Ford Performance Notes and Quotes
Friday, February 22, 2019
EVENT: Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series (Final Practice Fastest Ford)
The fastest Ford in final Cup series practice was Clint Bowyer. The driver of the No. 14 Ford Mustang for Stewart-Haas Racing, has shown speed all weekend and met with media members after the final practice to assess his team’s chances for victory on Sunday.
CLINT BOWYER, No. 14 Haas Automation Ford Mustang — “I feel like we learned quite a bit. You have to check the boxes off. I was talking about the balance of this thing and the ability to work on balance with the drag versus downforce. You know it is going to be different at this race track than it will be at Vegas or any other race track. You are going to have that adjustability built into the car and the understanding of where you are at and where you need to be. There will be teams tomorrow that drastically miss this and ones that hit it. The ones that hit it are going to have a lot of fun. The ones that don’t are going to be miserable. There isn’t a whole lot you can do in the race to change that.”
“I don’t think anyone will know til tomorrow. Not to mention, look at the weather. You are talking best case scenario right now grip wise and we are all still trying to figure out how to keep those things wide open and keep them wound up. It is tight, tight, tight. You are asking a lot out of it. Not unlocking a locker or doing anything out of the race car that we normally do on a mile-and-a-half track like this to help them rotate and all the things that help that. Now you are holding it wide open and asking a lot of the front tires and they get pissed off on this old worn out surface and then they start freeing it up and all of a sudden you catch the rear tires up to it and you step over the line and have to come back to a happy medium. That is what we are working on right now, trying to digest everything that we did. We changed a lot and were able to change a lot. Hopefully we make the right moves.”
CAN YOU TAKE SOME POSITIVE OUT OF LEADING ALL THE SESSIONS YOU HAVE LED THIS WEEKEND OR DOES IT NOT MEAN A WHOLE LOT WITH THE WAY TRACK CONDITIONS WILL BE CHANGING? “I don’t know that it means a whole lot. You have speed in your race car but I don’t know if that will matter. I don’t think there is anybody that ran more than 20 laps. We are a 50-lap run here. That is a big difference. Lap 20 on is where we start separating the men from the boys. Hopefully we will be good and strong at those laps.”
ARE YOU CONCERNED WITH ANY OF THESE POWER STEERING ISSUES THAT SOME OF THE GUYS ARE HAVING? “Yeah. It is very weird. The 41 had one too. It is something that is a gremlin that people are fighting, yeah. You get out there on this long race and I guarantee you that you are going to be sawing on the wheel tomorrow if you are up front and asking a lot of that steering component. Hopefully it will be fine. I know there were more cars than just the 4 that had issues so it is a concern across the board but I don’t think there is anyone better than our group at figuring things out.”
NOTHING AGAINST LAJOIE OR MCDOWELL, BUT WE USUALLY DON’T SEE THOSE GUYS RUN TOP-FIVE LIKE THEY DID TODAY IN PRACTICE. IS THAT A PRODUCT OF THIS NEW PACKAGE? “It is without a doubt this package. You can make any car fast. Handling and things like that are going to come into play. That is why we all don’t quite know what to think about this yet. We all take a lot of pride as a race car driver and your team in figuring things out better than the next guy. The cream will always rise to the top. It always does in any sport or anything for that matter.”
