Ford Notes and Quotes
Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series (MENCS)
1000Bulbs.com Advance (Talladega Superspeedway, Talladega, AL.)
Sunday, October 14, 2018
ARIC ALMIROLA PUNCHES TICKET TO ROUND OF 8 WITH TALLADEGA VICTORY
- Aric Almirola registered the second win of his NASCAR Monster Energy Cup Series career today, taking the checkered flag today at Talladega Superspeedway.
- Ford leads all manufacturers with 16 victories this season.
- Ford extended its Talladega win streak to seven with today’s win.
- This marks the 14th win for Stewart-Haas Racing since joining Ford last year and the first for Almirola with the organization.
- The win is Fusion’s 105th Cup Series triumph since becoming Ford’s flagship vehicle in 2006.
- Today’s win is Ford’s 674th all-time in Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series competition.
Ford Finishing Results:
1st – Aric Almirola
2nd – Clint Bowyer
3rd – Ricky Stenhouse Jr.
5th – Joey Logano
9th – Paul Menard
13th – Trevor Bayne
14th – Kurt Busch
27th – Brad Keselowski
28th – Kevin Harvick
29th – Ryan Blaney
30th – Matt DiBenedetto
39th – David Ragan
40th – Michael McDowell
ARIC ALMIROLA, No. 10 Smithfield Bacon For Life Ford Fusion – VICTORY LANE INTERVIEW – “I felt like I kept giving it away and I was so disappointed for all these guys behind me because they’re awesome. They’re the best. I’m with the best team in the garage and I felt like I kept letting them down not winning a race. Today, the Good Lord was shining on us and we went to Victory Lane. We did it, finally.”
ARIC ALMIROLA PRESS CONFERENCE
Q. When during this race did you realize the Stewart‑Haas cars had something that nobody else had? Are you already waiting for the Daytona 500 next year?
ARIC ALMIROLA: Pretty much. I knew when we qualified, all four of us starting up there in the front. We kind of talked about it in our competition meeting, that we needed to be committed to each other, we needed to score as many stage points as we can, we needed to score more stage points than the 12, than the 42 and the 88. We knew all that.
Going into the weekend, that was our focus, was to be committed as an organization to doing everything we can to help each other, making sure that we continue to get points, especially for Clint and myself being in the situation we were in going into this weekend.
Then when we qualified top four, all of us together, I knew that all four of us were going to be tough to beat. We were going to have really fast racecars. We’ve been chasing those Penske cars. We talked about it in here Saturday. We’ve been chasing Penske at the restrictor plate races. They’ve been able to do somewhat of what we did today, where they get out front, Brad and Joey and Paul and Blaney get organized, basically dominate the race.
Today we were able to do that. We stayed so committed to each other. We worked every restart out to where we stayed committed to each other, got in line. It was us against the field.
When we started to drive off from the field in the first stage, as the stage went on, I knew we had something special. I knew one of our four cars was going to win. Just by happenstance, we were the ones that qualified fourth, I kept being the third or fourth guy in line. It was like, Man, this is nice that we’re all four running together, but I’m scoring less stage points than Bowyer, I’m racing him in points.
Eventually we’re going to have to try and win this race, we’re going to have to separate and start to fend for ourselves. That opportunity honestly never really presented itself. It seemed like the way the race played out, such long green‑flag runs, we would get committed to each other. As we would drive away from the field, me being the fourth guy in line, I never really had anybody behind me to help me make a move on my teammates.
It was an incredible day for us as an organization at Stewart‑Haas Racing, and I am so proud and so thankful for the opportunity to be driving these racecars.
Q. Yesterday you described racing here like a high‑speed chess match. In the third stage, you fell behind early, worked your way back up through the field. Describe what it was like getting back to the front like that.
ARIC ALMIROLA: We were in a position coming into the weekend we needed to score all the stage points we could. When the caution came out at the end of stage two, we had to stay out to score points. That gave a lot of the cars behind us an opportunity to pit and have fresh tires and be full of gas, to not pit when the stage ended.
We came off of pit road at the end of stage two to begin the final stage, we weren’t with our teammates. We had to race a lot of cars in front of us that were on a different strategy than us. At that point it just came down to us having an incredible racecar. I was able to kind of maneuver my way through the pack and make some moves and get up towards the front.
I think at that point I knew as an organization we were going to be able to get all four of our cars back together. All four of us ended up back there together just because of how strong our cars were. We were able to lead the field, separate ourselves.
I thought this race honestly was a little bit less of a chess match and more of an organizational commitment. It started probably months ago. We have a group of guys, this is all they do is work on speedway cars all year long, develop, get better. Like I’ve said, we’ve been chasing Penske for years now. They have been the dominant team when we show up to restrictor plate tracks. We’ve tried a lot of different things with aero stuff and just different things. We’ve not been able to hit on how to beat them.
I think this weekend we finally came up with a package and a plan, and we stayed committed to each other, and we were able to outrun them.
Q. With your win today, you become the 12th driver to win both an Xfinity race and a Cup race at Talladega. Comment on how you used some of the things you got out of victories in Xfinity to wind up in Victory Lane today.
ARIC ALMIROLA: You know, I don’t know. I came here in a truck race with Billy Ballew. I had Kyle Busch as a teammate. I raced here, I had no job that year, was out of a ride. Billy let me run a handful of races that year. I came up here and Kyle beat me by an inch. I led a lot of that race.
