NASCAR CUP SERIES
WEDNESDAY, JULY 15, 2020
ALL-STAR RACE – BRISTOL MOTOR SPEEDWAY
FORD PERFORMANCE DRIVER – POST RACE QUOTES
Ford Finishing Results:
3rd — Kevin Harvick
4th — Brad Keselowski
6th — Ryan Blaney
7th — Joey Logano
9th — Aric Almirola
13th — Matt DiBenedetto
15th — Clint Bowyer
16th — Cole Custer
19th — Ryan Newman
KEVIN HARVICK, No. 4 Busch Light Apple Ford Mustang — YOU WENT FROM 10TH TO THIRD IN THE FINAL 15 LAPS. ANYTHING DIFFERENT YOU COULD HAVE DONE? “There were a couple laps there that I had to spend a little more time in traffic than I needed to to get back to the front, but our Busch Light Apple Ford Mustang guys did a good job. I think that was the right call. That was our only chance. We weren’t gonna beat the 9 where we were sitting on the same tires, so it all came down to getting past those cars for the first couple laps, but, in the end, it was definitely one lane. Much different than I thought it was gonna be.”
POST-RACE PRESS CONFERENCE
CAN YOU WALK US THROUGH YOUR RACE? “It was okay. We were on all sides of the handling and just never really got that right. We had a good strategy there at the end, but just took a couple laps too long to get past some of the cars that we needed to pass, just needed a couple more laps to catch the leaders, but weren’t gonna beat the 9 heads-up where we were, running whatever it was without doing something different. A bunch of them didn’t do anything but stay out and wound up having to pass a couple more than we needed to. Other than that, our Busch Light Apple Ford was okay and just came up a little short.”
WHAT DID YOU THINK OF THE WHOLE NIGHT AND HAVING THE FANS BACK? “I thought having the fans back is obviously what we all want and having that energy back in the stands was definitely fun to hear and fun to be a part of, so I wish we would have had a couple more lanes to race in. I think the only thing I would like to see different if we raced here again was run all the other races so that the track was 100 percent run in, so you could run all over the racetrack. But it definitely was nice to have some energy back in the racetrack.”
WOULD YOU LIKE TO SEE THE ALL-STAR RACE CONTINUE HERE AT BRISTOL AND DID IT FULFILL EXPECTATIONS? “I’d like to see it moved around. I don’t think it should stay in one spot. We could definitely have the track prepared better if we did race here again. They didn’t even clean the outside lane one time, so it never really had a chance to even get high enough to get that lane to come in. The second lane came in — a couple cars made a little ground — but the bottom was just so dominant that you had to run most of your laps down there.”
HOW DID THE CHOOSE RULE PLAY OUT? “I think the thing that it does is it just takes all the question out of where everybody is and who is where. When you get to that line everybody has already made their choice and there’s no funny business of people trying to start in a different lane or do something that they didn’t choose to do. I think that went really well and, for the most part, I don’t think there were any issues.”
DO YOU THINK THE RACE WAS TOO SHORT IN ORDER TO CREATE WHAT IT WAS INTENDED TO? “I don’t know that I’m the right guy to ask that. I think a short race when you look at last week, for the most part, it wasn’t a very good race and you had a great finish. I think it all depends on how all that goes and I think tonight Chase Elliott winning makes it a better race just because he’s obviously the most popular guy here and it’s good for all of us when Chase wins, so I think when you look at that, I don’t know that the time really matters. I think it’s, like I said earlier, I think the track could have been prepared and taken care of differently than it was tonight to allow for that top lane to come around.”
WHAT DOES IT DO FOR THE MOMENTUM OF THE SPORT TO HAVE CHASE WIN TONIGHT WITH THE FANS BACK? “Like I just said, I think when Chase wins it’s good for all of us, so, obviously, that’s a good thing.”
WHAT ABOUT THE UNDERGLOW LIGHTS? WAS IT WEIRD SEEING THAT? “I wish mine would have fallen off (laughing). The only person that I talked to that thought that underglow light was good was my eight-year-old. Hopefully, the kids liked it because it was definitely something that I’m way out of that age group for, I guess you’d call it the underglow light.”
THERE WERE SOME QUESTIONS ABOUT TRACK PREP AT KENTUCKY. IS THERE A CONCERN WITH WHAT”S HAPPENED THIS PAST WEEK AND IS THERE A WORRY GOING INTO TEXAS? “Yeah, I mean you’re definitely depending on the guys taking care of the racetrack. I think when we definitely went to Charlotte and the track prep didn’t seem like the PJ1 was what it had been the last couple years. It seemed like when we started at Kentucky the track prep obviously wasn’t very good for the XFINITY cars with dust flying everywhere and the top was just nasty dirty tonight and really no chance to ever really run up there. The track prep piece of it, just last week we showed up on race day and the PJ1 was put on the racetrack without anybody knowing, so I think you have to be concerned with it going to Texas because it just hasn’t been the same as what it was last year.”
WHAT IS THE LESSON OF THIS WEEK TO AVOID WHAT’S HAPPENED? WHAT NEEDS TO BE DONE THIS WEEKEND? “That’s a good question. I think the one thing that lacks there is practice, so I think everybody is kind of guessing at what’s right and what’s wrong, but the track was definitely not ready to race last week at Kentucky when those guys took off in the XFINITY race. And tonight there was no chance that the top groove was gonna come in. There was enough stuff up there that if you drove up there it was gonna take you two or three laps to get cleaned back up. It just wound up not being able to push it high enough. We still had a second groove, but I think a lot of people had the expectations that the bump-and-run was gonna come into play tonight, but when the bottom has that much grip, then it becomes kind of an aero game, which it kind of became tonight.”
WAS THE TRACK PREP AND LACK OF THE OUTSIDE LANE THE DECIDING FACTOR TONIGHT? “Well, you just didn’t have any options to move around and make your car do different things. A lot of times if you can’t run the bottom, you move up to the top and it seems like the cars have a better chance to fix the problems that they had. With the short race tonight, not having an option besides the bottom, you just kind of took all those things away of tools that you had to try to race and make your car faster. Tonight, the 9 hit it and he had the dominant car in the lane that we had available.
ALL-STAR OPEN POST-RACE INTERVIEWS
MATT DIBENEDETTO, No. 21 Menards/FVP Ford Mustang — ALL-STAR OPEN WINNER — POST-RACE INTERVIEW: “Oh, man. I was hanging on for dear life. We were so loose on entry. I was right on the ragged edge, so just thankful to the team for battling back. My gosh, we had big damage there at the start and had to fix it. That’s battling back. That’s been this team lately. We’ve been fighting so hard. I’m so proud to be driving this thing and thankful for Menards, FVP, the Wood Brothers team, Motorcraft/Quick Lane, everyone that allows me to have the opportunity to race in my first All-Star Race.”
CLINT BOWYER, No. 14 Rush Truck Centers Ford Mustang — FAN VOTE WINNER — “You hate to lean on them (the fans), but it damn sure feels good to have the fans back at the track. Thank you, guys! We’re gonna go out here and see if we can make some more noise. It’s fun to be around this place. You want to talk about an All-Star event, this is the right track to do it. It’s only gonna get better as we go here. We’ve already seen sparks flying, tempers flaring. I think you’re gonna see more of it. We’ve got a little bit of work to do on our car, but we’re in it. I watched my buddy, Kasey Kahne win it one time off a fan vote — maybe we can do the same thing.”
