Ford Performance Notes and Quotes
Saturday, March 16, 2019
EVENT: NASCAR Xfinity Series (Post-Race Quotes)
FORD FINISHING RESULTS
1st – Cole Custer
5th – Chase Briscoe
6th – Austin Cindric
COLE CUSTER, No. 00 Thompson Pipe/Haas CNC Ford Mustang (Finished 1st)
VICTORY LANE INTERVIEW — THIS IS YOUR THIRD CAREER XFINITY WIN, BUT THIS ONE RIGHT DOWN THE ROAD FROM WHERE YOU GREW UP: “This means to ton. To win here, at home in Southern California – I grew up racing in San Bernardino and Irwindale. It means a ton. To come back here. I can’t thank the Thompson Pipe group enough. I wouldn’t be racing without what their family did for me. Haas Automation is a local company also. It was such a huge race for us. Everybody, it is a home town race for our whole team. I am pretty pumped up.”
YOU HELD OF KYLE BUSCH AND THERE AT THE END, TELL US ABOUT THE MOVE THAT TOOK THE LEAD AND WHAT YOU HAD TO DO TO KEEP KYLE BEHIND YOU? “Kyle Busch is one of the legends of our sport. To keep him one race more from getting 200 means a lot. I am sure he is probably a little frustrated but we have a great time racing him and hopefully we do it more in the future.”
WHAT WAS THE DIFFERENCE AT THE END? “For us it was clean air and having good restarts really. We had a pretty good Mustang all day, it was just a matter of getting out front. We got our car to turn better and that was kind of the difference.”
THE LAST TWO YEARS YOU WON IN RACE 35 AND RACE 33. WHAT DOES IT MEAN FOR YOU TO HAVE A WIN THIS EARLY IN THE SEASON? “It feels weird honestly. We always save it for the very end of the season. I am pretty pumped up. I think it will be a little more relaxing and now we can focus on winning the rest of the year and probably build up some stage points and playoff points also. I am pretty pumped for that.”
AUSTIN CINDRIC, No. 22 America’s Tire/Discount Tire Ford Mustang (Finished 6th)
“If you look at the numbers on stages and finishes it seems like we had a pretty quiet day. We didn’t really have the practices or qualifying we wanted. I had a lot of long run speed to begin the race in the short stages. Restored to running the wall which is something I am not the best at and I learned a lot on how to do it today. I am proud of that effort. We made our car better throughout the day and got into top-five position then had the blown rear tire and had to come back from that and recovered to finish sixth. We were sniffing a top-five at the end. I will take it. Days like this are hard to come by when you make a couple mistakes and learn a lot of things and we were able to rebound with stage points and a good finish. I will take it and move on to Texas.”
CHASE BRISCOE, No. 98 Nutri Chomps/C-A-L Ranch Ford Mustang (Finished 5th)
“We kind of struggled at the beginning. That has been our mantra this year. As the race goes on we get better and better. I don’t’ know if we were that good at the end. I kind of screwed myself getting onto pit road and cost ourselves four spots. We had to restart ninth and got back to fourth. We were way too tight at the end. I wish that run before could have gone to the end. I feel like we could have been third or maybe second. Overall not a bad day. I think as we continue to go on we get better and better as we learn each other. It was a pretty good day for the Ford Mustangs and Stewart-Haas Racing and we will go on to the next one and see what we can do.”
Ford Performance Notes and Quotes
Saturday, March 16, 2019
EVENT: NASCAR Xfinity Series (Race Winning Team Press Conference)
COLE CUSTER, No. 00 Thompson Pipe/Haas CNC Ford Mustang
DID YOU HAVE A LOT OF FAMILY AND FRIENDS HERE TODAY? WHAT IS IT LIKE WINNING IN FRONT OF YOUR HOMETOWN FANS?
“It meant a lot. I grew up racing about 20 minutes from here and then at Irwindale, another 20 minutes from here. It means a lot to come back here and win. We had a ton of people out here taking pictures. That is why it took so long to get here. It is an awesome win. I think every driver wants to win here because of how cool the track is, but for me with it being my hometown track it means a lot.”
HOW MUCH IS HAVING A TEAMMATE HELPED THE ORGANIZATION AND YOU AS A DRIVER THIS SEASON? “None of it has been a negative for us. As the year goes on it will get better and better. I think we have two good teams. We are sharing information, bounce ideas off each other. It is all going to help. Even being able to help each other on the race track too.”
WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO DO TO CELEBRATE? “Well, I can drink this year! I don’t know. I actually think I am cruising the campgrounds for an event for the track that I am going to do. This one definitely means a lot. I am staying for tomorrow so I am going to live it up in LA for the night.”
WHAT IS IT LIKE WHEN YOU SEE KYLE BUSCH OUT FRONT AND THEN HE HAS THAT MISTAKE ON PIT ROAD. HOW DOES IT CHANGE YOUR APPROACH TO THE RACE WHEN YOU SEE THAT? “Even when he was in front of us I felt like if the restart came out or a really long run happened that we could maybe have caught him. We were pretty even I would say. Right there when they had that mistake on pit road it definitely made it so I knew I needed clean air to pull away as fast as I could. I knew that it was between us two. I needed to get as far away as possible and build up a lead. We were able to do that.”
