Ford Performance NASCAR Notes and Quotes
Date: Sunday, April 9, 2017
Event: O’Reilly Auto Parts 500 (Cup Series Post Race)
Series: Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series
Location: Texas Motor Speedway (1.5-mile oval)
FORD FINISHING RESULTS
3rd Joey Logano
4th Kevin Harvick
6th Brad Keselowski
10th Kurt Busch
11th Clint Bowyer
12th Ryan Blaney (stage 1 winner, stage 2 winner)
13th Trevor Bayne
14th Ricky Stenhouse Jr.
18th Aric Almirola
24th Danica Patrick
28th David Ragan
29th Landon Cassill
31st Matt DiBenedetto
RYAN BLANEY (No. 21 Motorcraft/Quick Lane Ford Fusion) – Finished 12th
“That last pit stop was pretty discouraging. We got back in that third debris caution. I don’t know what it was there at the end of segment two and that made everybody have split strategies and we got in the back and couldn’t pass anybody. It was terrible to try to pass people. We made our way up to seventh or eight and then pitted and I got into our box too long and we were wedged in between two cars. I was over the line by a few inches. That sucked. I put us in that hole. We probably should have stayed out looking back on it but that is easy to do. I think it says a lot about this Motorcraft Quick Lane team about how good a car we had today. If you had asked me yesterday I wouldn’t have said we would win two stages and have one of the fastest cars. They made really good changes this morning and that definitely says a lot. I am excited to get to Bristol in a couple weeks and see what we can do.”
JOEY LOGANO (No. 22 Shell Pennzoil Ford Fusion) – Finished 3rd
“That is Todd’s (Gordon) top-three there. He did a good job giving us a shot to win. I tried to hold of the 48, he was just faster. There is nothing to say besides that. I was in the clean and had the clean air and he was still faster behind me. Once he passed me, my car kind of came to me a little bit and I was able to run him back down a little bit. If he had made a mistake I was going to be there. He was loose, I could tell, then all of a sudden he wasn’t loose anymore. He must have lowered his track bar or something and he drove away again. My car started falling off like it did all day. I needed a 15 lap run instead of a 30 lap run, or a couple cautions in three and we would be standing in victory lane with a 12th place car and that would have been something. We just have to get faster. We weren’t fast and that is why we didn’t win. We had a good execution race, something we haven’t had really all year. We executed and finished third with a car that wasn’t as fast as we have had all year.”
TODD GORDON (Crew chief, No. 22 Shell Pennzoil Ford Fusion) – YOUR DRIVER SAID YOU GET CREDIT FOR THIS TOP-THREE FINISH TODAY. “Well, you have to give him a good race car and if you can’t do that you have to work on something else. We were a little off on speed and balance, especially in traffic. Repaves you worry about aero so much that I think we got a little off on where our balance needed to be. He dug all day long and the opportunity was there. When we went long on the first pit stop there in the last stage, the final part of the race, we actually picked up speed once we got clean air. Once everyone got of the track it was good for us. We took that opportunity to take the next fuel cell as long as we could and the caution came out with single digits on our tires. I thought it was a good opportunity to cycle ourselves forward. I think track position dictated a lot of what was going to happen. Kudos to Chad and the 48. They had a fast race car and drove from the back to the front a couple times and earned the win. We manufactured a little something with pit strategy and everybody dug hard all day and did their job.”
KEVIN HARVICK (No. 4 Jimmy John’s Ford Fusion) – Finished 4th
“I think the racing was better than it could have been. The track did a great job getting the race track ready. It could have been like it was all day Friday and were able to get that second groove coming in. I think we overachieved today. The only chance we had today was to have clean air. Our car was very sensitive to the track and two tires. I was able to run out front and I could go okay then but in traffic I really struggled off the corner.”
