Ford Performance Notes and Quotes
NASCAR Cup Series — EchoPark Automotive Texas Grand Prix
Circuit of the Americas Post | Sunday, May 23, 2021
Ford Finishing Results:
3rd — Joey Logano
6th — Chase Briscoe
7th — Michael McDowell
13th — Chris Buescher
17th — Ryan Blaney
18th — Anthony Alfredo
19th — Brad Keselowski
23rd — Matt DiBenedetto
24th — Ryan Newman
25th — Austin Cindric
26th — Aric Almirola
28th — Garrett Smithley
30th — Josh Bilicki
31st — Kyle Tilley
36th — Cole Custer
37th — Kevin Harvick
JOEY LOGANO, No. 22 Shell/Pennzoil Ford Mustang — WAS THERE ANY POINTS WHERE YOU FELT IT NEEDED TO END RIGHT THEN AND THERE? “No, I felt fine most of it. It felt uncomfortable at times on the restarts if you were fifth on back. It felt pretty uncomfortable because they get to the point that the little red light, you can’t even see that light anymore. They don’t have to be that far — maybe 30-40 feet in front of you and you’d lose their red light and that’s where it gets a little sketchy.”
SKETCHY SEEMED TO BE A COMMON WORD TODAY. “Yeah, it was, but it was fun. I had a blast. It was mentally draining, mentally very, very challenging out there because the track changed so much from lap to lap. One lap it’s pouring. The next lap it’s raining a little bit and then you’re hydroplaning everywhere and you’re really slipping and sliding, and tires meant something, which I think was surprising to everybody — that tires meant something. You saw the 18 drive through the field one time. We put tires on and were able to drive through the field, so it was kind of fun. We’re all learning together and trying to figure it all out at the same time.”
ARE YOU GOOD WITH THEM CALLING IT OR SHOULD THEY HAVE WAITED LONGER? “Here’s the situation. If we kept going, everything was fine. If we kept clicking laps off, probably everything would have been fine. Yeah, we were hydroplaning a lot down the straightaway. Yes, there was standing water. What’s the line? I don’t know. I think we’re all trying to figure it out together, but once they put the yellow out, then you can’t restart the race because you pack everybody up and they’re hydroplaning and you can’t see. It was a recipe for disaster so you can’t restart the race, but everyone was spread out at that moment, so you were probably OK, but maybe safe than sorry after looking at that crash with Cole and the 19. I didn’t see that coming. I didn’t see the race, but I just saw a replay a minute ago when I got out. When that’s kind of a situation, you need to really be aware of the situation.”
DOES THERE NEED TO BE A DISCUSSION ABOUT HOW TO OFFICIATE THESE TYPE OF RACES IN THE FUTURE? “Yeah, I think the biggest thing is just trying to understand the spray. That’s what we’ve got to fix. I’m going to Richmond tomorrow to work on a rain test. I don’t know, maybe they’ll bring some mud flaps or something to put the spray down. Honestly, I think you’ve got to do something like that. I know that sounds goofy and it sounds like a joke, but I honestly think you’ve got to do something to get the spray down to where we can see where we’re going. Once you do that, we’re good to go. We actually raced fine. It was actually a lot of fun. The racing was good, so it was a crazy day.”
WOULD A REAR DIFFUSER ON THE NEXT GEN HELP? “I have no clue. I don’t know. I don’t even know what a diffuser does in the first place (laughing).”
CINDRIC SAID TO PUT MUD FLAPS ON THE CAR. “He’s right. It’s true. You need to do something. You’re still gonna have spray, but you’ve got to close off the back of the car a little bit. That’s gonna kill downforce, but if everyone’s got it, it’s fine and you’re going so slow what kind of downforce are you making anyway?”
DO YOU WANT TO COME BACK HERE? “Yeah, honestly I thought the racing was pretty fun. We won’t know what it’s like when it’s dry much, but there was definitely passing zones. You could pass cars. It’s one of the best road courses I think I’ve gone to when it comes to race-ability. You’re not stuck behind somebody all the time. There are passing zones and things you can do, so, yeah. Our road course stuff has been good lately. I’m pretty proud of our finish. If everything cycles out, we cycle back to second, which it didn’t obviously with the 9. I wasn’t good enough to beat the 5 on the long run for sure, but we’re making progress on them.”
DID YOU KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT BRAD WORKING ON SOMETHING FOR NEXT YEAR? “I didn’t know. Obviously, you look at what happened last year and a one-year term and you could kind of see the writing on the wall for the most part. Whatever he does and how everything ends up — I don’t think anything has actually been officially announced — but I think it’s definitely an interesting period for us at Team Penske and for Brad in his life.”
MICHAEL MCDOWELL, No. 34 Outwest Express Ford Mustang — “The beginning of the race wasn’t too bad. We started out on kind of a damp track and then obviously rain started coming down. It was a lot of fun in the first little bit, but those restarts, once the rain started really coming down was so treacherous. Our cars don’t spray like a sports car or an open-wheel car that has ground effects or a rear diffuser. It doesn’t shoot it in the air. It stays on the ground, so you just can’t see the car in front of you. It was super treacherous. The back straightaway accident there was completely my fault. I saw a brake light, but I couldn’t see anything else. Normally, you’re looking for the bridge for your braking markers, looking for something, but I could not see anything so I just rolled out of the gas. Obviously, the guys behind me didn’t and I hate that, but I literally could not see anything. The conditions were really treacherous. Once the cars got single filed out you were OK, but as soon as you got within four or five car lengths of a car it was pretty tough to see, and it always is in the rain, but a little bit different in our cars. And then at the end with the heavy rain our cars just hydroplane so bad that you just go down the straightaway and lose it, so those are always really dangerous when you’re hydroplaning down the straightaway. But, at the same time, it’s the same for everybody so you’re always in the same conditions and have to manage them the best you can, but at the same time I felt really unsafe at the end there just making laps by myself trying to hold onto a top 10 finish.”
