Ford Notes and Quotes
Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series (MENCS)
2018 NASCAR Playoff Media Day (Las Vegas, NV)
Thursday, September 13, 2018
FORD QUALIFYING RESULTS
2nd JOEY LOGANO
5th KEVIN HARVICK
6th RYAN BLANEY
8th KURT BUSCH
13th BRAD KESELOWSKI
14th RICKY STENHOUSE JR.
15th CLINT BOWYER
16th ARIC ALMIROLA
20th PAUL MENARD
23rd TREVOR BAYNE
24th MICHAEL MCDOWELL
26th MATT DIBENEDETTO
27th DAVID RAGAN
JOEY LOGANO, No. 22 Pennzoil Ford Fusion — Qualified 2nd
“Just not quite fast enough. I hate being what, three-thousandths of a second off. I don’t know what that is in distance on the race track but it can’t be much. I am proud of the effort everyone has put into this car. We have a good Pennzoil Ford to run here at Vegas. I am excited about that. Just didn’t finish the turn quite good enough. Got into the corner and turned the first part alright but couldn’t finish the center to the deepest point of the corner. So we will start second and race from there.”
KEVIN HARVICK, No. 4 Mobil 1 Ford Fusion — Qualified 5th
“It was good. We fought tight the whole time and at the last one I got it in there a little too high in turn one and could never really get it back to the bottom but it was still a good lap.”
RYAN BLANEY, No. 12 PPG Ford Fusion — Qualified 6th
“Not bad. We got a little bit better each round except for that last round. I wish I could have had the last round back, I thought our car was better than where we ended up. I didn’t get one and two very good. I am proud of the speed so far. We have been close. We have been in contention so far this weekend, just nobody has been in race trim yet so we will have to wait and see tomorrow.
KURT BUSCH, No. 41 Haas Automation Ford Fusion — Qualified 8th
“I was hoping for a little better lap time on that third outing. The car felt okay. I knew I didn’t attack the track for a pole run and was hoping we could be top-five. We ended up eighth which is nothing to be ashamed of. We were right there on the balance with the front sliding and rear sliding. I thought we did a good job. It is playoff time and when you are off a little bit you are going to be P8.”
JOEY LOGANO POST QUALIFYING PRESS CONFERENCE
JOEY LOGANO, No. 22 Pennzoil Ford Fusion — WERE YOU PLEASED WITH YOUR SPEED TODAY? IS THIS A SURPRISE AT ALL TO YOU BASED ON YOUR RECENT RESULTS? “It is encouraging for sure. I am pleased with the speed. I wish it was a couple thousandths quicker but outside of that, just the way we unloaded the car drove pretty good in qualifying trim. Like I said on TV a minute ago, we were in qualifying trim all day so what it is going to be like tomorrow is still an unknown. At least we show good signs of speed. I am excited about that. Hopefully it transfers over and we will work on it more tomorrow. The car feels comfortable and fast. If it is like that in race trim we will be real racey and be able to move around the track and do a lot of good things. I am hoping that is the case. Sometimes you have a fast, uncomfortable car. For it to be comfortable and have decent speed makes me pretty optimistic about tomorrow and Sunday. We have good track position to start and a good pit stall to help us throughout the race. Hopefully we can win this thing.”
ARE YOU GLAD YOU DIDN’T PICK YOUR FACE AS AN EMOJI? WHAT DO YOU THINK OF THESE THINGS? “Is the Ryan Blaney one supposed to be him or someone else? Him? Oooh. They missed it. He looks really cool though. The whole thing with the mustache. Pretty BA right? Yeah, I am okay with it. The steering wheel thing is kind of my thing.”
WITH BRAD WINNING THE LAST TWO RACES AND YOU PUTTING ON THIS PERFORMANCE HERE, HAVE YOU GUYS FOUND SOMETHING? “If they did they didn’t tell me. I think it is just that we are constantly trying to find stuff. Constantly trying to catch up. We have been playing the catch up game for the last couple years. It is nice to see that we are starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel and finding our way back to the top of that mountain. I am encouraged by it. I am cautiously encouraged I guess on what it really can be. It is a good start that we are catching some of those cars, especially the big three. The cars that qualified up front are typically cars that aren’t considered in that group. I feel like the field is pretty close. I feel comfortable about my car. I think the Penske Fords are all fairly quick and we will work on it some more tomorrow.”
ARE YOU SURPRISED OR IS THIS WHAT WE SHOULD EXPECT HAVING SO MANY OF THE PLAYOFF DRIVERS IN THE TOP-12 AND TOP-20 TODAY? “The cars that are in the playoffs are the best cars in the field so you would expect them to qualify up front, win up front, win a lot of races. It is going to be really odd to see a non-playoff car win a race in the next 10 races. It shouldn’t happen. If you think about the effort that the teams put in and if one car is in, all that effort normally goes toward the car that is in the playoffs so it would be very surprising to see a non-playoff car be very fast right now. Not to say it can’t happen but it would be surprising to me. Seeing all the playoff cars up front makes sense.”
