Ford Performance Notes and Quotes
NASCAR XFINITY Series
NASCAR Zoom Media Availability | Wednesday, August 4, 2021
ARIC ALMIROLA, No. 10 Smithfield Ford Mustang — WHAT DID YOU DO DURING YOUR BREAK? “Right after Loudon, we did some stuff around the house. I had a lot of media to do Monday and Tuesday, and then some stuff to do for sponsors on Wednesday. And then Thursday, we were go-kart testing and Friday we were go-kart practicing and we raced Saturday. Then we got on an airplane after Alex’s go-kart race and went down to Key West and went on vacation down there and did a bunch of fishing and lobster diving and a really fun time down there. I left straight from Key West and got Janice and the kids home back to Charlotte, and then went up to Wisconsin last night and ran an ARCA Midwest Tour Late Model race in Kaukauna, Wisconsin and had some fun doing that, going back to my roots and doing some short track racing. I got to the hotel last night about midnight and got up at 4:30 this morning to catch a 6:30 flight back to Charlotte and I’ve been going hard since I hit the ground here in Charlotte.”
HOW DO YOU LOOK AT THE GLEN THIS WEEKEND? “It’s not a secret that road racing has never been something that I’ve excelled at. I’ve worked really hard at getting better at it, and I feel like I have gotten a lot better at it, but Watkins Glen has been a racetrack that I enjoy going to. It is a fun racetrack to run at. I enjoy making laps around there and racing there. I’ve qualified really well the last few years there. I qualified in the top 10 actually the last few years there, and have just not been able to put the results together and get good finishes. I got wrecked one time, had a transmission issue one time, so we’ve had a lot of different things kind of creep up and hurt our result, but I feel like Watkins Glen is a place I can go and run in the top 10, but I’ve never felt like I was a threat to win there. I’m not sure going there, I still don’t feel like we’ll be a threat to win, but it’s a place that I feel comfortable and feel like if we got some track position and got off strategy on pit sequence or stretch our fuel mileage or something like that, it’s certainly a possibility for us to go there and steal a win and that would be awesome.”
HOW HARD HAVE YOU WORKED ON YOUR RESTARTS? “That’s really what has changed a lot of things about our sport is the restarts. The restarts have gotten wild and crazy and it’s everything. You can gain five or six spots in the first two laps of a restart now and you can lose five or six spots, and even if you’re better than those cars in two laps if you give up six spots, it will take you 50 laps to get those six spots back, so it is really important to get good restarts. That’s something I’ve certainly worked hard at and been mindful of getting better at restarts and maintaining position or advancing positions, and we’ve been able to do that this year. Even though the year has been a struggle at some of the racetracks we’ve gone to, there has been some things to take away that have been marked improvements.”
HOW DO YOU GET BACK INTO A COMPETITIVE MINDSET AFTER A TWO-WEEK BREAK LIKE THIS? “I took a week to vacation out of the two weeks that we’ve had off, but the rest of the time has been spent racing. I was racing with my son, Alex, and then I was racing a late model last night in Wisconsin. It’s who I am. It’s what I do. I enjoy time away. I certainly enjoy clearing my head and get to spend some quality family time, but at the same time going to the racetrack is normal. I really enjoy normal and the routine of going to the racetrack each and every weekend and going to compete.”
DO YOU FEEL LOUDON WAS A TURNING POINT FOR YOU AND THE FORDS OVERALL? “I do. I feel like we’re getting better. I feel like we’re starting to turn the corner. I do think we’ve made significant improvements with our cars, specifically with the 750 package. Nashville was really the one that stood out to me as kind of the turning point for us. We went there and qualified on the pole, ran in the top five a majority of the race, and I think we finished fourth. So, we had a good run there and really started to see light at the end of the tunnel. We started to see that we were making some positive improvements on the race cars and getting things going the right direction motor-wise, car build-wise, just all these things. We went to Loudon and, yeah, it was a great race for Fords all-around. The Penske cars were fast. The Stewart-Haas cars were fast. It was a great race for us, obviously, to be able to go up there and compete and pass a lot of race cars. We started deep in the field, so to pass a lot of race cars and have a great day on pit road and do all the things we needed to do to execute a perfect race to win in a clutch situation where we had to win.”