That race was kind of the race that for me something clicked about Talladega. I learned some things in that race. From that point forward, I’ve always showed up to Daytona and Talladega with the mindset that this is going to be fun. A lot of people show up here and they’re frustrated that they’re racing with restrictor plates, they’re frustrated that we’re pack racing. They come here with the wrong attitude, in my opinion.
But I show up to these tracks anxious but excited, feeling like I’ve got an opportunity. I think when you look at my career, I’ve won an Xfinity race at Daytona, I’ve won an Xfinity race here at Talladega, I won my first Cup race at Daytona, now I’ve won my second Cup race at Talladega. Now I’d like to win at some of these other tracks so people don’t say, Oh, he’s just a good restrictor plate racer.
Today was sweet. To go to Victory Lane in such a clutch moment, in the Playoffs, down 10 points coming into this weekend, knowing this was an opportunity race for us, winning here today was really special. Like I said, I can count on my hand five or six races that I feel like we maybe should have won this year, and it didn’t work out, didn’t happen. Today the good Lord was shining down on us and we were able to go to Victory Lane. It was a special day.
Q. Now that you’ve checked a race win off the box this season with SHR, are you pretty much where you thought you and the team would be, signing with Stewart‑Haas Racing, going through a full season?
ARIC ALMIROLA: Honestly, I feel like we’re exceeding expectations. I feel like we’re exceeding your expectations, the media. I feel like we’re exceeding probably even Tony Stewart and Gene Haas’ expectations.
I went into this year feeling like if we could run top 15, be consistent, not make any mistakes all year long, we could maybe make the Playoffs. That was a goal for us.
I’ve got a new team. I’m new to the organization. My crew chief, Johnny, his first year being a crew chief. We have a lot of young guys on our team. I really feel like we’re built to grow.
As the year has progressed, I feel like we just continue to get better and better and better. I feel like we haven’t even reached max potential. I feel like there’s so much more room to grow for us, to get better. That’s what is exciting for me to see. We’re not at the ceiling yet. We’re young and new in this whole team. So I feel like we’re way ahead of our expectations.
But I knew I was going to be given this opportunity to have fast racecars. I knew if we did the things that we needed to do, we brought cars capable of running up front, if I pulled my weight, we would have opportunities to win.
That’s been one of the most frustrating things for me, is to watch all my teammates win races, and for me to get close so many times, not win. I feel like I was letting our team down and our organization down because they kept giving me fast racecars week after week after week and we weren’t able to win.
Today is gratifying. Today I feel like I finally gave Stewart‑Haas Racing and all the guys on the Smithfield team what they deserved.
Q. You’re in the Round of 8. What more do you want to see out of yourself and team but have a shot if you can make it to Homestead?
ARIC ALMIROLA: I honestly thing we’re somewhat of a dangerous team just because we’ve been flying under the radar all year long. Even going into the Playoffs, I feel like we’ve been flying under the radar.
We went to Vegas, had a great day at Vegas, ran up front, got some damage, fought back from that, finished good. Went to Richmond, a place where we knew we had to run good to put ourselves in position to go to the Roval, make it to the next round. We did exactly that. We qualify up front, ran second and third in the stages, finished the race third or fourth, I don’t even remember where we finished. It put us in position to go to the Roval and be somewhat conservative. Then all hell broke loose at the end of the race. Next thing I knew, I was six points out.
We were able to get into this round. Coming into this round, I felt like the tracks lined up really well for me. I love Dover. I absolutely love going to that place. It’s one of my favorite racetracks. I enjoy and like coming to Talladega. I feel like it’s an opportunity for me to go win. I really enjoy Kansas. Even though I broke my back there, I remember in 2012 showing up there in October and dominating the beginning part of that race until I blew a right front. That was the first time in may career in the Cup Series at Kansas that I had led any real laps to speak of, to be running up front.
From that point forward, I’ve always enjoyed Kansas and been excited about going to that racetrack since that day. I look forward to all the rest of these racetracks. I feel like they kind of suit well for me and my race team.
Q. What was going through your mind when you saw Kurt having to pull out?
ARIC ALMIROLA: Yeah, so going down the back straightaway I saw the 17 break free from the pack. I kind of backed up to him a little bit hoping that when he got to me he would be able to give me a push. When I backed up to him, as he got closer, my rpms started going way up. I started coming with a huge run to Kurt. I felt like Kurt was a little bit of a sitting duck at that point anyway. I don’t know that I would have beat Kurt, but it would have been exciting. We’ll just say that.
When I got to his right rear quarter panel, pulled up next to him, I heard his motor start to sputter. I drove past him, my spotter told me he was running out. At that point it was all eyes on my mirror, making sure I blocked any runs that were coming to try to be the first car across the finish line.
Q. Kyle Busch said this race had a feeling like none other he had ever seen at Talladega. We saw three major size packs. It wasn’t one big pack or two. What do you think caused that? What was the handling like?
ARIC ALMIROLA: Yeah, the cars are going so fast. We were going so fast. The cars are a handful. When you get in a pack, you’re running 205 miles an hour, the cars are light on their feet, they’re dancing around, they are a handful.
As you get single file, it’s the shortest way around the track on the bottom, and we’re going so fast that the bottom lane just prevails. We saw that even in the spring race. You look at the spring race, the bottom lane was the dominant lane. The pack broke up the same in the spring race.