HOW HAVE YOU APPROACHED THIS SEASON AND TALK ABOUT THE NUMBERS SO FAR THIS YEAR AND IT ALL KIND OF COMING TOGETHER: “It is my third year. I have a lot more experience. Also, having Mike, I think that has been huge. They had won a lot of races at Ginassi last year and has a lot of experience over the years with different drivers and he brings a new mindset to our organization from where we started. It helped a lot. It came together pretty late, right when Ginassi shutdown their Xfinity team. I think it has been a gain for our team.”
MIKE SHIPLETT, crew chief, No. 00 Ford Mustang
JOE CUSTER SAID THEY HAD THEIR EYE ON YOU FOR AWHILE, CAN YOU TALK ABOUT THE TRANSITION AND WORKING WITH COLE AND HIS POTENTIAL? “I have seen a lot from Cole racing against him the last two years. He has a lot of talent and we just needed to fine tune it and fine where he was the weakest at and capitalize. He has plenty of speed. He had a lot of poles. We just needed to finish off the car. He always had good short run speed so we focused more on the long run speed. Bringing over Davin Rustino was a big help getting us going. He has been my engineer the last four years and we brought him over here. That was a big help to get everything going faster. Everything came together. They had a good core group of guys at the shop and we all hit it off and started working together and we are starting to see now the cars we were able to build back in January.”
CAN YOU TALK A BIT ABOUT ALL THE PEOPLE HERE FROM HAAS AUTOMATION AND THE SUPPORT FROM THEM? “Yeah, there is a long list of people who had this as their hometown race. Me, Thompson Pipe Group who was on the car this week is 10 miles from here. A lot off people may not know the story that I grew up racing with their family. My quarter midget track shut down in Pomona and Ken Thompson had a concrete business and made pipes so they built a concrete quarter midget track and kept everybody racing in the quarter midget community. I probably wouldn’t be here without them. Haas Automation, I wouldn’t be here without them and their support of me and they are right up in Ventura. It was a great race for everybody.”
MIKE SHIPLETT CONTINUED:
WHAT IS THE NEXT STEP TO WIN MORE CONSISTENTLY? WHAT ARE THE DIFFERENCES BETWEEN SOMEONE THAT CAN WIN OCCASIONALLY AND SOMEONE THAT CAN BE MORE OF A DOMINANT FIGURE? “The biggest thing is just being consistent. You can’t win if you are running around 10th all the time. If you are in the top-five every week, being consistent, you have a chance every week. Getting all the details out of the car. NASCAR does a great job inspecting these cars but you have to get every single thing out of them every week if you want to run up front and be capable of winning every race. You have to have a talented driver too, which we do with Cole, I am really looking forward to the rest of the year with Cole.”
COLE CUSTER CONTINUED:
IS THERE SOMETHING THAT MIKE CAN PULL OUT OF YOU TO TAKE THAT NEXT STEP TO BEING A DOMINANT GUY? “I think it just takes everything throughout the team. Having a really good pit crew. The driver doing his job in every aspect. Restarts, getting the car how he wants, the team bringing speed with the cars and having the long run speed but still being able to fire off. Running the top-five and having speed at times you can maybe sneak out a win or two but to be a dominant team you have to have everything. I think we are working towards that and hopefully we figured it out this weekend and we can keep doing it throughout the year.”
IT LOOKED LIKE YOUR CAR WAS QUICKER IN STAGE 3 THAN STAGE 2. ALSO, FROM LAP 95-111, YOU WERE FOLLOWING KYLE BUSCH, DID YOU STUDY HIS LINES? “Yeah, I think we made a little gain on our car throughout the race. It is tough because you try to fix one thing and it hurts the other thing. We knew our car was fast and we didn’t want to hurt it. That was the biggest thing. We just kind of adjusted a little and made it a little better time after time. When I ran behind Kyle that one run, I definitely learned a little in three and four with how he was running the track and the different lanes he was running. Whenever we run against these guys we learn a lot. I think it is good that they are limited because we put on better racing by ourselves for the fans, but you have to race against them to learn.”
YOU GO BACK TO TEXAS AS THE MOST RECENT WINNER THERE IN A COUPLE WEEKS: “Yeah, Texas has always been a good track for us in the past and we have always had speed there. We look forward to coming back. Mike ran good there last year and I think we will go there with speed. It is a matter of doing what we did today, stay out front, have clean air and not make any mistakes really.”
YOU HAD THE 18 IN YOUR REARVIEW MIRROR AT THE END. DID NERVES KICK IN? WHAT WAS GOING THROUGH YOUR MIND WITH BUSCH BEARING DOWN ON YOU? “You look in the mirror and see that black car and hope it doesn’t get bigger. You just have to keep telling yourself to hit your marks, don’t overdrive it. Everything you have learned in the race you need to perfect it and focus on yourself and not what is behind you. I think it just worked out that we had a better car than he did at the end of the race and I was able to hit my marks and pull away a little bit.”
CAN YOU TALK ABOUT THE SATISFACTION OF BEATING HIM THOUGH? “Yeah, it means a ton. Obviously he will be one of the legends in our sport. He will be a Hall of Famer. It means a lot to race with those guys and beat them. It means a ton to come out on top and keep him at 199.”