BRAD KESELOWSKI (No. 2 Miller Lite Ford Fusion) – Finished 6th
“We just kind of seemed stuck in that fifth or sixth place range for most of the race. We were fighting a few things and got a little better there at the end and maybe had a little bit more in the tank there if there was a little bit of time left but we just ran out of laps.”
KURT BUSCH (No. 41 Monster Energy Ford Fusion) – Finished 10th
“We didn’t have any mistakes. We didn’t have to battle too hard on the handling. We may have tried to stay out to get points in segment two and might have hurt us in the long run. We had to build all our spots back the second half of the race. The 48 was on the same sequence as us and he is the race winner. I would say we did good today. I know we can do better. I am happy about a top-10. Now we will go to some of our favorite short tracks.”
RYAN BLANEY POST RACE PRESS CONFERENCE – YOU WON THE FIRST TWO STAGES. PROBABLY NOT THE FINISH YOU WANTED, BUT TALK ABOUT YOUR DAY AND THE TRACK CONFIGURATION AND HOW IT PLAYED OUT. “Yeah, I thought the start of our day was really strong. We made really good adjustments overnight and this morning to get our car where it needed to be. If you would have asked me if we would have been so good at the first two stages yesterday, I wouldn’t have thought so, and that definitely means a lot. It teaches us a lot what we need to do as far as changes from practice to race. It definitely helped being up front, as well. Once we got that caution before the second segment, a lot of guys pitted and there was a lot of mixed strategies, and we decided to try to win the segment, which I thought was important to get those point and an extra bonus point, and I thought we had enough of the race to go to try to work our way back up through there, and I think we got to eighth or something like that before the last caution, and I slid through our pit box, and that was an unfortunate deal. We were kind of pinned in between the 4 and the 88 and there was a weird angle and I just stopped a little deep, and I hurt us on that one for sure. But we just weren’t able to pass anybody after that. No one really could do that. I would have liked to have seen it widen out a little bit more than it did today. I know if you tried to move up half a lane to a lane it wasn’t really good, but hopefully in time that gets better and better. Not a bad day for us. It’s nice to win a couple segments, but I want to lead the last lap. That’s the lap I care about, but I thought we made a big gain today as a team.”
RYAN, COULD YOU JUST TALK ABOUT FOR YOU HOW IMPORTANT IT IS TO WIN STAGES LIKE THAT AND PUT THOSE POINTS IN THE BANK? “I think it’s really helpful for everybody. Helps you for the playoffs. It helps you throughout the race. You know, that was 20 points we gained right there. It’s just really, really helpful for your kind of long‑term outlook on things, and to go and hold the 4 and 78 off and then the 48 that last restart before segment 2, that showed how strong our car was. So it definitely means a lot to everybody I feel like, and it’s nice to be a part of a couple stage wins with the 21 car. It means a lot.”
YOU LED 140-PLUS LAPS TODAY, DOES THAT DO ANYTHING FOR YOU CONFIDENCE‑WISE? DOES IT DO ANYTHING FOR THE TEAM CONFIDENCE‑WISE? “I think so. You know, we didn’t finish where we wanted to by a long shot, but the positives you look at was how good our car was and how our adjustments were today. I thought our adjustments were really strong throughout the race. The track changed a little bit, so we were able to stay on top of that while we were out front. Yeah, it’s definitely the most laps we’ve led. It’s nice to start up front. It’s a big product of starting up front, especially here at this racetrack the way it is now. But like I said, I don’t care if we lead just one lap as long as it’s the last one. We can lead 300 something. But we just weren’t in position to have the right lap led today.”
DO YOU LEAVE HERE FEELING MORE ENCOURAGED THAN DISCOURAGED BECAUSE OF WHAT YOU WERE ABLE TO DO TODAY AND HOW WELL YOU RAN? “Yeah, I think so. It’s not where you want to finish. We deserved to finish third at worst. Our car, at its worst point was a third place car. You definitely think about that and are discouraged about that. At the same time you’ve got to look at the positives, and I think this is the most positive race we’ve ever had as a team, as a whole organization. This whole weekend has been pretty decent, and like I said, I thought we made big gains overnight of changing our race car where it needed to be to run up front, but I definitely think this is a big confidence boost for everybody, especially after last week at Martinsville, how it ended up. I think this is a big help for everybody. You can’t hold your head down about this one I don’t think.”