In the spring race, everybody wasn’t as organized as far as the teams. Our team specifically wasn’t. It was kind of a free‑for‑all. Kevin had some issues handling‑wise. Kurt ran up front, then had some pit road issues. We had issues in qualifying, so we had to start last. Clint rode around to play it safe. There were a lot of differences and varying strategies in the spring.
This time we came and brought four amazing racecars. As an organization, we were so committed to each other about running up front, staying up front, scoring as many points as we can, and staying committed to the bottom lane, to each other.
I feel like that strategy, honestly, was what obviously won us the race. I think our cars were so fast that as long as we stayed single file, all four of us lined up, nobody could get that outside lane working to go up there and challenge us.
A couple times on restarts, some guys got close and tried to make runs at it, but we just kept staying committed and working together. Everybody else couldn’t do that. Everybody else was racing for position, they would get two‑wide, three‑wide, stall their runs, then we would be able to drive away.
Q. Tony Stewart was talking to you a long time before the race. What was he saying to you? Anything that applied to today’s win?
ARIC ALMIROLA: Every time I’ve seen him lately, he just keeps telling me, Goosfraba. Calm down, take deep breaths. He’s like, You’re going to win, I promise you. The day I told you I was going to hire you, I knew you were going to win races for my company. He said, it’s going to happen. You just have to keep putting yourself in position. You keep putting yourself in position, I promise you it will happen. He kept telling Johnny the same thing. He was telling Johnny, just keep doing what you’re doing, don’t doubt yourself, second‑guess yourself. Put yourself in position, and it will happen.
Q. You talked about Kansas a little bit. That was the lowest point of your career last year. Now you’ve experienced the highest point of your career. How sweet has that story been? How much more does that fuel you to win next week?
ARIC ALMIROLA: It does. I’m fired up about going to Kansas next week. It’s going to be fun. We’re going to go there with no pressure at all, and one thing on our mind, and that’s to go win, to try and get some stage points, bonus points, get ready for that Round of 8.
For us, I think that’s our mindset. That’s a really fun mindset that I have never experienced in my entire career. I’ve always went to the racetracks every single weekend, you know, anxious and focused and concentrated, nervous about what if, I hope we run good, I hope we have a shot to win. This weekend at Kansas, for us, nothing really else matters other than going there to win.
Q. You finally get over the hump with the win, transfer to the Round of 8. Is there a way to prioritize what feels sweeter at this point?
ARIC ALMIROLA: The win. The Playoffs, that’s pretty sweet, too. But just going to Victory Lane, man, to win for Smithfield, taking a chance on supporting me and this organization, Stewart‑Haas Racing, to win for Tony Stewart and Gene Haas, to believe in me and give me this opportunity, for everybody that’s helped me along the way in my career, to be in this situation.
Last year to think about potentially my career ending and never knowing if I was good or not. I feel like I always had equipment as an excuse. When I showed up to Stewart‑Haas Racing, that was no longer the case. I did not have that as an excuse. I have the best team in the garage. For me, it was up to me. It was time to go do my job and see if I’m good enough.
So coming so close so many times this year, it’s made me think long and hard about myself, am I good enough, why do I keep losing when I’ve been in position and had opportunities to win. I’ve been hard on myself.
So to win, that was the most gratifying part. The Playoffs, transferring to the Round of 8, that’s secondary. Just going to Victory Lane, getting that gratification, giving what I feel like my team deserves. They bring incredible racecars to the track every single weekend and they deserve to win. All of my teammates have won except me. Today was our day.
Q. When you come into this year, were you embracing the challenge or were there doubts?
ARIC ALMIROLA: No, I came into it embracing it. I talked about it with my wife before the year even started. I knew going into this year, no matter what happened for the rest of my life, I’ll be able to lay my head down on the pillow at night and know that I had the best racecars, the best opportunity, I either got the job done or I didn’t.
So far this year I feel like I’ve been close to getting the job done. I feel like we continue to get better and better as a team. I continue to get better and better as a racecar driver. I put a tremendous amount of work and effort into being the best that I can be. To see it come to fruition is pretty gratifying.
Q. Seven days ago, you said you would be over it by Tuesday. Last lap, looking at Kurt, were you wondering if something else was going to go wrong? What was it like taking that checkered flag after last week?
ARIC ALMIROLA: I knew going into the restart ‑‑
First, to answer your question about last week, I was really over it by Tuesday. I was bummed out about it Sunday night pretty bad. Johnny came to my house after the race. We sat in my basement, had a few beers together, just talked. We said, Hey, we’ve just got to keep doing what we’re doing. If it happens, it happens. If it doesn’t, it doesn’t. But we’re going to keep putting ourselves in position. They’re going to know we’re there.
That was good. That was good for us to kind of have that moment, kind of sulk and pout together. Then when Monday came, it was over. It was time to go to work, get ready for the next race, get ready for Talladega.
Tuesday morning I got to the shop bright and early. All of our focus and attention was on Talladega. I had forgot about Dover. I didn’t care about Dover any more. I couldn’t go back, couldn’t change it, couldn’t fix it. It was time to go to Talladega and do what we needed to do.
Honestly, I was hoping to win, but my main focus was to come here and score as many points as we possibly could to go to Kansas and give ourselves a fighting chance.
Q. With how you’ve run lately, being so close, getting the win, how has that proved, shown, reaffirmed to you being a championship contender as opposed to just somebody else? What does that mean to be able to show that to your team? While your guys believe in you, when you have close call after close call, don’t finish it off, what does today mean?
