Ford Performance Notes and Quotes
NASCAR XFINITY Series (NXS)
Friday, September 20, 2019
EVENT: Go Bowling 250, Richmond Raceway (Media Availabilities)
COLE CUSTER, No. 00 Go Bowling Ford Mustang – THOUGHTS ON THE PLAYOFFS STARTING AND TRYING TO SWEEP THIS YEAR AT RICHMOND. “I think with the Playoffs you just try and up your focus a little bit. You can’t underestimate anybody or change your mindset really. I think you’ve just got to do what you’ve been doing all year and make sure that you get your car handling the way that you want it to. People are gonna make their cars better coming into this race, so you have to make sure you’re on your game.”
CHRISTOPHER BELL HAD ONE OF THE BEST CARS IN THE SPRING. WHAT IF HE IS DOMINANT TONIGHT. HOW DO YOU CONTEND WITH THAT? “I don’t really care. I think you just worry about yourself. I know we won this race last time and I knew what we did to get there and I think we’ve got a good idea of what to do. It’s just a matter of if we can put it all together tonight.”
AS PART OF THE BIG THREE IN THIS SERIES, DOES THAT HAVE ANY AFFECT ON YOU IN THE PLAYOFFS FROM AN EXPECTATION STANDPOINT? “You just kind of have to reset, I guess. Everybody is on a pretty level playing field and you have to make sure that you’re managing the situation well. We have a really good amount of Playoff points, so we have to make sure we probably don’t have any really bad days and just trying to make it to the next round is really the biggest thing.”
WAS DARLINGTON A TURNING POINT IN TERMS OF CHANGING THE MOMENTUM FOR YOUR TEAM? “Yeah, I think the last few races have been a good turning point to try to get some consistency back and trying to get us back to where we were. I felt like we were fast all throughout the summer, but it’s just that the races didn’t play out well or I made a couple of mistakes and it didn’t work out well. I feel now we’re kind of back on track and I think we’ve got some good tracks coming up too.”
YOU HAVE A POINTS CUSHION TO START THE PLAYOFFS, SO HOW DO YOU MANAGE THAT AND STILL BE AGGRESSIVE IN THE RACE? “The biggest thing is you can’t be too conservative because other people will put you in some bad spots, but you want to make sure that you don’t put yourself in a really bad situation also. It’s kind of balancing both because if you race too conservatively, it can get you in trouble.”
