probably six or seven days a week. A lot of times you hear of a team that their shift is midnight to 7 a.m. These windtunnels are just running all day long. You’ve got all the manufacturers, all the race teams that are in there going through different scenarios. They’ve even got good simulation from a computer standpoint where they can change measurements and body builds very little, so they can work through a lot of changes before they even get to the windtunnel and have a lot more efficient time at the windtunnel. So throughout the year they end up gaining back what is lost at a rule change, so I think that’s why NASCAR continues to make some small minor adjustments because by October-November we’re already back to the downforce and sideforce numbers that were taken away in January or December of the previous year. They’re just working hard. They’re so smart today and they’re working within the rules and the tolerances and they’re very, very smart to get back. NASCAR has got a tough job on their hand to keep trimming that downforce number and I think they’ve done a good job, but the teams it’s there job to find it back and they’ll find it back. Whoever finds it back the quickest will have a competitive edge for a while.”
HOW MUCH ARE YOU LOOKING FORWARD TO THE DAYTONA 500? “The Daytona 500 is obviously a big race for our entire industry, but for a team like Front Row Motorsports it does level the playing field a little bit and it presents an opportunity for us to find victory lane. We obviously proved that a few years ago at Talladega, so I think that with Landon and I’s experience and our willingness to work together that’s a great thing. Obviously, you have to have some luck and you have to have a good car and have everything go your way, but we know going to Daytona that if we do everything right, we can have an opportunity to win, and that’s all you can ask for. Anything can happen in those last 10-15 laps, but if you can just have an opportunity. I know Doug Yates is gonna have a great engine. I know that our race team has prepared a good Ford Fusion to go down there and have some speed, and we just have to make good decisions throughout the Speedweeks, and not only on Sunday in the Daytona 500, but it starts on Thursday and Friday and Saturday. We want to take care of our race car. With the new segments I think it will be important to try to keep some track position throughout the day. I don’t think you can afford to ride around in the back and take it easy and just count on the last 40 or 50 laps working your way to the front. I’m optimistic going to Daytona and it’s such a tone-setter for the rest of the season that if we can just come out of there with a top 10 or top 15 finish, man it just makes Atlanta and Las Vegas so much easier going into it knowing you’ve had a good start to the year.”
HOW WOULD YOU DESCRIBE THE GROWTH YOU’VE SEEN IN LANDON CASSILL? “I don’t know a tremendous amount of the details about Landon’s early career. My first year was ’07, so we’re only a year apart, but I was very fortunate to be with Roush Fenway Racing for my first four or five seasons and that helped me grow and mature a lot, but I had a lot of pressure being in a top tier ride, so I think a guy like Landon, he’s had some good opportunities over the years, but he hasn’t had that consistent team, consistent program behind him, so I think he’s found a good home at Front Row and he’s been able to learn a lot. I’ve learned as much driving for small teams as I have for the larger ones. You learn different things and you see different things, but Landon is a young guy, he’s healthy, he’s got a good racing IQ, I call it. He’s a short-track racer. He’s raced a lot. He’s worked on his own race car, so it’s fun to have a teammate that’s a racer, enjoys it, gets it. He knows the business side of it, too. We’ve hit it off. We’ve known each other over the years, but we really haven’t been good buddies, so I’m looking forward to spending some time with him, getting to know him, and, like I said earlier, I think we’ll both challenge each other to be better, but also help each other to grow our team and to be more competitive.”
HOW DO YOU VIEW THE NEW FORMAT AND HOW YOU MAY HAVE TO RACE OVER THE COURSE OF 500 MILES? “I think being caught in the crossfire as you just described it is what the fans what the TV partners want to see because that’s gonna create some drama. When you have a car that’s a little faster and a little slower all mixed in, that’s when you have action, that’s when you have guys getting pushed out of the way or fending a car off or moving around. That’s when you have good, hard racing, so I think that a scenario could play out to where a caution comes out 15-20 laps prior to a stage being finished, but those top eight or 10 guys they want to keep their track position, but if we’re running 15th we can come in and take four tires and try to be aggressive and get into the points at the end of that stage. So I think you’re gonna see some scenarios like that and obviously it will be a learning curve because every race track, every tire wear is different at each race, and the segments are gonna be different lengths. We’ve talked a little bit about Daytona just being right around a fuel window, so you’re gonna have some guys that if you’re out front and you don’t have the best fuel mileage, you might have to pit versus a guy who takes a chance and tries to run midpack and save some fuel, you might be able to run that complete stage without pitting, so there’s gonna be a lot of opportunity for strategy and I think it plays into a smaller team’s wheelhouse to be able to capitalize and score some of those points. I think that would be cool.”
HOW MUCH HAVE YOU LEARNED SINCE LEAVING FRONT ROW A COUPLE OF YEARS AGO? “I think you learn a lot depending on who you’re working with and how much you want to learn, how much you’re involved. Obviously, the larger teams have more resources at their fingertips. They are a little bit more engineering driven, so they understand how things happen a little better and my time at Joe Gibbs Racing and then at MWR I definitely did learn a lot, and there was a lot of technology that I hadn’t seen or been able to use over the last couple years at Front Row, back when I drove for them in 2013 and 2014. So I felt like I did learn a lot, even manufacturers. They do things a little different. They view things a little different, so you pick up on some of that and it’s good. When you drive for the same team and the same manufacturer for six or eight years, you kind of fall into that line to where everything is the same, a lot of similarities year-in and year-out, so it was good to kind of open my eyes and see some of the different things and I look forward to working with the Front Row guys and trying to continue to help them grow their team.”