ARIC ALMIROLA: On that note, I’ll go back to Sunday night, Johnny and I in my basement talking and stuff. I said that very thing. I told Johnny, The thing that hurts the most is that we keep getting close and being in position. In Loudon, having what I felt like was the dominant car. Yeah, we lost a couple spots on pit road, but still it was up to me to get a good restart, give ourselves a chance to go win, and I didn’t. Dover, after Harvick has his tire issues, we’re the next best car, dominating the race. Coming to less than 10 to go, looks like we’re going to win the race. Next thing you know we’re lined up sixth. I still have the opportunity to put ourselves in position to win. I went for it. After Loudon, I was so gung‑ho going into that restart at Dover saying, I am not going to lose this race.
I got over‑aggressive, made a mistake off of two, and the car bottomed out, I hit the fence, then came down and hit Brad. That was so disappointing because I felt like it was on me again. We had the best car. I was in not the best of position starting sixth with a few laps to go. I would have loved to have been on the front row. Johnny made the call for four tires to put me on offense, to be aggressive. That’s exactly what I went and did. It didn’t work.
We had that conversation in my basement about, Man, I’m sorry, you guys are giving me incredible racecars. I don’t want you to give up on me, to doubt. I need that from you guys. I need him. Every single person on my crew has done nothing but reemphasize they believe in me, they know we’re going to win together, to keep putting ourselves in those positions.
Today, what a relief. To see all those guys in Victory Lane, give each and every one of them a hug, to say, We finally did it, that was pretty special.
Q. It helped what happened to Kurt. What do you feel like you did right today compared to what didn’t go right at Dover? Is this more circumstances, you still have to be able to prove to yourself in other situations when it’s on your shoulders you can handle it?
ARIC ALMIROLA: I think today was circumstantial. You look at past results at Daytona and Talladega, you look at green‑white‑checkereds, usually the winner is going to come from the first two rows. That’s pretty much a given. Everything behind that is chaos. You don’t know what to expect. The winner typically comes from the first row, maybe the second row.
I knew going into that restart today we had a shot. It was going to be tough. I knew my teammates were really, really fast. I was going to have to beat them. I didn’t know how I was going to do it. I didn’t know if I would do it. Today circumstances just played out and went our way.
There’s been so many times it hasn’t gone our way. Chicago I thought we had the dominant car. I raced Harvick heads up, we outran him. Had two loose wheels, went two laps down. That one got away from us. Circumstances.
Loudon, you can blame it on circumstances. Dover, can you blame it on circumstances. Today circumstances went our way and things worked out. The only thing I can attest it to is that God just kept telling me to be patient.
Q. You talked about the enormous opportunity you had to go to Stewart‑Haas Racing. Talk about being part of an organization this season that has all four cars winning races, one guy won seven, all four have a plausible chance to continue advancing, maybe make up the championship four, and you four of you guys together dictated the flow of a restrictor plate race today. Is there a situation in this sport better than this team right now?
ARIC ALMIROLA: No, absolutely not. There’s no better team in the garage area than our race team. I would put our race team up against any team in the garage, hands down. I’ve been around this sport for a long time. I’ve been able to see inside of different organizations. I was with Gibbs early on in my career. I’ve had the opportunity to work with Hendrick Motorsports when I drove for Dale Jr. in the Xfinity Series. I did baby watch stuff for Jimmie, got full access, was in the 48 and 88 shop all the time, sitting in their hauler, go through their debriefs, all of the above. Got full access to that. When I was first with Petty, had an alliance with Roush, seen the way they operated and worked.
I’ve been around a lot of different organizations, some of the best. I’ve never ever seen an organization with so many people pulling the rope in the same direction at Stewart‑Haas Racing. All four crew chiefs are bought in. Completely open notebook. The employees, like, everybody, everybody wins. When our car wins, everybody gets a bonus, which we’ve done a lot of. Our employees are making bank this year on the bonus program.
I’ve been so amazed. That’s one of the things that I think has probably been the most eye opening for me. I’ve been around the garage a lot. People are kind of open notebook. But you know you’re still going to have to race that guy, that teammate. You give 90%, but 10% you keep for you and your team. From everything that I’ve witnessed, that doesn’t happen at Stewart‑Haas Racing. We take and build the four best racecars we can. Everybody is bought in. Then the four of us go race it out, may the best man win.
I think that is what makes our organization so incredible.
KURT BUSCH, No. 41 Monster Energy/Haas Automation Ford Fusion – “It was a very different Talladega for me. I really enjoyed leading the race, working with my teammates. I’m really happy a Stewart-Haas car won, but the four of us, I’ve never seen so much synergy. We knew we were gonna have to race when we got to Kansas. It would have been nice to have the win. We’re here to win. That’s what Monster Energy wants. Thanks to them. That’s what Team Haas wants. Thanks to Gene, Tony Stewart, everybody. But there were two human element calls there at the end. I don’t know why we ran an extra lap under yellow and why there wasn’t the yellow for a dispatch of an ambulance.” GOOD TEAMWORK AND YOU HAVE A 30-POINT CUSHION GOING TO KANSAS. “That’s good stuff. We had 21 coming into this and if you can bank nine and get the heck out of Talladega, that sounds good. I’m headed home.” THOUGHTS ON THE SITUATION AT THE END. “I was pulling out all the information I could. My team did an incredible job to tell me about the different situations and we came up a little shy on fuel. Wow, what a car. Thanks to Doug Yates and everybody at Ford. Very impressive.”
