Ford Performance Notes and Quotes
NASCAR Cup Series
Charlotte Motor Speedway Post-Practice Media Availability | Friday, May 28, 2021
BRAD KESELOWSKI, No. 2 Keystone Light Ford Mustang — YOU WON THIS RACE LAST YEAR, BUT THE CHOOSE RULE WASN’T AROUND THEN. HOW DOES THAT CHANGE A TWO-TIRE CALL IF YOU ARE ABLE TO PICK THE POSITION YOU’RE RESTARTING FROM? “The choose rule definitely changed, I think, the way the strategy and the races flow because being able to pick your lane with new tires give you options to be where you want to be. I can’t say specifically how it would have played out because you don’t know what everybody would have done, but I suspect it would have been definitely harder to defend the lead position I was in.”
WILL YOU BE BACK WITH TEAM PENSKE IN 2022? “I can’t talk about that, but I appreciate you asking. When I can, I’ll tell you.”
HAS IT BEEN A DISTRACTION WITH ALL THE RUMORS AND REPORTS? “No, it’s not difficult for me. I think I’m in a spot where I’m just head down, finished second last year in points and won four races and looking for one more spot.”
DO YOU THINK IT CAN IMPACT THE PERFORMANCE OF THE TEAM? “My team is pretty tough. They’ve got a really good mental toughness and they’re in a good spot.”
WHEN DO YOU THINK YOU WILL REVEAL YOUR PLANS FOR 2022? “As soon as I’m allowed to.”
KEVIN HARVICK, No. 4 Mobil 1 Ford Mustang — WHAT’S IT LIKE BACK TO A NORMAL WEEKEND? “We really have been doing things for a year-and-a-half, so we’ve been going to the racetrack doing our job. It hasn’t been exactly like this, obviously, but I’ve been as busy this month as I’ve been throughout my whole career, but being here to practice is different than it has been and I’m happy to see my guys and be able to be in the garage and actually go through some things, instead of just jumping in and jumping out.”
DO YOU FEEL LIKE YOU’VE MADE SOME GAINS THE LAST FEW WEEKS? “I think we’ve gained a little bit of speed. I think Kansas was a good step for us as far as speed goes. I think we’ve just been grinding it out. I don’t think we’re fast enough by any means, so we just keep grinding it out and having good finishes and doing what we have to do with what we have.”
DID YOU TALK TO NASCAR AT ALL ABOUT LAST WEEK AND NOT RED FLAGGING THE RACE BEFORE YOUR ACCIDENT? “My opinion is we should have never been in the rain anyway. I think everybody is pretty aware of that as we’ve done this and it’s like I explained to those guys. I know they say we’re learning now, but in 1999 when we ran rain tires at Watkins Glen the biggest problem was visibility, so we haven’t fixed the visibility problem since 1999 we’re not gonna fix it now. We’ve put the XFINITY guys in a number of bad situations in rain races in the past and I think as you look at all the stuff that we’ve done in the past with the XFINITY cars in the rain they didn’t need to be out there, either. If you can’t see, you can’t race. Period.”
WILL THESE 600 MILES BE A GOOD TEST TO SEE WHERE YOU GUYS ARE AND WHAT YOU’VE BEEN DOING THE LAST COUPLE OF WEEKS? “That could go either way.”
RYAN BLANEY, No. 12 BodyArmor Ford Mustang — DO YOU KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT BRAD’S PLANS? “I didn’t hear anything about it until you all did. I wish him the best. It’s definitely a change. It’s exciting for him to become an owner again. It’s cool for him, so hopefully it works out good for him.”
IS THERE SOMETHING YOU’RE LOOKING FOR IN A TEAMMATE? “I don’t know what we’re doing there yet. I’m sure they’re working on it, but you look at someone, Austin is obviously gonna be, no matter where he goes if it’s the 21 or 2 it doesn’t matter, but someone with good experience and a hunger to get better. That’s what you want in a teammate to push each other and I’m sure we’ll find the right guy.”
IT SEEMS YOU CAN GET THINGS DONE ON THE 500 TRACKS. IS THERE SOMETHING YOU’RE DOING DIFFERENTLY OR YOUR TEAM IS DOING DIFFERENTLY? “I’m not really sure. We’ve just had really good cars on 550 tracks. Todd does a good job. We have an aero package, or whatever you want to call it, that we build them to be able to run hard. We’ve never really been known for amazing straightaway speed. Other teams are kind of known for that. We make sure we handle good and that helps me be able to drive the car really hard. I think between all of our cars it jockeys back and forth on who is better each weekend on mile-and-a-halves, but I enjoy the bigger tracks. You can run cars really hard with the high downforce stuff. That’s got me in trouble a few times on some short track stuff, but it just works out for the 550s.”
DO YOU THINK YOU’RE A BETTER DRIVER WHEN THE TIRE WEAR IS HIGHER? “I prefer tracks that wears tires out. I think I like it so much because I grew up running the past stuff. We’d run 150 laps on the same set and you’d ride around for 100 laps that race in the past late models, and I think that kind of helped me save a little bit of tire from an early age and it kind of helps me now. It just kind of works out, but there are some places I don’t do great with big tire fall off like Richmond. I’m getting better at Richmond, but I like it just because I think I grew up doing so much of saving tires.”
