Ford Notes and Quotes
Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series (MENCS)
AAA 400 MENCS POST RACE QUOTES (Dover International Speedway)
Sunday, May 6, 2018
FORD FINISHING RESULTS
1st — Kevin Harvick
2nd — Clint Bowyer
5th — Kurt Busch
6th — Brad Keselowski
8th — Ryan Blaney
11th — Aric Almirola
13th — Joey Logano
15th — Ricky Stenhouse Jr.
19th — Trevor Bayne
22nd — Michael McDowell
27th — David Ragan
29th — Matt DiBenedetto
34th –Paul Menard
HARVICK TAKES FORD TO SERIES-LEADING SIXTH WIN OF 2018
- Kevin Harvick won his fourth race of the season and sixth with Ford after today’s triumph in Dover.
- Ford now has a series-best six wins in 2018.
- This is the second time Harvick and Clint Bowyer have finished 1-2 with Ford with the last time being at Sonoma last season.
- In addition, this is the second 1-2 finish for Ford in 2018 as Harvick and Brad Keselowski did it at Atlanta Motor Speedway (Bowyer was third).
- The win marks his 41st career Cup Series triumph and his 102nd career NASCAR National Series win.
- This marks the 8th win for Stewart-Haas Racing since joining Ford last year.
- The win is Fusion’s 95th Cup Series triumph since becoming Ford’s flagship vehicle in 2006.
- Today’s win is Ford’s 664th all-time in Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series competition.
KEVIN HARVICK, No. 4 Jimmy John’s Ford Fusion — RACE WINNER (VICTORY LANE INTERVIEW)
HOW DID YOU GET IT DONE TO WIN BY SEVEN SECONDS? “The first thing I’ve got to do is just thank everybody on my team — everybody at Stewart-Haas Racing, Roush Yates Engines, everybody from Ford for just continuing to put the effort that they put into these cars. Three cars in the top five says a lot about where we are as a company, but everybody from Jimmy John’s and Busch and Ford, Fields, Haas, Mobil 1, Morton Buildings, Textron Off-Road, Liftmaster and the fans, especially. It was great to see those fans stick around for the finish, but it’s fun racing your teammate. That says a lot about our company and one of your good friends as well. I just want to say hi to DeLana, Keelan, and Piper at home. I’ll be home in a little bit.”
ANOTHER MONSTER COMING HOME TO KEELAN. “Yeah, this time don’t break his arm, Keelan.”
CLINT BOWYER, No. 14 Haas Automation Demo Day Ford Fusion — Finished 2nd
WHAT WAS IT LIKE THE LAST FEW LAPS SINCE THE RAIN DELAY? “Cleary, Kevin was up front was the car to beat most of the day. It was our first shot at tires and taking off in clean air. It makes a big difference. When your back in dirty air mired in traffic like we were most of the day it’s tough. Hats off to everyone at Stewart-Haas Racing. These Ford Fusions are fun to drive. The Haas Automation Demo Day was fun to drive. We won with this paint scheme in Martinsville and thought we were going to win with it again today. We keep knocking of the door like today we’ll get another win.”
KURT BUSCH, No. 41 Monster Energy/Haas Automation Ford Fusion — Finished 5th
TALK ABOUT YOUR EFFORT TODAY: “It’s all about the team effort. Good day for us. The way that the pit stops went we had to come back from a penalty. Restarts went fair the early part of the race and went good in the latter part. Those restarts are close quarters and you need to grab spots then. These cars are really aero-sensitive. Thanks to Haas Automation and Ford we had a top-five day.”
DID THE TRACK CHANGE MUCH AFTER THE RAIN DELAY? “It made it feel like it was the first run of the day. The car went through a lot of mood changes after the rain delay all on that one, 80-lap run.”
BRAD KESELOWSKI, No. 2 Miller Lite Ford Fusion — Finished 6th
TALK ABOUT YOUR RUN: “We led some laps which was good. We kind of fell apart on the last two runs. We’ll just keep working on it.”
HOW DID THE RAIN AFFECT YOUR CAR ON THE LAST RUN? “It wasn’t a big deal for us. It was equal and fair for everyone. NASCAR did a good job cleaning the track up and getting us going.”
RICKY STENHOUSE JR., No. 17 Little Hug Fruit Barrels Ford Fusion — Finished 15th
“Our Little Hug Fruit Barrels was fast right off the bat. Starting fifth set us up for the race. I feel like we’ve had a top-15 to top-10 car throughout the race. We decided to stay out on that caution not to use up another set of tires. We had a great restart. I tried to gap myself as much as I could knowing that the guys on four tires were going to be coming. I wish it would have rained really bad when I was leading (laughs). All in all, we gained a lot of track position making that strategy call. It’s been a decent day for us. A decent weekend.”
TREVOR BAYNE, No. 6 AdvoCare Ford Fusion — Finished 19th
“We just didn’t have any grip when the track rubbered up. Every time the track cleaned up for a few laps we would be OK, but the more rubber got down the worse our performance was. We just couldn’t get the car to turn in the middle like we needed it to and every time we tried to make it turn better we just took the back end out and got it too loose in and never fixed the center. I fought being on the splitter early in the run all race long and that hurt us, so we finished 19th. That’s not the day we wanted for sure, but we also gave it everything we had.”