JOEY LOGANO, No. 22 Shell/Pennzoil Ford Fusion – “Those Stewart-Haas cars drove great and they were really, really fast. They showed it in qualifying and they were so committed to each other and they did a great job. They probably would have finished 1-2-3-4 if they didn’t run out of gas, so they were definitely quick. We had a pretty good Shell/Pennzoil Ford, not the winning car, but definitely a top-five car, the best of the rest you could call it. We scored some stage points and then a solid top five, so I’m proud of that. I don’t know where that puts us in points, but I think it puts us in a decent spot to where we can go to Kansas and race hard, so not that we didn’t race hard today, but it was just gonna take a lot to beat the teamwork and the cars that they had today.”
BRAD KESELOWSKI, No. 2 Miller Lite Ford Fusion – WHAT HAPPENED ON THE LAST LAP? “We ran out of gas from what I could tell, so we’ll go through and look at it and see.” DO YOU FEEL GOOD GOING INTO KANSAS? “It’s certainly not ideal, but it is what it is.” HOW COME THE SHR CARS RUN THAT SKEW SO GOOD? CAN YOU BUILD YOUR CARS LIKE THAT OR IS THERE SOMETHING ELSE THAT THEY HAVE THAT THEY’RE ABLE TO DO THAT? “It sounds like they have some really good engineering.” IT SEEMED NOBODY WORKED WITH YOU WHEN YOU WERE TRYING TO MAKE A MOVE. “Yeah, the 88 was in there and he was kind of bonsai, win at all costs and just kept making moves that killed everybody else and didn’t help himself. Without that we were kind of shot. I kept trying to get my teammates with me and everytime we about got lined up somebody would bonsai them and we just couldn’t do anything.”
KEVIN HARVICK, No. 4 Jimmy John’s Ford Fusion – “I’m just really proud of everybody at Stewart-Haas Racing. Mine sputtered there on the fuel pressure and it dropped down in the red and they did the right thing of coming in and pitting and not taking a chance. You just need to put yourself in a position to where you’re good for next week and just glad that one of our cars won and happy for Aric.”
CAN YOU TALK ABOUT HOW YOU GUYS STAYED TOGETHER ALL DAY? “We planned on working together and I think knowing how fast our cars are it all worked out really well today, so sometimes that doesn’t all go as planned.”
ABOUT TODAY. “I want to thank everybody from the engine department at Roush Yates for all the work and effort that they put in to everything that goes on the race track. This is all about cars and people and engines and everything that goes and when you can have a group of guys that work together like we did today, you can control the situation in the race a lot more than just battling it out amongst each other. I’m really, really happy for Aric. He works his butt off. Those guys have done a great job all year and to see them get to Victory Lane is a lot of fun.”
WAS IT SURPRISING THE RACE WAS SORT OF CALM? “The race was pretty clean here last time too just because the handling comes into play so much and I think that’s really what makes it get strung out is when you have to start letting off the throttle.”
HOW SATISFYING IS IT FROM A POINTS STANDPOINT TO BE OK GOING INTO NEXT WEEK? “We’re good to the next round points-wise, so that was really our goal coming into today to try to do everything that we could to put ourselves in a position to go to Kansas and just race. That’s great for the team mentally to give the guys and Rodney and everybody kind of a mental break in this part of the season to just go to Kansas and be able to race the car and not have to worry about points or stage points or anything like that is what you want to do. For us, we did a good job last week, we did a great job today and wound up in a good position for Kansas. It’s all about survive and advance at this point.”
RICKY STENHOUSE JR., No. 17 SunnyD Ford Fusion – “We definitely had to fight hard today. We weren’t near as good as we normally are at the speedways, so that was a real bummer, but we fought hard and made a lot of adjustments to try and make our car faster. It seemed to work a little bit there and obviously fell on the lucky side of having to pit and having enough fuel, so everything worked out good for us today to get that good finish and back-to-back top 10s is a start.”
DOUG YATES, CEO, Roush Yates Engines – HAVE YOU EVER SEEN ANYTHING LIKE THAT WITH 9 GUYS UP THERE AT THE FRONT ALL DAY? “No, and it all started yesterday in qualifying with the Stewart-Haas guys sweeping the top four and they were just dominant. They executed their plan perfectly today. It was shaping up there at the end that we were gonna finish first through ninth, but we had that caution. I’m just so proud of all the hard work at Ford Performance, all the things that Mark Rushbrook is doing leading our group, and everybody at Roush Yates Engines and the dedication they put in to the plate racing here at Talladega and when we go to Daytona. It takes a total team effort and I’m just proud to be part of the team. It’s an incredible day here at Talladega.” THESE PLATE RACES MEAN MORE TO YOU DON’T THEY? “Yeah, absolutely. My dad loved racing here. We raced here together a lot and it kind of started back when we had Davey Allison as our driver in the 28 car. It was interesting, I asked Aric yesterday I said, “Maybe we should put a 28 on the side of this car.’ You know he had a little bad luck last week. I thought he was gonna win the race and I asked him if he’d mind to carry that 28 to Victory Lane today and to be here with him is amazing. I’m trying to carry on what my dad, Robert Yates started, and our family tradition of plate racing and just really proud to have my daughter Olivia here with me today and carrying on the family tradition. Hopefully, we can celebrate more of these in the future, but we’re sure gonna take time to celebrate with Aric Almirola and Stewart-Haas today.”