IN HINDSIGHT, DO YOU PERHAPS WISH THAT YOU HAD PITTED BEFORE THE END OF THAT SECOND STAGE RATHER THAN STAYING OUT BECAUSE OF WHAT IT COST YOU IN TRACK POSITION? “It’s easy to look back on it and say, oh, we should have done this, should have done that. Now I say we should have stayed out the last caution and might have had a better shot at it. But you can’t really change any of that now. Yeah, in hindsight, to answer your question, that was kind of a judgment call. You give up a stage win and 10 point and a bonus point for the playoffs to try to set yourself for the end of the race. We thought we had enough time after segment 2 to try to work our way back up through there, and a restart actually after segment 2 really went bad for us. We got jumbled up in 1 and 2 and let a lot of cars get by. That was kind of the deciding factor I feel like. I let a lot of good cars get by like the 48 and 42 and 24, and that hurt us more, I think, than anything was that restart after segment 2 when we had to check up big in 1 and 2. I thought we made the right call to stay out there and try to win that segment. I’m for that.”
ARE YOU ENCOURAGED BY YOUR RECENT PERFORMANCES, ESPECIALLY MOVING FORWARD TO BRISTOL, RICHMOND, TALLADEGA, AND THEN CHARLOTTE, AND THEN ALSO, DID RUNNING THE XFINITY RACE YESTERDAY MAKE YOU STRONGER TODAY? “Yes, I feel like our past couple weeks, even though we haven’t gotten the great finishes we deserve, I felt like our cars have been really, really fast. I thought it said a lot about our team and car last week to run good at Martinsville. The first half of the race where I’ll publicly say it’s my worst racetrack, and that’s the racetrack I look forward to going to the least on the schedule, and to run well there, that definitely was a help, and then to have a fast car here has been really good. We’re great in the first half of races, we just need to figure out how to finish them off, and that’s tough part to do. That’s where I think some of these great teams really rise up and can finish races and position themselves for the end of these races, and with this team, I feel like we’re getting better at that. Fast cars definitely help, we just have to try to find ourselves in position to be up front towards the end and to have a fast enough car to try to compete for a win.”
“I forgot to answer the second part of the last question. The XFINITY race did help out a lot, running that yesterday. I definitely got done with that race and we had a meeting right after to figure out what we were going to do for today and changes, and we did a lot of things that our XFINITY car needed, and I felt like that helped out for today. So yeah, that was a big, big gain for us to run the XFINITY cars, so that was good.”
I WANTED TO ASK YOU WHAT YOU WERE DOING ON YOUR OFF WEEK, AND IF YOU FEEL LIKE THIS IS KIND OF THE BEST WAY TO HAVE AN OFF WEEK IN TERMS OF TAKING THE MOMENTUM. “What am I doing in my off week? I don’t know. I don’t like being at home, so I’ll probably go somewhere and do something. I was going to go to London with Chase, and then he bailed, so that was nice. But he didn’t want to go over there. I thought that would have been pretty neat to go. I’ve never been to London before. I don’t know, maybe go to Colorado or something or a friend of ours is playing a show in Knoxville, Tennessee. I’ve never been to Knoxville before, so I might go there. Yeah, it’s encouraging to have really fast race cars and know that we can build off of this, so it’s better than running 20th all day and wondering where everything went wrong. So I don’t think it’s a bad time to have an off week. Honestly, I wish we were racing next week just because you’re in that mode and you want to go, go, go, but I think it might be nice for everyone to kind of wind down, and it’s really good for the teams. They’ve been working super hard, and it’s good for them to get an off week and spend a week with their family.”
