Ford Notes and Quotes
Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series (MENCS)
Bank of America Roval 400 (Charlotte Motor Speedway, Concord, NC)
Sunday, September 30, 2018
Ford Finishing Results
1st – Ryan Blaney
3rd – Clint Bowyer
5th – Kurt Busch
9th – Kevin Harvick
10th – Joey Logano
13th – Matt DiBenedetto
16th – David Ragan
18th – Michael McDowell
19th – Aric Almirola
31st – Brad Keselowski
33rd – Paul Menard
35th – Trevor Bayne
37th – Ricky Stenhouse Jr.
40th – Stanton Barrett
SEVEN FORD DRIVERS ADVANCE TO ROUND OF 12 AS BLANEY WINS ROVAL
· Ryan Blaney piloted his No. 12 Ford to victory today at Charlotte Motor Speedway,, his first win of the 2018 season.
· All seven Ford drivers successfully advanced to the Round of 12.
· This marks the third time this season Ford has swept a NXS/MENCS weekend (Phoenix and Darlington).
· Ford leads all manufacturers with 15 victories this season.
· The win is Blaney’s second Monster Energy Cup Series win of his career.
· The win is Fusion’s 104th Cup Series triumph since becoming Ford’s flagship vehicle in 2006.
· Today’s win is Ford’s 673rd all-time in Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series competition.
· Of Team Penske’s 63 MENCS wins with Ford, 36 have come since rejoining Ford in 2013.
RYAN BLANEY, No. 12 Menards/Pennzoil Ford Fusion – VICTORY LANE INTERVIEW – “We restarted sixth the last one there and got to third with a couple to go. I was really just riding third. We were good to go on points and was going to advance to the next round on points no problems. They were so far ahead I wasn’t even really trying and then I saw them kind of close to each other through the oval track in three and four and I was like, ‘Oh, something might happen here.’ And we went down I there and they touched just trying to win the race and I was lucky to sneak through there. That’s not how you really want to win them. I’d rather go out and dominate the race and win by a lap, but you’ve got to take them how you can get them nowadays. We put ourselves in a spot to be there, though. We did a great job all day of winning a stage and putting us in a good spot for points. Things just kind of kept building and building where all of a sudden it’s like, ‘OK, we’re lining up.’ We had to pit early to stay with the 88 and we were kind of 15th or something and it was like, ‘OK, we lined up 15th. OK, we’re sixth. And now we’re third and we’ve got a shot to win this race.’ It just worked out for us.” TALK ABOUT YOUR STRATEGY THROUGHOUT THE DAY. “We talked about it early in the day that you can’t give up stage points, especially how close we are and you had a couple cars that were fast all day, all weekend really that were either right in front of us or right behind us in the cutoff, so that was our main goal. We got one stage point in the first stage and that was an amazing strategy call to stay out and stretch on fuel for the second stage and win that one and that was huge and really set us up for the rest of the day. Even though we had to pit and start way in the back we knew the cars that we were racing and just wanted to stick with them all day and do whatever they did just to make sure we were with them. That was a really smart call by Jeremy Bullins and something we talked about before the race and it played out that way to where we could utilize that strategy.” THE EMOTION OF WINNING MUST BE COOL FOR A RACE THAT WAS AS HYPED AS THIS ONE. “It is really cool. It’s a different way than I’ve ever won one before in my life. I’ve never been running third and two guys wreck and won. I’ve never had that happen to me before, but it is neat. It’s cool to win the first one. Your name will be on it for a while, so that is special. It’s just a really cool day, a kind of unexpected ending to the day and it left us happy, so I’m sure there will be times when the tables are turned on me and I’m leading and me and second wreck each other and third wins because it all comes full circle in this deal, but it happened to work out for us today.”
BRAD KESELOWSKI, No. 2 Alliance Truck Parts Ford Fusion – A RESTART ON OLD TIRES. WHAT HAPPENED? “I don’t know. I was just asking Ricky. I don’t know. The whole field went down into turn one it looked like and we all went straight. I don’t know. Maybe we all overdrove it. Maybe the track had something on it. I don’t know. I got in the corner. I didn’t feel like I got in it, I got in hard, but not like ridiculously hard and it just locked up. I couldn’t get the tire to unlock, so I felt really, really dumb when I hit the wall and then I got back in the care center and saw the replay and saw everybody kind of did the same thing. I don’t know. It’s frustrating, but I really have to give a lot of credit to Paul Wolfe and the team on this Truck Alliance Parts Ford. This car was a rocket. I wrecked the car in practice and we unloaded this car just for the race and it was screaming fast. I thought we were gonna win today. It just didn’t come together.”
IT LOOKED LIKE YOU WERE GOING TO SHOW EVERYONE WHY YOU BELONG IN THE NEXT ROUND. “Yeah, and then I kind of did the opposite at the end, but that’s the way it goes.”
DID YOU HAVE ANY IDEA WHAT WAS GOING ON WITH THE WHEEL? “No, I just knew it was locked up and the track was real slick. Whether that’s on me or the car, I don’t know, but it is what it is.”
ANY SOLACE THAT IT DOESN’T HURT GOING FORWARD? “No, it doesn’t hurt us, but it doesn’t mean we didn’t want to win.”
ALL THE TALK ABOUT CHAOS. IT SEEMED CALM UNTIL THE END. “Yeah, it seemed like that. You knew it was gonna come down to something like that. We were in good position, I just didn’t bring it home.”
