Ford Performance Notes and Quotes
Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series (MENCS)
Friday, April 12, 2019
EVENT: Toyota Owners 400 Media Availability
RICKY STENHOUSE JR., No. 17 Fifth Third Bank Ford Mustang — TALLADEGA IS NEXT WEEK, HOW MUCH DO YOU LOOK FORWARD TO THAT FROM A RACING STANDPOINT? HOW MANY FRIENDS DO YOU THINK YOU’LL HAVE? “It felt like when we won our races at Daytona and Talladega we didn’t have any friends either. When you have a fast car — back in the day I felt like you had a lot of friends when you had a fast car but now if you have a fast car they want to shuffle you out so they don’t have to contend with you. Now going into speedways a lot of times you can do a lot of things on your own at Talladega and Daytona now. As much as all of us have learned with side drafting, I am interested to see how this package is going to draft. It will be different than what we have been running so it is what it is. We will go out there and do what we can and try to get a win. I always feel confident going there. First off, we have to get through Richmond and kind of get our stuff back on track. We have had a rough couple of weeks on the race track. Hopefully we can have a solid weekend here and get things rolling before we get to Talladega.”
WHAT HAS IT BEEN LIKE WORKING WITH RYAN (NEWMAN) THIS YEAR? “We started the year off strong on the 17. I think Ryan and the 6 team were just struggling to get on the same page with each other. Now that they have some races under their belt, I think they are on the same page. They had a really strong run at Bristol last weekend and were decent at Texas. We both struggled at Martinsville a lot more than what we wanted. It felt like we had a really good Sunny D Ford last week and didn’t get to show anything for it with our early incident there. The dynamic between the teams is really good. The dynamic with Ryan and myself has been what it needs to be in teammates and I think they way he thinks and talks about and goes through a race and a weekend has been beneficial to me. I think we are going to continue to get better.”
YOU GUYS HAVE GELLED PRETTY WELL? “Yeah, we have a lot in common. We were friends off the race track before we were teammates and have a lot of the same interests. I think that always helps things go smoothly.”
MATT YOCUM TWEETED A PICTURE OF YOU. WHAT IS THE STORY BEHIND THAT? “Yeah, I don’t know what year that was. Probably 2004 I would assume. I started racing sprint cars in 2003. I believe that was my second year running. Yeah, very old picture. I would appreciate it if he didn’t put that out there.”
THERE HAS BEEN TALK OF POTENTIAL WITH THE PACKAGE AT TALLADEGA OF SOME KIND OF TANDEM DRAFTING. IS THAT SOMETHING YOU THINK IS POSSIBLE? “I haven’t put much thought into it yet. I am wondering how the side draft will work. That is more of what I was referring to and just how those runs are going to be different. How you can get different runs on cars and ultimately what you can do when you are out front to maintain the lead. That is what our speedway racing has turned into, get to the top five and if you are in the top two of each lane, bottom or top, how do you stay there. I think a lot of people have it figured out now but now that the package is going to change, is that still going to be something easy or capable of doing? Obviously the tandem, I don’t know how that is going to work or not. I assume it is still illegal, right? I don’t know. Somebody will find out.”
DO YOU SENSE THE TIRES WILL WEAR OUT FASTER HERE THAN IT DID LAST WEEKEND AT BRISTOL? “Yeah, I doubt there will be different pit strategies. I think when the caution comes out here you will want tires. I think so far in that one practice that we had, I think the tires are falling off a little bit less than what they did in the two races last year but no doubt when the caution comes out you are going to want tires. That definitely made Bristol kind of cool and interesting toward the end of the race with the way the right side didn’t wear at all. You wanted left sides but could probably go the whole race changing the right sides once or twice. The left sides you wanted new tires. Here at Richmond I think you will see everybody electing for tires.”
WAS THERE SOMETHING THAT CLICKED FOR YOU AT RESTRICTOR PLATE TRACKS? “I think our package got better. For the longest time in my Cup career I felt like we got decent finishes but we never really contended for wins. We always put ourselves in the right position to get a top-10 and that is kind of where we hung out. We missed wrecks and had good pit strategies and things like that and put ourselves in position. It wasn’t until we really made our speedway program better, faster, cars handling better with speed that I felt like we stepped our game up that much more and were able to put ourselves in position to contend for wins and really have confidence going in to every speedway race knowing that we have a chance to win. Jimmy Fennig has done a great job with that and it is something that any time I am in the shop, we are always kind of kicking it around what he is learning and what we are going to be bringing to the race track if he is confident with it. It has been cool to see him take on that project and run with it. Now we need to elevate our short track and mile-and-a-half programs to the standard that our speedway cars are and then we will be where we need to be.”
DOES IT HELP TO HAVE SOMEONE AS AGGRESSIVE AS BRIAN PATTIE CALLING THE SHOTS FOR YOU AS WELL? “Yeah, it definitely helps. Now in the speedway races I feel like it is not just about the car or what you can do with it on the track but it is about strategy and track position and when you are going to make your last pit stop so that you can make that last pit stop before everybody else and keep that track position. Pattie is definitely not scared to roll the dice and see what strategy works. We have had some really interesting strategies here at Richmond that have paid out for us. Definitely cool to have Brian on the box. I feel like I have gone a few races where I have kind of questioned what he wants and that tends to be bad for us when I start questioning so I just revert back to letting him do what he wants to do.”
DO YOU HAVE A PICK FOR THE MASTERS? “I think earlier in the year I picked Tiger to win. I don’t know. I am definitely going from here straight to my bus to watch it.”
HOW DO YOU BALANCE DRIVING AGGRESSIVELY HERE AND WALK THAT FINE LINE AT A SHORT TRACK? “I don’t know. I just worry about that later. I think for me, I drive aggressive when our cars are capable of running up front and putting us in a position to have a good finish. If we are running 20th, I am not that aggressive. I feel like I do pick and choose when I turn it up or down if we have a car capable of running in the top-five or top-10 or winning then I will be aggressive and worry about things later. If we don’t have something that is very good and capable of running up front then I will probably just chill.”
HOW DO YOU PREPARE FOR THE RACE THIS WEEKEND? “For us it is about looking at notes. A lot of drivers like to rewatch races. We look at what has changed with the cars and what that is going to do to our race car and what it will make it drive like and what the lap time is going to be like. If they changed the construction of the tire and things like that. For us at Roush Fenway Racing, what we struggled with, we look back at Phoenix and we struggled with the brake package there and didn’t have it quite right. We worked on brakes coming into this weekend.”
WHAT DO YOU THINK ABOUT THE NEW QUALIFYING FORMAT FOR THIS WEEKEND? “It will be chaotic. To have only five minutes for all the cars to go out on the race track is going to be difficult. As drivers and teams, thinking back to Bristol last week, We didn’t want to be first out because of the solution on the bottom of the race track. It is better once it gets a little heat in it and cars get on it, so we all wait. Then coming into Richmond, we all want to wait a little bit because normally there is a lot of rubber on the race track from practice so we want cars to go out and pick that rubber up and the track picks up speed. There are different reasons why we all sit and wait to go out. At the 1.5 mile tracks you didn’t want to be first, you wanted to draft. Every track is unique. Now I don’t think it will be that big of a deal if we get to qualify because the rain will have washed all the rubber off the track. If the Xfinity cars qualify it won’t be that much rubber put down so I don’t think you will see cars waiting to go out as much as if we would have had a full day of practices and then qualifying with no track conditions changing.”