WHAT IS YOUR TAKE ON GOING TO THE INDY ROAD COURSE NEXT WEEK AS OPPOSED TO THE OVAL? “If I’m being honest I’m sad about it, to be just honest. I think racing on the oval was so cool just because I was a kid and went and watched an Indy 500 back in the late nineties. It was a special place and to race on the oval was just special. I mean, you think about the history of that racetrack and the people that have ran around that rectangular racetrack and crossed that yard of bricks and all those things and all the races that went on before you dating back to the early 1900’s, it’s just a very special place so to not race on the oval is weird. I’ll certainly miss it, but I have no doubt that we will put on an exciting race on the road course and it will be a lot of fun to try and figure that place out.”
DO YOU LEAN ON CHASE BRISCOE AT ALL SINCE HE RACED AND WON ON THE COURSE LAST YEAR IN THE XFINITY SERIES? “Absolutely. I will, for sure, lean on him and pick his brain. He ran really well there, obviously won the Xfinity race last year, so I will absolutely lean on him.”
ARE THERE ANY LESSONS THAT WILL CARRY OVER NEXT YEAR EVEN IF PRACTICE STARTS AGAIN? “Yeah, I think practice is gonna be really important with the new car. I think there’s so much to learn, and I think it’s gonna be huge any track time that you do get and to maximize the track time that you get. There’s gonna be a lot to learn. When you get started with a new product, I mean, it’s new from top to bottom. Everything about it is new — the parts, the pieces, even driving it. It’s got rack-and-pinion steering instead of power-steering. It’s got five gears instead of four gears. It’s not an h-pattern shifter, it’s a sequential shifter, so all those things are very different, so getting on track, practicing, going through a laundry list of ideas and setup changes and all those things to try and hit on something because out of the gate somebody is gonna hit on something and they will be the dominant team, and then everybody else will play catch-up. You want to be the team that hits it first.”
WHAT DID THE WIN AT LOUDON DO AS FAR AS CONVERSATIONS WITH STEWART-HAAS AND SMITHFIELD ABOUT NEXT YEAR? “Those talks have been ongoing. That happens every year regardless, so obviously winning makes things better — always. It makes the morale at the shop better, the team better and it boosts momentum going into the playoffs and all those things. So, it certainly helps, but we’re going on 10 years of a wonderful relationship with them. I look forward to continuing that for many more years. Winning always helps.”
IS IT YOUR EXPECTATION YOU’LL BE BACK WITH SHR NEXT YEAR? “Yeah, I’ve had a multi-year contract for a while now, so we don’t disclose all the contract terms to all of you guys because all you’d do is ask every year anyway.”
DID YOUR WIN AT LOUDON PUT ANY MORE PRESSURE ON THE 4 GOING FORWARD? “I have no idea. You would have to ask Kevin Harvick that question, not me. I’m sure they have a lot of confidence that they will make it into the playoffs. They’re a great race team and I’m sure they’ll be fast at some of these races coming up. He’s dominated Michigan the last several years. I’m sure they’ll be fast at Daytona. I have no doubt that they’re thinking about it. If I was in their situation I would certainly at least be thinking about it or be aware, but I believe they have confidence in their team and certainly in our organization that they’ll be able to get the job done and go make the playoffs.”
ARE THERE CERTAIN THINGS YOUR TEAM IS LOOKING AT IMPROVING FOR THE PLAYOFFS? “We’ve been focusing on improving at a rapid pace just to try and turn our season around, and I think we’ve done that, certainly in the last month to month-and-a-half. I’m looking forward to the playoffs. I feel like we are starting to peak at the right time, which is important in sports in general. I watched my Tampa Bay Buccaneers peak at the right time and go on to win a Super Bowl, and winning as the lowest seed there, so that’s what it’s really about and I feel like we’re getting there. We’re getting our race cars better and better. We’re figuring out some things about our race cars to make them better and faster and that’s what it’s gonna take. You can’t take slow race cars into the playoffs and go win a championship, and I feel like we’re doing a really good job of getting the most out of our race cars now and we’re continuing to build on that. So, looking forward to doing that — to close out the regular season and then as we go into the playoffs, and as we go into the playoffs it’s really gonna be about execution. You can’t have pit road speeding penalties. You can’t have loose wheels. You can’t have slow pit stops. The driver’s got to do his job on restarts and getting the most out of the race car, so it’s a total team effort and we’ve got to execute on every facet of the race.”