DID YOU LIKE THE COURSE? “You like the ones you win at, you hate the ones you don’t, so I guess that answers itself. As a driver I’m selfish.”
RICKY STENHOUSE JR., No. 17 SunnyD Ford Fusion – “I just struggled here all week, really. I didn’t feel comfortable at the test and then the infield section I feel like I was really good, and really from the time I got on the big track through the chicanes I was really struggling. We got some damage there on that restart when we were leading and our car was really loose after that and hard to drive.”
TREVOR BAYNE, No. 6 AdvoCare Ford Fusion – “I’m really frustrated with that result. I felt like I put together a really good weekend and had speed. I never made any mistakes in practice, qualifying or the race for that matter until I got caught up on that last lap. I said it was gonna happen and I told my spotter, ‘They’re gonna crash in turn one, just get me through it,’ and they did. They all crashed. I made it through the first part of the wreck and I guess it was the 18 that bounced off the front of the 8 and I couldn’t check up and hit him. I thought we were done wrecking and got the second one.”
KEVIN HARVICK, No. 4 Jimmy John’s Ford Fusion – “Today actually went way better than I hoped it would. I think as you look at the way that we ran all day and where we ran all day, we were in the top 10 and up in the top five and back and forth, and just way better than we were yesterday. It’s tough starting behind your teammate who is trying to make it in there at the end. You’ve got to be careful with what you do and not drive in there too far and do something dumb. I lost a couple spots, but in the end it was a good day for us.”
KURT BUSCH, No. 41 Haas Automation/Monster Energy Ford Fusion – “I thought we did as good as job as communicating as a team and working together through all the different obstacles all weekend. The only thing that went against us is I had a bad restart on the outside lane once and I lost four or five spots and that’s when we were hanging out with the 48 and the 78 most of the day, so that means Billy Scott chose the right strategy. I just lost three or four spots on that one restart and then we gained some back on the next one, but too far. You’ve got to be like top four or top six if you want a shot at it and we were just a little bit too far behind at the end. All in all, maybe we got the most points out of today because we were second in the first stage, third in the second stage, so a lot of points today. We had to race that way, but the race almost came to us at the end.”
THOUGHTS ON THE NEXT ROUND. “I’m more confident in Dover and Talladega and Kansas. We tested Kansas this week. It’s been a long week. It’s been busy, but that’s what it’s all about when it’s Playoff time. Thanks to everybody on this team from Haas and Monster, Ford. A Ford won today. That’s excellent. A Ford won yesterday. That’s pretty special when you come to a brand new track.”
JOEY LOGANO, No. 22 Shell/Pennzoil Ford Fusion – HOW DO YOU FEEL ABOUT THE NEXT THREE TRACKS? “I feel good about it. I feel like we can fight through these next few weeks and get to the next round and keep forging forward. We have to stay consistent. We have to stay solid like we’ve been. It’s gonna take more and more each round to get through, but we knocked out some pretty solid cars in this round, so we have to keep racing hard. It’s gonna get harder every time, so I feel good about it. I feel like it’s gonna be tight. I don’t feel like we’re where we were a couple years ago, where we felt really solid about it, but I feel decent enough that we can transfer.”
WHAT WAS THE PLAN GOING IN AND DID YOU EXECUTE IT? “That was the plan and we executed the plan. The plan wasn’t fun, but we did the plan. My plan is to win a lot of times, not that if it was there we would have tried to take it, but in general to transfer was the ultimate goal and I’m happy we were able to do that.”
ARIC ALMIROLA, No. 10 Smithfield Ford Fusion – “That crash, getting into turn one, really – actually the caution before that, when we were on a fuel strategy we were gonna be fine. It was all gonna work out fine and then the 17 buried it in the tire barriers or something and caused a caution and that really changed everything, jumbled up the strategy and just put us in a really vulnerable spot. I’m so proud of these guys. We’re moving on to the Round of 12 and we’ll go get ‘em in Dover.”
WHAT WAS THE LAST LAP LIKE KNOWING YOU HAVE TO GAIN SPOTS TO ADVANCE? “I was just trying to get every spot. That was the thing. Everywhere on the race track at the end there trying to get every single spot I could. Man, it worked out. It’s amazing, so I’m really proud and really blessed to be in this position. We’ve got a great opportunity here with Stewart-Haas Racing and moving on to the Round of 12. It doesn’t matter how pretty it was, we’re moving on to the Round of 12 and we’re gonna go give ‘em hell at Dover.”
CLINT BOWYER, No. 14 Mobil 1/Advance Auto Parts Ford Fusion – YOU’RE IN THE NEXT ROUND. “It was just teamwork. All these guys busted their butts for a couple weeks. We kind of dug ourselves in a hole, there’s no question. The 48 blew that tire in Vegas and got into us, knocked us in the wall. I knew that was gonna be a tall order to bounce back from that. We didn’t have the Richmond that I was expecting and then you come here knowing that you need an opportunity and knowing the opportunity lied within this race there’s no question about that. Qualifying decent, getting ourselves up front, stage points. Since we’ve instilled and instated these stage points they’ve always been the name of the game and it still rings true to this day.”
HOW DID YOU SEE THE END OF THIS ONE? “Pretty crazy. I think we’re in plenty good, but just wild. I didn’t expect that to happen, but I knew it was gonna be wild. I’m glad that something happened in this race. I didn’t want it to go green. You’re always worried about overselling something when you have a new event like this and I told everybody, I knew all hell was gonna break loose. I didn’t know exactly when, but nonetheless I knew all hell would break loose and it finally did.”
