Ford Performance MENCS Notes and Quotes
Sport Clips Haircuts VFW 200 – Darlington Raceway
Saturday, September 2, 2017
Ford Finishing Results:
2nd – Joey Logano
3rd – Kevin Harvick
9th – Cole Custer
15th – Ryan Reed
KEVIN HARVICK – No. 41 Hunt Brothers Pizza Ford Mustang – DESCRIBE THE EBBS AND FLOW TODAY? “Yeah, we had a great Hunt Brothers Ford. I want to thank Hunt Brothers and Fields and Bad Boy Off Road, Ford, Morton Buildings, everybody from Stewart-Haas Racing and Haas Automation for just letting us run this thing. It just didn’t wind up working out there at the end. I wound up on the bottom and I kept my foot in it over there, got loose underneath the 20. We weren’t the strongest for five or 10 laps and that didn’t really work out with that short run there at the end and we got stuck on the bottom. We got loose and then we got freight-trained, but just a great car. It wound up being a great race and that’s all you can ask for.”
JOEY LOGANO – No. 22 Fitzgerald Ford Mustang – “Obviously, second hurts. We want to win every one of them and we just got out-motored. He went through the gear box and got position on me and off he went. He had me at his right-rear quarter, which allowed him to stay wide open and clear me. I thought I had a run down the backstretch. He knew what I was thinking and I knew what he was thinking. I was just hoping that I got up to the wall and was able to rotate when I got there, but I just got tight when I got there.” ANY OTHER OPTIONS AT THAT POINT WHEN HE KNOWS YOUR MOVE? “It’s either that or wreck each other. It’s one or the other. Denny and I usually race each other pretty well, so we were gonna race each other clean for the win.”
RYAN REED – No. 16 Lilly Diabetes Ford Mustang – ‘It’s a tough day overall. I think the biggest thing we fought was track position. At times we had a pretty good car, but we played the game with tires trying to get track position. I think it worked, but we got hit leaving pit road and had to come down and kind of abort all the track position that we had just got. It’s unfortunate. We still had some bad luck, but to persevere and finish 15th after getting mired back like that was still a good day. I appreciate everyone on the race team and we’ll get ‘em next week.”
COLE CUSTER – No. 00 Haas Automation Ford Mustang – “We started off fairly decent. We just needed that run to go green that first run. I honestly didn’t know what the track was gonna do and we changed our car. The next run we made a wrong adjustment just because I was probably saying the wrong thing. We put it back and were pretty decent. I wouldn’t say we were a winning car, but I think we would have been a fifth to seventh-place car. We just needed the restarts to go our way a little bit better there at the end. Overall, it was a solid day. I wanted a little bit better, but it is what it is.”
JOEY LOGANO PRESS CONFERENCE – “It was fun. It’s Darlington. It’s always a lot of fun. You’re slipping and sliding. Even when there is no one around you, it’s still a pretty fun race track to go around. You’re right on the edge and right up next to the wall. It was a good race for us. Our Fitzgerald Mustang was good on the short runs, really bad on the long runs, and the race played out to be a short run race. Our pit crew was unbelievable and along with pit stall one was able to get us the lead towards the end. I had a good restart and was able to clear Kevin and then there’s a caution and you kind of have to expect that toward the end of these things. We had one more restart and William didn’t push me (laughing). I’m just kidding, but you didn’t (laughing). Denny had a good restart and they were able to just use that big power and be able to pull me back and be able to have position into turn one. I thought it wasn’t over yet and I got underneath him off of two there coming to the last lap. I went into three. He knew my play. I knew his play. He knew I was gonna slide up. That was kind of the only one I had, so he checked up and turned down underneath me. I was hoping I would get to the wall and carry some momentum. Maybe I should have just kept it to the wood and rode the wall, I don’t know, but overall I guess second always stinks, but probably a pretty good finish considering where we were in practice and where we qualified. We maximized our day. I just wish it was a win.”
DID YOU EVEN ALLOW YOURSELF TO THINK YOU WOULD WIN ON THAT NEXT-TO-LAST RESTART WHEN YOU BROKE AWAY CLEAN? “Oh, yeah. I was six, seven, eight car lengths ahead and that’s when you pray for no caution and then you see in the mirror there’s just smoke and everything. I’m like, ‘Please, don’t hit that hard.’ You’re just hoping no one spun out and they were able to keep it green, but they pretty much had to throw the caution. I guess there was stuff all over the track, so you let yourself think that because you look in the mirror and you’ve got eight car lengths. You say, ‘Alright, I’ve got this thing as long as there isn’t another caution,’ and, of course, there was.”
HOW HOT WAS IT IN THE CAR AND HOW WILL YOU PREPARE FOR TOMORROW? “I felt pretty good. I ran AC today and it felt really nice. I felt plenty good inside the car. I’ll drink a lot of water tonight and be plenty good for tomorrow night. We’ve got plenty of time. The real bear would have been if it rained today and we raced two races on Sunday. Tomorrow’s race feels like the longest race of the year. Five hundred miles around Darlington, it doesn’t get much tougher than that. I’m glad that we were able to race today and we weren’t looking at a doubleheader for tomorrow.”
DID YOU LEARN ANYTHING FOR TOMORROW? “I did. I choose to run Darlington. Between Blaney, Brad and myself we fight for Darlington every year. We all want to run this race, mainly because we only come here once a year and that comfort feeling that William was talking about – getting that comfort feeling running up top. The more laps you run, the more comfortable you get and understanding what lines move on restarts and where you want to be. As the track changed, we talk about this place kind of being a one-groove race track, but it’s widened out. Even one and two has widened out that you can run a couple different lanes through there. For the most part, refresh your memory because it’s been a year since we’ve been here, so I feel it’s definitely an advantage to run this one. Some race tracks maybe not as much and for some people maybe it’s not an advantage to run this race, but, for me, I feel like it helps get me a little more comfortable on this odd-shaped track that we don’t come to much.”
