Ford Notes and Quotes
Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series (MENCS)
NASCAR All-Star Race (Charlotte Motor Speedway; Concord, NC)
Saturday, May 19, 2018
FORD FINISHING RESULTS
1st — Kevin Harvick
3rd — Joey Logano
11th — Ricky Stenhouse Jr.
14th — Matt Kenseth
15th — Ryan Blaney
18th — Kurt Busch
19th — Clint Bowyer
20th — Brad Keselowski
KEVIN HARVICK, No. 4 Jimmy John’s Ford Fusion | Finished 1st
VICTORY LANE INTERVIEW — TAKE US THROUGH THE DECISION TO START ON THE OUTSIDE LANE AND THE DRIVE TO THE WIN. “I thought on that last restart that my best opportunity was Logano. He is one of the best on the restarts. I knew he would work with me as good as possible because that is just the way that most of us do it from Ford. We were able to just stay even through one and two and I really thought once we got to the back stretch we could clear him. I didn’t want to be on the bottom. I didn’t feel my car was stable enough to be under someone when they were on my right side. I had to take my lumps through one and two and hope that the guy behind me was still with me when we got to the exit of two and we were able to win.”
“We needed to be in control of the race to have a chance at winning. If we were third or fourth we would have been in big trouble. We needed to be on the front row with clean air because that is the only chance our car would handle good enough. It was so fast”
WHAT ARE YOUR OVERALL THOUGHTS OF THE PACKAGE? “A lot of pushing and shoving. It reminded me a lot of IROC racing back in the day. We will see what everybody thinks and go from there.”
JOEY LOGANO, No. 22 Shell Pennzoil Ford Fusion | Finished 3rd
“We wanted to be up in the lead and I thought we were in the best spot. We put tires on and the cars ahead of us didn’t have as good of tires as us. We restarted fifth and the bottom is just rough down there. We were able to push ahead and the car in front of me got pushed back and the bottom lane fell apart. I lost like five spots at least and started making them back up and got tangled up and put in the wall and got back and thought I had a decent shot there at the end hooking up with Kevin. Kevin and I always end up together at super speedway races and we did again tonight which is kind of funny. I didn’t have quite a good enough run to go three-wide and if I did the bottom lane would have gone by both of us and there would have been no gain for any of us. We wouldn’t have won anyway. My only shot was to push him ahead and try to clear the 19 which I couldn’t. If I was able to clear the 19 car I might have been able to get a run to try to pass the 4 at the end but just ran out of time. It was a hard fought night, you can tell by the right side of my car that it was hard fought. It was crazy. It is fun to race with nothing to lose. That is the best part of All-Star races. Everyone goes out there and says ‘screw it’ and all you see is money signs at the end of this race. We did not get the big bag so that kind of stinks.”
RICKY STENHOUSE JR., No. 17 Fastenal Ford Fusion | Finished 11th
“We weren’t very good tonight. We were slow. The car drove about the same with this package as it did with the other package and everybody else was just a lot faster. It was a bummer we couldn’t take that front row start and do something with it. We were kind of a moving road block out there.”
DID IT FEEL DIFFERENT TONIGHT THAN USUAL CHARLOTTE? “Yeah, it was way different. I didn’t like it. I am sure NASCAR liked it and the fans probably enjoyed it. We were all close. I am sure I would have liked it if our car drove a lot better too. It is hard to tell.”
BRAD KESELOWSKI, No. 2 Discount Tire Ford Fusion | Finished 20th (Multi-car incident on lap 74)
WHAT HAPPENED? “We stayed out on two tires and were able to hold up close to the front. Track position is super important. We got a great restart and we were passing cars. I just barely didn’t get through there. The 78 got me and tore the radiator out of the Discount Tire Ford. We will go on to normal racing next week for the 600.”
WHAT DID YOU THINK OF THE RACING PACKAGE? “You definitely seem to draft more which has its highs and lows. Track position, power and drag is super important. Give us a few weeks to work on the race cars with a package like this and I am sure we can mess it up.”
