Ford Performance Notes and Quotes
Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series (MENCS)
Sunday, May 26, 2019
EVENT: Coca-Cola 600
Ford Finishing Results:
2nd – Joey Logano
5th – Ricky Stenhouse Jr.
10th – Kevin Harvick
11th – Aric Almirola
12th – Corey LaJoie
13th – Ryan Blaney
14th – Paul Menard
15th – David Ragan
16th – Ryan Newman
18th – Daniel Suarez
19th – Brad Keselowski
20th – Matt Tifft
22nd – Michael McDowell
24th – Clint Bowyer
JOEY LOGANO, No. 22 Shell/Pennzoil Ford Mustang – HOW DID YOU GET THERE AT THE END AND WHAT DID YOU NEED FOR TRUEX? “Well, I needed him to go slower (laughing), but that’s not his job. We had a rough start to this thing. The guys did a good job fixing it up to where we were competitive at the end and had a shot to win, so that’s all you can ask for. I don’t know how we got from where we thought we were gonna be good in practice and then started the race really bad. I’m glad we made some good adjustments to get somewhat close. The Coke 600 is such a big deal to win, especially as a Coke driver you want to make it happen and we were close, but we’ll just have to wait again to next year and go at it. Like I said, if you told me we were gonna finish second early in the race, I would have taken it, but when you actually finish second and you see the lead that close you don’t want to take it.”
“I thought we had a good shot when that caution came back out. That was another chance and just didn’t quite get it, but overall, like I said, very proud of it. As far as Memorial Day Weekend and getting to race is a privilege, so for me to complain about second sounds pretty dumb. I’m proud to live in this country and I’m happy that I just get to race.”
WHAT WAS YOUR THOUGHT ON THE MOMENT OF SILENCE? “It was great. I don’t get the best view of it all happening when you’re tucked right behind a car with a big spoiler in front of you. I think it’s great, not just the moment of silence halfway through, but I thought just the pre-race ceremonies and having some of the military members walking out with you and introducing them instead of us as drivers and I think that was really cool and selfless to do. Also obviously having the fallen soldiers on the race car it’s just a really cool weekend. They do such a good job at it. Hat’s off to NASCAR and Marcus Smith for doing what they did. They did a great job this weekend. It was a good crowd and it seemed like a lot of people enjoyed it. As hot as it was and that many people still came out, so they should be proud of that.”
WHEN IT CAME DOWN TO YOU AND TRUEX WERE YOU LIKE, “HERE WE GO AGAIN?” IT SEEMED LIKE YOU GUYS RACED HARD, BUT FAIR. “Yeah, of course. Haven’t we every time?”
DID YOU FEEL GOOD ON THAT LAST RESTART? “Being sixth I wish I was closer to the front, but being on the outside row I thought I had a good shot. When they were four-wide in front of me I went to push the 38 ahead and got there, but I just didn’t quite get clear of Truex to come all the way down the race track. It might have been better, the 38 ran really high and I thought he was gonna run in the middle and I kind of misjudged it and that’s what just killed a little bit of momentum to where Martin was able to just have enough momentum to clear me off that corner. At that point I shoved him ahead to try to make the pass to the outside, but he defended it well.”
ARIC ALMIROLA, No. 10 Smithfield Ford Mustang – “It was a struggle most of the night. I don’t know. We can’t make it handle the way we need it to. It won’t go on restarts. I don’t know. We have to just keep working and get better.”
RICKY STENHOUSE JR., No. 17 Fastenal Ford Mustang – “I wasn’t real happy about that final caution. I was hoping it was just gonna run out. We were running down the 18 and that was good for us. It’s been a while since we’ve been up there contending like that with caliber of a car. We did it at Kansas and came back here and struggled at the All-Star Race, but we made really good changes to our Fastenal Mustang to get ready for the 600 and felt really, really good with it. That’s something to build on. We still have to get more consistent throughout the race. Having a car like that at the end, we need to be able to have stage points throughout the whole race. All in all, a great night for us, a good points night, and we just have to keep this momentum going that we started at Kansas.”
WHEN DID THE CAR COME TO LIFE? “Once the sun went down. I’ve always told people I don’t really ever feel the track change a whole lot. I feel like we always stay the same, but we were making a lot of adjustments, but once the sun went down I felt like the track stayed more consistent and we were able to catch up with where our car needed to be. I felt like we had a really strong car the last 200 laps and proud to finally get a top five with it.”
KEVIN HARVICK, No. 4 Mobil 1 Ford Mustang – HOW DIFFERENT OF A 600 WAS THIS? “It was different for sure. For us, we lost the handle on the car. We had some different shift codes in the tires that we had to run because that’s what we had. As soon as we put all those shift codes on, the car just went to absolute junk.”
WHAT WAS IT LIKE WITH ALL THE PUSHING AND SHOVING TO GET AROUND HERE TONIGHT? “I don’t even know.”
DAVID RAGAN, No. 38 Select Blinds Ford Mustang – “Our Select Blinds Ford Mustang was a top 10 or 12 car a lot of the night. We had some trouble on pit road and felt like I had to pass a lot of cars often throughout the night, but our team did a great job preparing a good car. That was the best mile-and-a-half car we’ve had in a long time and we just ran out of tires. I had some damage from that Kyle Larson wreck with about 30 or 40 to go. We used an extra set of tires and we didn’t have any. We had some with about 20 laps on it, but I felt like if I could have got a good restart I would be able to hold them off. If it would have been two or three laps, we could have got a top five or top 10, but once all the dirty air got around we just didn’t have the grip to hang on there at the end. But that was fun. It was a fun 600-mile race and we learned a few things that will hopefully help us for down the road.”
AND YOU WEREN’T GOING TO PULL OVER FOR THE 19 ON THAT RESTART WITH 5 TO GO. “No, absolutely not. We were doing all we could. You never know. I mean, those guys could get back there body slamming and I could have gotten a five or 10 car length lead. You just never, never know what may happen on a deal like that. I felt like I hit my marks on the restart good. I got through turns one and two and was leading down the back straightaway and that’s all you can ask for. It helped that Newman was on two tires underneath me and he kind of held them up a little bit, but five laps was just too much.”
RYAN NEWMAN, No. 6 Oscar Mayer Hot Dogs Ford Mustang – “We didn’t have the best of cars, but we got ourselves in position and tried. Two tires was kind of my idea, but I just didn’t have enough to hold on. We were off a little bit in speed all day and that’s what we needed there at the end.”
