Ford Performance MENCS Notes and Quotes
Bojangles’ Southern 500 Qualifying – Darlington Raceway
Saturday, September 2, 2017
Ford Qualifying Results:
1st – Kevin Harvick
6th – Brad Keselowski
7th – Kurt Busch
8th – Joey Logano
12th – Ryan Blaney
14th – Ricky Stenhouse Jr.
15th – Aric Almirola
16th – Clint Bowyer
24th – Trevor Bayne
26th – David Ragan
28th – Matt DiBenedetto
31st – Landon Cassill
33rd – Danica Patrick
KEVIN HARVICK – No. 4 Busch Beer Ford Fusion – POLE WINNING PRESS CONFERENCE – “It feels pretty good. We’re on the pole. It’s been a good start to the weekend for us and the car is driving good and we w’re able to put three laps together. Everything is going well.”
YOU’VE WON THIS RACE BEFORE. IS TRACK POSITION EVER AN ADVANTAGE HERE AT DARLINGTON? “Track position is never a disadvantage no matter if it’s high tire wear, low tire wear the biggest advantage here is the first pit stall because the timing line is so close to the pit exit there with the first stall. So that’s really the biggest advantage. I think if your car is handling good, you can make your way through traffic, but having that first pit stall if you car is not handling good, it allows you to make up two or three spots if you have a decent pit stop and hopefully keep that track position all night. That’s really the biggest advantage.”
WHEN YOU WENT INTO THE SEASON WITH THE CHANGE TO FORD WAS IT YOUR HOPE THAT AT THIS POINT IN THE SEASON YOU WOULD BE GETTING TO WHERE YOU ARE OR DID YOU THINK YOU MIGHT BE A LITTLE BIT BETTER? “I knew there was a lot of work that had gone into everything with the switchover. Mentally, I was prepared to have it go either way. It could have gone either way and it could have been a lot worse than it has been. We’ve performed relatively well for the amount of workload and the amount of things that have gone into switching manufacturers for all four teams, taking our chassis shop on and adding engineers. A lot of things are different, so I think there’s still obviously a lot of work to do, but I think our window of improvement is still rather large and I don’t know that you’ll ever get there by the end of the year. It’s almost like you need a break. I think we’ll continue to get better and it’s just a matter of how much better you get and it’s obviously the right time of year to have those improvements that you want coming towards your cars. It’s just a matter of how much everybody else has left to improve in their cars. I think we have the opportunity to improve as much as anybody.”
JOEY LOGANO – No. 22 Shell/Pennzoil Ford Fusion – “We didn’t make any qualifying runs and we got something decent for today. In race trim we fell off really hard on the long run, so we’ve still got some more time to work on it. We just need to keep looking forward and see if we can get better. Anything can happen in this race. There’s limited sets of tires and you never know what can happen. Hopefully, we can get enough speed in our car and have the right strategy and the right tires at the right time.”
RYAN BLANEY – No. 21 Motorcraft/Quick Lane Ford Fusion – “We didn’t have a lot of speed really the whole time and we ended up 12th. We actually got worse the last round which is unfortunate.” ANY PARTICULARLY DIFFICULT SPOTS ON THE TRACK FOR YOU TODAY? “I don’t know. We just seemed to lose speed everywhere.” WHAT IS YOUR OUTLOOK FOR THE RACE TOMORROW? “Don’t hit the fence.”
KURT BUSCH – No. 41 Monster Energy Ford Fusion – “I thought that was a good three rounds for us. We’ve been kind of struggling in qualifying trying to get consistency out of each of the rounds. We might be good in one of them, but not all three so that was a good adjustment we made in the second round. In the final round we were spot-on in one and two and just overcompensated a little bit in three and four and got a little tight. When you’re a little tight with this group, you don’t end up top-five, but it’s a good, solid starting position and I’m happy with the way we had some good communication during the off weekend.”
