Ford Performance NASCAR Notes and Quotes
Kobalt 400 – Las Vegas Motor Speedway
Sunday, March 12, 2017
Ford Finishing Order
4th — Joey Logano
5th — Brad Keselowski
7th — Ryan Blaney
10th — Clint Bowyer
13th — Trevor Bayne
14th — Aric Almirola
26th — Matt DiBenedetto
27th — Landon Cassill
29th — David Ragan
30th — Kurt Busch
33rd — Ricky Stenhouse
36th — Danica Patrick
38th — Kevin Harvick
KEVIN HARVICK – No. 4 Mobil 1 Ford Fusion – ANY IDEA WHAT LED TO THE TIRE GOING? “It started vibrating about four or five laps there before it blew out, and I was just trying to ride it to the end of the stage there. Obviously, it didn’t make it. The worst part was the medical response. It took them forever to get to the car. I thought we made that better, but obviously we haven’t. All in all, our Mobil 1 Annual Protection Ford was running good. We were just too loose right there. It’s not like we were even tight, so it either just cut the tire, or came apart or melted the bead.” ARE YOU OK? “Yeah, I’m fine.”
BRAD KESELOWSKI – No. 2 Miller Lite Ford Fusion — HAVE YOU BEEN ABLE TO FIND OUT WHAT BROKE? “No, they’ll have to take it apart. At the end we have to go to inspection and stuff, so we’re not allowed to look. I just know it was something major. It wouldn’t turn and I lost brakes, so that’s a pretty good indicator, but that’s the way it goes. That’s racing and that’s why you watch until the end and you never know what’s gonna happen.” ANY WAY TO DESCRIBE THE FRUSTRATION? “It’s frustrating, but you put yourself in position to win and good things will happen. That happened to us last week and didn’t happen this week, so you just pick up the pieces and move on. Luckily, they’re really big pieces. We’ve got a lot to be proud of.”
WHEN THAT HAPPENS YOU DON’T WANT TO TAKE EVERYONE OUT, BUT YOU STILL WANT TO GIVE IT EVERYTHING YOU’VE GOT. “Yeah, you just try to make the most of what you can — every day, every second. I was still trying to get the best finish I could and still lucky to come out with a top-five.”
DID YOU FEEL LIKE YOU WERE GOING TO WRECK? “I just had three-quarter speed and when everybody is charging behind you that’s gonna cause a wreck. I got of the way the best I could and I don’t know if it was enough, but I saw they wrecked. Maybe that was related and maybe it wasn’t.”
HOW WOULD YOU SUMMARIZE YOUR EFFORT? “We had a great day. We ran up front and led a lot of laps. We were the fastest car at the end and just didn’t come together. That’s part of how racing works.”
RYAN BLANEY – No. 21 Motorcraft/Quick Lane Ford Fusion – TALK ABOUT YOUR DAY, YOU HAD A REALLY GOOD CAR: “Yeah, I thought we are a little bit better than that. We had to come in early in the race and get some lug nuts back on the right front to be able to race. That put us behind. Our car was good enough and once we got back inside the top 10 I felt that we had a shot at fourth or fifth but that last restart didn’t go our way. Good car. Good effort overall. I can’t thank the Wood Brothers enough.”
CLINT BOWYER – No. 14 Haas Automation Ford Fusion – “It was a struggle. To be truthful, we weren’t the best all weekend, but we just kept digging. Bugga didn’t give up on the box and kept adjusting on it and got me pretty good, the best we’d been right there at the end. It’s a top-10 and gives us some momentum. It’s our third race together and we got a top-10, so we’ve got to keep digging.”
DANICA PATRICK – No. 10 Aspen Dental Ford Fusion – – “We just the car to a place where I think we could have got a little more racy with it, especially if we would have caught some breaks, but then it just flattened out. I just rode around the top in case I blew up, but having a teammate behind me was not ideal for the timing of it, but unfortunately it happened. We’ll just move on.”
JOEY LOGANO – No. 22 Shell/Pennzoil Ford Fusion – WHAT HAPPENED BETWEEN YOU AND KYLE BUSCH AFTER THE RACE? WHY DID KYLE THROW A PUNCH? “I don’t know. We were just racing hard there at the end. I was underneath him on the backstretch and he tried to crash me into the corner getting underneath Brad (Keselowski) there and at that point I was just trying get through the corner. I was sideways all the way through and get into him. Nothing intentional. I understand his frustration, he crashed. The same thing could have happened into 3 what he did to me.”
WHAT TRANSPIRED WITH KYLE? “There wasn’t much talking, there was a lot of swinging. I don’t know. I was racing hard there at the end with our Pennzoil Ford. Kyle and I usually race really well together. We usually never have any issues, and he tried to pin me down into the corner underneath Brad and we about crashed on entry, and then I was still trying to gather it up by the center and I was gonna spin out, so I’m trying to chase it up and he was there. It obviously wasn’t anything intentional, but obviously he thinks that, so, I don’t know, we’ll get by.”
ANY BLOWS LANDED BETWEEN THE TWO OF YOU? “None to me.”
WHEN DID YOU KNOW HE WAS COMING AFTER YOU? “You see him coming. He’s wearing the same color suit as me.”
DID YOU MOVE AWAY OR TRY TO GET AWAY FROM IT? “No, I don’t run from conflict. You just talk about it, but he wasn’t in a talking mood. He was in a fighting mood, I guess. I don’t know. Typically, you can handle this stuff like men and talk about it. You don’t have to fight, but whatever.”
ANY IDEA WHAT HAPPENED THERE? “We crashed. He came down on the entry on me to get underneath Brad and sent me for a heck of a ride on the entry and I was still trying to gather the thing up and just never got it. I was still chasing it up the race track.”
DO YOU THINK KYLE WAS SURPRISED OR WERE YOU SURPRISED WITH WHAT HAPPENED TO BRAD? “I just noticed he fell off a little bit at the end, but it’s not like he was going slow. He was still going fast and I was just trying to run my line into the corner and I got hit in the right-front before I even got into the corner by the 18, so I don’t know.”
YOU DON’T EXPECT SOMETHING LIKE THAT AFTER THE RACE. “Yeah, I guess it’s always surprising. Like I said, I’ve never had an issue with Kyle. Kyle and I have always raced really well together. We’ve never had an issue, but I guess that’s over.”
KURT BUSCH – No. 41 Monster Energy/Haas Automation Ford Fusion – “We went through a lot today. Obviously it wasn’t the day we were hoping to have with our Monster Energy/Haas Automation Ford Fusion. We didn’t have the long-run speed or the balance, and we had an electrical issue that forced us to change batteries on pit road. We kept battling, we didn’t give up. I hoped to have a better run here in front of the hometown fans.”
DAVID RAGAN – No. 38 Juice Battery Ford Fusion – “Our car was a handful all weekend. We made a lot of adjustments on all the corners, but we could never find a sweet spot. These cars are real finicky with their aero balance and splitter height, so there are a lot of things going on that once the race started we couldn’t change. But I’m proud of Juice Batteries team. They made a lot of adjustments and we were able to finish just a couple of laps down, and we’ll learn from it. We just need to work on our mile-and-a-half stuff a little bit more.”
LANDON CASSILL – No. 34 Love’s Travel Stops Ford Fusion – “I thought we had a good car and the race just kind of kept going the wrong way for us with the cautions, and then I got in the wall into turn three and gave us just enough damage that we didn’t have quite as good of a car as we had most of the race. That kind of put us back a couple spots. I still feel like we’re better than previously, and I’m looking forward to Phoenix, where we had a top-20 run last year.”