RICKY STENHOUSE AND CLINT BOWYER PRESS CONFERENCE
RICKY STENHOUSE JR.: We were lucky enough to have pitted a little bit before that, so we had plenty of fuel, which was nice. I was hoping all of them were going to run out. That didn’t happen.
We got a good run to the outside of the 21, I believe. Got up into third there down the back straightaway. I was able to get to second there. Then was hoping Clint was going to stay in line, see if we could catch the 10 getting back to the start/finish line.
I left the door open just enough on the bottom to let Clint get to the inside of us, then neither one of us had a shot to catch the 10 car at the start/finish line.
All in all from the way our day started, all the adjustments we made, we’ll definitely take that result, but not pleased at all with the speed that we had today.
Q. How were the SHR cars able to stay lined up and work together like that all day?
RICKY STENHOUSE JR.: Not real sure. I mean, obviously they had it choreographed to restart really well. Once they got in line, I mean, they just brought a lot of speed to the racetrack.
But I feel like even when you see like the Penske cars, some of the other cars, they’re not able to stay up front that dominant.
They definitely did their homework and came back. They used to not qualify very good, and obviously they’ve went to work on their speedway cars. I’m sure Tony Gibson is probably doing a good job at doing those. He’s an ace when it comes to that.
I mean, their cars are just really fast. They were committed to working together and blocking people at the right time. Heck, you had all of us other Fords running roadblock there at the end. Those four were just getting away.
It was pretty impressive to watch, for sure.
Q. Kurt’s car looked like it was off. Had your team at all tried anything that drastic?
RICKY STENHOUSE JR.: Yeah, like we go to Kansas next week, our cars you want your right rear as far out as you can get it. Here at the speedways, it’s a balance of getting your car skewed to the left, but also having a car that handles well.
Unfortunately for us today, we didn’t really have a car that handled very well, and we didn’t have a ton of speed. They definitely were pretty aggressive on getting their cars to have a lot of speed. We’ll just have to go do our homework and get better.
Obviously the package is going to change next year. We’ll see if we can catch up with that.
Q. When the car got into the wall at the white flag, were you expecting a caution?
RICKY STENHOUSE JR.: My spotter was expecting a caution. He told me to keep racing. We raced until the yellow comes out. He said they were going to let us race it back to the line. I was excited about that, knowing that we still had an opportunity to get a win. I didn’t see exactly where the wreck happened, so… I don’t really know. My spotter did think the caution was going to come out, though.
Q. How do you think the Stewart‑Haas cars were able to find such an advantage over the other Ford cars?
RICKY STENHOUSE JR.: All of our Ford cars are really good. Doug Yates builds great horsepower. I don’t know. I felt like us and the Penske cars probably had the better Ford cars for a while. That definitely changed today. They stepped up their game. I’m not sure exactly what they did. I’d like to know. They definitely were the class of the field all weekend.
RICKY STENHOUSE JR.: At least I didn’t crash anybody (laughter).
CLINT BOWYER PRESS CONFERENCE
Q. It sounded like lining up for that last restart, you were a little confused. Was it going to be every person for himself had it shaken out that way?
CLINT BOWYER: It was going to be until you start the day off, our cars were so good together. I mean, even if you’re me, it’s like, Well, what is our best situation here? I went to let him in, then run out of gas. Wasn’t the best of situations for ourselves.
Had I not have done that, maybe I probably would have won the race. But, you know, I was happy for Aric. He had that race won last week, and it was me that brought out the caution. I feel like he got a little redemption there.
Was happy that we finished second. I think it was second, second and second. As far as our day went, we needed to be a little bit better.
Man, you can’t say enough. I mean, I don’t think you can write enough about the job that everybody at Stewart‑Haas did. Those cars were so fast. I’ve seen other guys, other teams, other organizations put that together before. The Hendrick organization has been there before, the Gibbs cars have done that before. It was our turn, you know what I mean? The Penske cars have done that before.
We finally got all four cars to the cream of the crop. Oh my gosh, was it awesome. To be able to work together like that, we could hold on. They get runs on you and everything else, but as long as you stayed your ground, stayed in line, we’d prevail.
Seemed like our cars not only were fast, they handled good at the end of the runs. We would start stretching it out on them. The Penske cars were second best. The rest was racing for whatever position after our two Fords.
Can’t say enough about Ford Performance, the job that everybody does there. It’s a good day to be in a Ford. I mean, all you can say about that is a hell of a day to be in a Ford. Every time you looked in the mirror, the only thing you saw was blue ovals in the line.
Q. If that stayed green at the end, what was the plan?
CLINT BOWYER: I was going to try to drag back, get a gap, get a run on Kurt. That’s all you could do.
I’ll tell you what, it’s crazy how easily your emotions can change. I went from being that greedy to that thing started choking, actually going into one, coming to the green. I was like, Oh, you got to be kidding me. I knew I saved a little, but I really honestly thought after the day we had…
Every time a day goes that easy, you have your dukes up, wondering where that haymaker is coming from. When that started choking, ran out of gas, I knew that was it. That’s my luck. About typical.
It didn’t happen. It made it to the end. Two of my teammates didn’t. We were lucky.
Q. When I talked to you yesterday, you said you’d want to be racing Kevin Harvick for the win. You almost got your wish. Describe for me the teamwork that we saw in Stewart‑Haas Racing today, back in the shop as well as the track.