JOEY LOGANO, No. 22 Shell/Pennzoil Ford Mustang — WHAT DO YOU THINK ABOUT THE BRAD NEWS AND HIM LEAVING? “I don’t think anything has been officially said, so I’m just kind of focused in on what we’re doing here right now. There’s obviously plenty of stuff to think about and talk about. At this point, we’ve got to focus in on winning the Coke 600. It’s kind of a big weekend for us.”
HOW DOES THE 550 PACKAGE PLAY OUT ON A RACE LIKE THIS? “It makes this last practice very valuable. When I saw that rain earlier I said, ‘Come on. This is like the most important practice we can ever have.’ Just trying to tune our car in and work on some things. Fifty minutes doesn’t really give you much opportunity. If you try to get your balance right and maybe you can swing at it a couple times with just some package changes and maybe some smaller things, but I don’t know if we made a whole bunch of gains yet, but I think you kind of have to look at it right now at what the other cars and what our competition is and see where we’re at. This track can be deceiving sometimes. A lot of times the guy winning the race just still doesn’t feel good. It’s one of one of those racetracks where it’s bumpy. The car is moving around a lot and dirty air is a big piece here as well, too. I’ve got to go back and kind of see where we stack up. It doesn’t feel great. I know that, but I don’t think it feels great for anybody, so kind of have to figure that out right now.”
HOW MUCH DOES THE TRACK CHANGE FROM 6 P.M. ON? “It’s gonna change a fair amount. It’s gonna change a lot in looking at the forecast. It’s gonna cool off a lot from even what it is now, so it will definitely change here some, but just in general the track has changed from one and two to three and four. The bumps that have developed, I don’t know if the garbage isn’t packed in as good over there or whatever it is. I should know more about this stuff with my dad being a garbage man, but I’d say they didn’t compact it as good over there as they did in one and two, or something is different because that track in one and two stays smooth, but three and four becomes a cobblestone road for us out there.”
WHAT DO YOU LOVE ABOUT THIS RACE AND WHAT DO YOU HATE ABOUT IT? “I just want to win it. I wouldn’t say there’s much that I hate about it. I love racing, so I’m fine with it. I love the challenge of 600 miles. Its definitely more challenging. More points are available with the four stages, so there’s a lot on the line throughout this race. You’ve got to make sure you’re on it because 600 miles is a long one. It’s a tough one. but we’ll be up to the challenge.”
THE STATE HAS PROPOSED $10 MILLION FOR CHARLOTTE MOTOR SPEEDWAY AS PART OF THE STIMULUS PLAN. WHERE WOULD THAT MONEY BE BEST USED? “That’s a loaded question right there. Ten million dollars sounds like a lot of money, and it is, but when you look at a facility this big it would take added investment. You think about building a garage, doing a garage similar to others that have included more fan engagement — those type of things are gonna be a lot more than $10 million with how big these garages are, so that’s gonna be a pretty hefty investment. That’s probably the first thing that comes to mind is how do we make the fan engagement better. One of the amazing things is the TV. I think it’s fantastic that they have it here. It’s one of the best things that any racetrack can have is to be able to see everything that’s going on over the loud speakers and those type of things. I think sound is always so important at these places. What good is the guy up there talking and keeping everyone entertained if you can’t hear him, so keeping all of that stuff up to date, but without knowing off the top of my head, I don’t know. I haven’t been up in a suite in two years to know what those look like or anything, but I don’t feel like this racetrack is in bad shape, in my mind. It’s our home track. We’re here a lot, but I’m sure there will be some things they’ll find and I’ll be interested to see what they do with it.”
YOU SAID EARLIER THIS WEEK THAT AMERICA IS BACK THIS WEEK. HAVE YOU FELT THAT YET? “It absolutely feels like that. I was talking to someone earlier, I was like, ‘Oh my gosh, I haven’t seen you in two years.’ To see someone walking through the garage, practice, you guys all actually being able to come up and talk to us, this is a first, especially without masks on. It’s nice to see everyone’s faces again and not be zooming. I’m over the zoom. I’m over it. I like it. It’s nice that we have the ability to do it, but it’s nothing like face to face.”
A LOT OF ROAD COURSES COMING UP IN THE SUMMER, A NEW VENUE AT NASHVILLE AND THE POCONO DH. HOW MUCH CAN THIS STRETCH TEST A TEAM? “I think at this point look at what happened last year. We can adapt and do anything as a sport. You’ve got a lot of new racetracks as you said, but we did that a little bit last year. The Daytona road course, we showed up with no practice and ran it and everything went fine. Rain racing, I wouldn’t say everything went fine, but it was OK, so there are things like that that we’ve been able to do and I think as a race team we’ve got to be open to adapt and be open to trying new things and not be stubborn and just go off of that.”
