Ford Performance NASCAR Notes and Quotes
Service King 300 – Auto Club Speedway
Saturday, March 25, 2017
Ford Finishing Results
2nd – Joey Logano
6th – Darrell Wallace Jr.
14th – Casey Mears
15th – Ryan Reed
35th – Cole Custer
COLE CUSTER – No. 00 Haas Automation Ford Mustang – WHAT HAPPENED? “I just got hooked going into the corner. I think I hit him (Ryan Sieg) a tick just on my side draft going off of four and then he decided just to hook us going into turn one and wreck us. It is what it is, but we’ll just move on. We had an awesome Haas Automation Ford Mustang. I thought we could have competed for a win there. We had a bad pit stop. We were gonna work our way back up there, but just got our day ended by a clown move.”
THIS IS TWO WEEKS IN A ROW. WHAT NEEDS TO GIVE? “Last week it was all my fault and I’ll take that all on me. Today it was just a clown. I don’t understand what his reasoning was to pay us back that much, but that’s just a joke.”
JOEY LOGANO – No. 22 Discount Tire Ford Mustang – PRESS CONFERENCE – “I vote for two races at Auto Club Speedway. I’ll be the first to say that. What an awesome race track. It’s so much fun. You can run anywhere you want. The racing is great. There is tire falloff. There are bumps. There’s everything here. It’s the perfect race track. I wish we came here more often because it’s the best race track we go to, so I’m excited about racing tomorrow. I’m mad about not winning today is the best way to put it. We had such a fast Discount Tire Ford today. We qualified really good and obviously led a lot of laps. We had the fastest car and didn’t win the race. There’s a lot to look back at and understand exactly why. Obviously, execution plays a big role in these races. You can have the fastest car and if you don’t execute, you don’t win. Today, we didn’t execute well at all and we were lucky to finish second.”
HOW DID YOU GET BACK TO THE FRONT EACH TIME? “It was a lot of fun. I was getting ready for tomorrow. It was just a real fast car and a little bit of experience around this race track helps me and knowing where to go on these restarts, and then not really caring – just hammer down, basically. Put it up there on the top and let her eat. That’s pretty much what I did. I was able to pass quite a few cars and get ourselves back in the lead from going to the back, got back to the front, went to the back, got back to the front, and it really all came down to that last restart. What’s his number? 23? Yeah, I don’t know about that move. That wasn’t a good move. I don’t know what they were thinking, but that maybe wasn’t the best play at this race track. I knew he was gonna spin them. There’s no way he couldn’t. It wasn’t his fault. He was a sitting duck and I was a sitting duck behind him that lost too much track position on that restart being too far behind Kyle. If not for that, we would have probably been door-to-door across the line bumping and banging or something. We were able to catch Larson the last few laps. We were definitely faster, but I needed another lap, maybe two.”
WHAT WAS GOING THROUGH YOUR MIND WITH 10 LAPS TO GO? IT LOOKED LIKE YOU HAD HIM? “I knew he was a little better than us. I think he had two or three lap better tires than me, which was surprising that he continued to stay faster the whole run. We raced the heck out of each other. I had a lot of fun racing with him. It was a good time, and he was faster than me. I was just trying to mix up my lanes and get around cars and around lapped cars and stuff like that. Eventually, he cleared me. Once he cleared me, he was gonna drive away, so once he cleared me I said, ‘Shoot, this thing is over unless there’s a caution,’ and it wasn’t a half a straightaway later the caution came out and I said, ‘All right, we’re back in it,’ but we weren’t able to start on the front row.”
CAN YOU TALK ABOUT MARTINSVILLE NEXT WEEK? “That’s a lot smaller than here. I haven’t thought a whole bunch about it. It’s a very tough race track. A lot of the race depends on the temperature outside and how that race plays out. Typically, it’s cold at this race, but who knows? It’s a fun race track – a lot of bumping and banging, that’s for sure.”
IT WAS AMAZING WATCHING YOU RUN THROUGH THE FIELD. HOW WERE YOU ABLE TO DO THAT? “More throttle and less brake usually makes you go faster. It was just getting in the right line at the right time and keeping the momentum. That’s what this XFINITY racing is – and anytime you go to a big two-mile race track it’s all about mo and keeping that momentum going and we were able to keep that rolling while the cars were side-by-side and stuff like that. We were able to keep the momentum going.”
WAS IT GOOD FOR YOU AND KYLE BUSCH TO HAVE A GOOD SIDE-BY-SIDE BATTLE AND KEEP IT CLEAN? “Anytime you race against someone that you obviously have a scuffle with or whatever you want to call it in the past, it’s healthy to race against each other in the future. I thought we raced the heck out of each other today and raced clean and raced for a win and a lead and there were no issues. That’s good. We raced each other like we typically do and it wasn’t a problem.”
DID YOU LEARN ANYTHING FOR TOMORROW? “It all depends on the amount of cautions. This race, we thought, talking with crew chief Greg Erwin before the race, we were trying to figure out if there’s a caution in the middle of a stage what was gonna happen? You wanted to make sure you had tires at the end of the race so you had something to race with because if that late-race caution came out at the end and you didn’t have any tires left, you’d look like the 23, so you had to make sure you had tires left at the end of the race. That’s key when you’re calling a race, so tomorrow there may be a point that, depending on how cautions fall out, that you’re going to have to maybe save a set if you have to.”
SEVERAL CAR FIRES TODAY. ANY IDEA WHY? “I don’t know. When you crash pretty hard usually lines break and oil lines break and it catches fire. Oil gets on the headers or fuel lines maybe break loose. That’s usually what starts a fire is the lines in the car breaking or motors blowing up or whatever it may be. It’s just ironic, I think.”
DARRELL WALLACE JR. – No. 6 Leidos Ford Mustang – “Another sixth-place finish. This is crazy, but after the day we had today – I messed up so bad on pit road. Luckily, we had a reset there and I told them, ‘This is our time right here, let’s make the most of it,’ and we had a really good stop. I think we picked up some spots there, and held on for that finish that we keep getting – a sixth-place finish. It was a great effort from my Leidos guys. We didn’t have the best Ford Mustang in the field, but we’re making gains. That’s constantly what we’re doing. We were a little bit off in speed from last year here, and even though it’s not as good of a finish, it’s a really good finish for us from last year. It’s good to come out of here. I’m wore out. I’m ready to get home and have somewhat of an off weekend, but what a good day here in California for our Ford Mustang.”
RYAN REED – No. 16 Lilly/American Diabetes Association Ford Mustang – “It was kind of a long day. We were never all that great, but towards the end we made our way up towards 12th and then the 33 wrecked in front of us and clipped us. Really, we didn’t have all that much damage, but they fixed it on that last stop and there were only a few laps to go when we went back green, so we restarted 25th or something. It just wasn’t very good luck.”
CASEY MEARS – No. 98 Geico Military Ford Mustang – “I think it was good. We all want more. I think in my mind with this program and the resources they have I feel like we can be an eighth to 12th-place car if we hit it right. We missed it a little bit to start, but they made good changes at the end and got the car quite a bit better and it was a solid day. It’s fun to have Geico supporting us again going into this season. Those guys have been awesome and it’s a good start. This is the first time in the car. I haven’t been in an XFINITY car for a long time, so it’s a good start and I had some fun today.”