CLINT BOWYER: The teamwork starts in the shop. That’s where you unloaded four fast Fords that ran up front all weekend long, qualifying, the whole race, stages, first stage, second stage, at the end of the race. It was us, Stewart‑Haas Racing having our day.
Yes, I mean, I knew going into the race that somehow, some way I needed ‑‑ the Fords are the ones I’m going to have to be racing this next round of eight. Some way, shape or form I have to get separated from those guys.
The way our cars took off, handled, drafted, had more speed than the rest, endured that speed through the distance of a run, I knew our best opportunity was to stay together. That’s what we did.
I think the performance of our cars just kind of painted that picture for us, put ourselves in that position. We did a good job of being disciplined, taking care of one another on the restarts.
The 9 car slammed me, knocked me up that one. It pushed me past the hole. It was already by me by the time the 41 went down. I got back in as soon as we went to one and two.
Just extremely proud of the effort. I mean, that was the easiest Talladega I’ve ever known in my life. It was because of the speed that we had in our racecars.
I remember some guys that had races like that over my career. I remember one guy, he’s doing TV now, and I always was envious of him. Sometimes his car was just so fast, didn’t matter what he did. You could do whatever, you really couldn’t mess it up. That’s how fast our cars were today. You could rebound no matter what hole you put it in, put it back on top.
Q. Could this orchestration work at Daytona? Did it make it easier because the track was a little bit bigger today?
CLINT BOWYER: I don’t know. Possibly. It’s a good question. Maybe. The track is bigger. The strength’s in numbers. Doesn’t matter if you’re on a mile‑and‑a‑half, what you’re doing in racing. The strength is in numbers. When you can put all four cars built together and unload with that much speed, they find each other, stay with each other throughout the whole race, the success is there.
I mean, that was awesome. I was so proud and just happy for everybody at Stewart‑Haas. I know everybody back home ‑‑ it sucked that Kevin and Kurt run out of gas. 1‑2‑3‑4 would have been awesome for everybody involved, because that’s what they deserved.
Q. With two or three to go before that caution came out, in your head what would you have done? You were in second at the time.
CLINT BOWYER: Here is the thing you always got to be conscious of. If the white flag comes out and a caution comes out, the race is over. You always got to have that in the back of your mind. That’s the gamble. If you’re in second, you got a chance to lag back, get a run on him, push. Do you wait till it’s off of four or coming down the frontstretch where he knows it’s coming? As big a lead as we had, we probably could have went a little bit earlier. As soon as you cross the flag, do you go then? You know what I mean? That’s the gamble there.
I’ve been on both sides of that. Waited too long, a caution comes out, miss it. I’ve also took off knowing that if it did come out, I would be the benefactor. I was. That’s the gamble you really have to kind of play in your head, try to figure out what you want to do.
At the end of the day you have teammates behind you. You have a teammate there. Probably if I lagged back, got a run, I’d say the car behind me was forced to go with me because of the momentum, and maybe the next guy would go to the bottom just because of his pull that he has. Probably would have been a side‑by‑side, four‑way fight for the end, is probably what would have happened.
Q. Is that okay?
CLINT BOWYER: Yeah, I mean, what happened today was just cooperation. We all talked about it in the meeting, everything else. Like I said in the meeting, I think we owe it to each other to pit with one another, try to help one another, more than likely when we’re with each other, that’s our best opportunity at stage points and everything else. But after the frustrating run at Dover, I had to gain some points. It didn’t do any good to get good stage points if the guys that I’m racing for this next round do it, as well. I had to get separated some way, shape or form.
I mean, that guy sitting in Victory Lane right there, as happy as I am for him, that’s a spot that just went away for that next round.
We have to go home, at Kansas take care of business. I think we can do that. We needed an opportunity here. This place, for whatever reason, always hasn’t been pretty good to me. Like five or six times I wrecked out here. For whatever reason, I came here, I had a good feeling that maybe I was due for a good race. Certainly we were.
But as far as whatever, no, there wasn’t any. I could have took off and ran side‑by‑side with Kurt on the last restart. To be honest with you, I thought our best chance to get away, have a shot at winning, was probably do what we’ve been doing the whole race. My spotter was kind of saying the same thing.
GREG ZIPADELLI AND JOHNNY KLAUSMEIER PRESS CONFERENCE
GREG ZIPADELLI:
Q. How did you get these four guys to work together the entire weekend, to stay in line like that? Had that last caution not come out, you could have been four‑wide across the finish line.
GREG ZIPADELLI: That would have been cool.
Q. Unless they all wrecked. How did you get that cooperation?
GREG ZIPADELLI: I think after last week, we didn’t do a great job executing as a group, because we could have had the same result. We just talked a lot about it. I just think everybody said, We need to help each other, work together like teamwork, show everybody that we are teammates. I felt like our cars were strong enough that if we did that, we would have a very strong day.
We came in here with the 10 and the 14 needing stage points. Everybody executed that perfectly. Then at the end of the race, Let’s do everything we can to help each other. Everybody knew the circumstances. Hats off to drivers and crew chiefs. Nobody was selfish today. Everybody looked out for each other. That’s a great feeling as far as from my perspective.
We pay these guys every week honestly to be selfish, take care of themselves, run as hard as they can and finish up as high as they can, win as many races as they can. Everybody gave and took today. Very proud moment for Stewart‑Haas.
