Ford Performance MENCS Notes and Quotes
ISM Connect 300 Qualifying – New Hampshire Motor Speedway
Friday, September 22, 2017
Ford Qualifying Results:
4th – Ryan Blaney
6th – Kevin Harvick
7th – Kurt Busch
13th – Brad Keselowski
16th – Clint Bowyer
21st – David Ragan
23rd – Trevor Bayne
24th – Ricky Stenhouse Jr.
26th – Matt DiBenedetto
27th – Danica Patrick
28th – Landon Cassill
29th – Aric Almirola
39th – Joey Logano (Did Not Make a Qualifying Attempt)
BRAD KESELOWSKI – No. 2 Miller Lite Ford Fusion – “We missed it everywhere. We couldn’t find what we needed, but we seem to race really well here. I haven’t really qualified all that well here lately, but it’s been one of my best qualifying tracks, but not today.” THE TEMPERATURE WILL BE MUCH HOTTER ON SUNDAY. HOW DIFFERENT WILL IT BE? “It’s definitely not going to gain any grip over the weekend, but that’s part of how it goes and part of the challenge. I think the track will just get more and more difficult to drive and the crutch that is the grip strip will go away and hopefully that will suit us.”
RYAN BLANEY – No. 21 Motorcraft/Quick Lane Ford Fusion – “I thought we made good gains through the rounds and that’s something to be proud of for sure. We just didn’t pick up speed in the last round. We had good speed in the second one and some other guys went faster the last round and we kind of stayed the same. But we made some good adjustments. I think that’s the best we’ve ever qualified here, so that’s something to look forward to and we have a good spot for Sunday.”
KEVIN HARVICK – No. 4 Jimmy John’s Ford Fusion – “I’m happy that we ran our fastest lap there at the end of the whole weekend so far. That’s the time to do it. I just can’t get it all timed right. I feel like the car is faster than I am right now. I’m just not in a really smooth rhythm with all the PJ1 in the high lane and the low lane. I feel like I’m personally leaving time on the race track, so that’s a good thing. I feel like the car is driving good.”
KURT BUSCH – No. 41 Haas Automation/Monster Energy Ford Fusion – “I really tried to attack that final round. What’s the difference between second and 12th at Loudon, not much I don’t think, but it just wouldn’t hold it. I couldn’t quite get the entry right and just washed up the track a little bit at both ends, trying to push too hard. I feel like you’ve got to give it everything and we didn’t second-guess anything. If we would have hit it just right, we might have been fourth or so, but our guys really tried everything today with shock changes, swaybar changes, spring changes, we tried a lot in just a short amount of time. These are all the ideas we’ve sorted out to try and a lot of them relate to race trim, so we’ll go after it from here.”
DAVID RAGAN – No. 38 Camping World/Good Sam Ford Fusion – “Our Camping World/Good Sam Ford was solid. We made a couple good adjustments from practice and made a good prediction on where the track was going to be with the VHT. So, that was a good lap. Lap times are separated by very small increments here, so we were able to kind of be on the good side of things. We can work on it some more tomorrow and hopefully get it into pretty good shape for the race on Sunday.”