YOU GOT THAT TOP 10 FINISH. DOES THAT HELP? “Bittersweet. I wish I could have beat Joey for that stage. That stage point would have been nice, but he was just a little bit better than us. We got stage points and ran in the top 10. We passed a lot of cars, so it was a great day for the Outwest Express Ford Mustang. We’ll take it and take another top 10 and get ready for Charlotte. That’s always a big week, so looking forward to going home.”
CHASE BRISCOE, No. 14 HighPoint.com Ford Mustang — “It was crazy with the conditions. With the Roval I felt like I was gonna have a pretty good understanding of what it was gonna be like, but we’re just going so much faster here that the vision was way worse. The grip level, I felt like was honestly a little bit better, but you just couldn’t see. There could be a guy stopped in the middle of the straightaway and you would have hit him wide-open, so between that and hydroplaning it was definitely challenging. Overall, it was good for us. I felt like we passed a lot of cars today. We continue to make our car better and this is the type of run we needed where we were up front a lot of the day.”
DID NASCAR MAKE THE RIGHT CALL BY ENDING IT EARLY? “I think so. We were just gonna keep tearing stuff up. I’m all for racing in the rain, but it was dangerous. You couldn’t see anything and literally anybody could have been stopped and you would have hit him wide-open. That’s how bad it was. It was hairy to say the least, but it was fun, too.”
RYAN BLANEY, No. 12 BodyArmor Ford Mustang — “Overall, it wasn’t a bad day. We kind of just got caught up in some wrecks and came home with an OK finish. It wasn’t great, but we’ll go again next week.”
EVERYBODY IS SAYING YOU COULDN’T SEE OUT THERE. HOW BAD WAS IT? “You couldn’t see a thing. I thought down the backstretch was pretty dangerous because you just can’t see anything. I got run over pretty hard by somebody not seeing anything and just clobbered me, and it happened a couple other times. That was pretty wild not being able to see nothing. It was one of those deals.”
CHRIS BUESCHER, No. 17 autoTempest Ford Mustang — WAS IT THE RIGHT CALL TO END IT THERE? “I don’t know. I have mixed emotions because I felt like we had more in us, but at the same time I haven’t seen the replays of some of those crashes on the back, but when vision is zero it’s dangerous. I think that’s where this amount of rain and even though we’re standing outside now and it’s not terrible, but it would have taken a lot of time to get the standing water off. Unfortunately, it comes down to vision. That’s it. The cars don’t drive that bad in these conditions, it’s just vision. We can’t see.”
HOW WERE YOU FROM A COMPETITION STANDPOINT TODAY? “We were in the ballpark for competitiveness. I thought the setup stuff was pretty good in a lot of different scenarios. We fought some brake issues all day since qualifying and that’s what we’re talking about and trying to get to the bottom of because that held us back today. That’s what kept us from being able to drive a lot harder, so trying to diagnose some of that will really help put everything into perspective and help figure out what was going on because we had a lot of speed in the car.”
KEVIN HARVICK, No. 4 Mobil 1 Thousand.com Ford Mustang — Involved in accident on lap 19
“It’s the most unsafe thing I’ve ever done in a race car by a lot. You can’t see anything down the straightaways. These cars were not built to run in the rain and when you can’t see, my spotter said, ‘Check up, check up,’ because he thought he saw two cars wrecking. I let off and the guy behind me hit me wide-open because he never saw me. It’s unbelievable that we’re out there doing what we’re doing because we’re in race cars that aren’t made to do this, and if you can’t see going down the straightaway it’s absolutely not safe, not even close.”
SO YOU HAD NO BUSINESS BEING OUT THERE? “We don’t have any business being out in the rain, period. All I can say is this is the worst decision that we’ve ever made in our sport that I’ve been a part of, and I’ve never felt more unsafe in my whole racing career, period.”
COLE CUSTER, No. 41 HaasTooling.com Ford Mustang — Involved in accident on lap 25
“I’m all good. It didn’t hurt as much as I thought it was gonna be, but it’s just that you can’t see anything. It’s pretty bad. I mean, you can’t see a foot in front of your car. I was just rolling down the backstretch. You can’t see anything. I’m just so frustrated about having our day end like this. It killed the car and it’s just really frustrating. It’s not fair to all our guys and everybody at Haas Tooling.com and everybody at SHR, so it’s just you can’t see anything.”
“You just can’t see anything on that backstretch. I think the same thing happened to us at the same time, somebody was going slower and by the time you want to slow down, they’re in your front bumper so there’s no chance of you even missing it. It’s just so frustrating. We just wanted a good run and it’s just not fair to all our guys and everybody at SHR to have a destroyed race car for really no good reason. It’s frustrating, but we’ll move on to the next one.”