Q. (No microphone.)
GREG ZIPADELLI: Man, I don’t know. That 41 was strong. He towed that group pretty fast. I think they were planning on trying to, if we got away, letting them race it out. It just obviously didn’t come to that.
Couldn’t be prouder of that group for executing like they did today and giving and taking, having consideration for their teammates.
Q. Obviously Aric has come close so many times this season. It’s probably been frustrating for him. What does it feel like after all the wild endings that he ends up on top?
GREG ZIPADELLI: Yeah, it’s pretty cool. I don’t know how many of you know Aric. I knew him, but not like I do today. He’s one hell of a kid. He’s a class act. He’s been a breath of fresh air to our group. He works really hard, listens to other drivers. When he speaks, everybody listens because whatever he says, he feels confident in what he’s sharing with our group.
To see those guys have opportunities this year, for them to keep their chin up and continue to fight all day, end up here in Victory Lane, locking them into the next round, I couldn’t be prouder for him. Johnny with his first win as a crew chief, it’s pretty cool.
Q. You said you had to sit them down and talk to them, You need to go out there as teammates, make this happen. With all your type A personalities, who is the hardest one to get to play together?
GREG ZIPADELLI: No, honestly we talked about it this week in our meeting. We talked about it here after our practice debrief. It wasn’t lecturing. It was simply, Let’s look at the big picture. It’s good for our company to help each other and to have as many cars as we can move to the next round. It’s pretty simple.
Everybody, honestly they did a great job. Couldn’t have asked any more out of them.
Q. Did you know the way you had your cars built this weekend, really nobody else had that type of skew, ability to do what you did?
GREG ZIPADELLI: I mean, you go back to the Daytona 500, we have four cars capable of winning. Aric was half a lap from winning. Talladega, Daytona, we’ve had really good cars that run up front. We have not been able to put it all together.
We’ve been working on little details. Honestly there’s not a lot. Two of the cars that were here raced in Talladega in the spring race. We just fluffed on them. Came out here with good finishes, we worked on them.
I think everybody felt like we had good cars. We always have good motors. Doug and his guys do a phenomenal job everywhere. When it comes to restrictor plates, they really step up to the plate.
Q. Kurt was hoping for a caution on the last lap. When you’re watching it, you see them crash, are you like, Throw the caution? You know your car probably would win. Or, Let’s play it out, I want to see how it does?
GREG ZIPADELLI: Honestly, I didn’t really see the replay. I just knew they wrecked, was expecting to hear the caution, and never did.
We’ve been in that situation before where one of our cars didn’t win. Me as a parent, you love all your kids. I got four of them that I have to love and care for. I’m proud that we were in a situation that we were and isn’t always capitalized on it. Usually in the past, other people have capitalized on situations like that with us.
Aric and Johnny, it’s been a long time coming. They’ve had a few opportunities this year that they were really strong and things didn’t go right at the end. Finally it came around to them. Couldn’t be happier.
Q. Do you have the meeting with just the crew chiefs, then they relay the information to the drivers, or a big pow‑wow with everyone involved?
GREG ZIPADELLI: We just have our regular competition meetings on Tuesday where we all sit in the room, talk about our weekend, the next weekend. We have a debrief after practice where crew chiefs, drivers, myself are in there, engineers. We just talk about our cars, what everybody is going to do. No different than I think anybody else in the sport.
There was nothing special. It was just simply, Let’s work together. They did. I think they all saw the strength of them working together.
Q. I checked the stats. 2005 was the last time a Ford team with four or more cars had all of their drivers win in the same season. What does that say about Stewart‑Haas Racing’s team this year?
GREG ZIPADELLI: I think that says we’ve got four good drivers, four good crew chiefs, and a great manufacturing backing, near 400 employees that come in and work hard every day. Honestly, that’s all it is. We have really good people that have a lot of heart, passion. We have a lot of racers that show up before they’re supposed to at 7:00 and never leave before 4:00. They don’t need to be asked to stay to get that little bit extra done.
JOHNNY KLAUSMEIER:
Q. Could you tell in your meetings this week that Aric put Dover behind him or had he not put it behind him? Were you concerned at all today he was still maybe have a hangover from that race?
JOHN KLAUSMEIER: No, I knew right away that he had put it behind him. The first thing with Aric, he’s putting so much work into it. When he comes to the competition meetings, they start at 10:00, he’s there two hours early, he hangs out in my office, we talk about the upcoming week one‑on‑one. I knew he was over it. It was tough for us both to swallow. We talked about Talladega, how it was going to play out, what we needed to do for points.
The complicated situation with points is we were racing teammates. We also need to work with those people when we got here to the track. It was a precarious position we were in. It went really well. All our teams worked well all race long. We were able to capitalize at the end.
Our goal was just to get as many stage points as we could. We were able to do that. The teammates at the end ran out of fuel, we were able to get the victory and go to the next round. It was quite the redemption from last week.
Q. The way you worked together, it seemed like every time there was a restart, within half a lap maybe you were in line 1‑2‑3‑4. Was that the game plan going in? Did it work even better than you expected it might?
JOHN KLAUSMEIER: Yeah, it definitely worked better than we expected. You can’t control how you’re going to come out of the pits, what strategy is, where you’re going to line up. We had a plan for the beginning of the race. It just so happened all of our cars started one through four. We kept that plan throughout the whole race.
We were in various positions. At times Aric was getting a little bit nervous about how many stage points he was giving up by playing the team card. At the end of the day it all worked out and it was fine.
