Ford Performance Notes and Quotes
NASCAR Cup Series
Cook Out Southern 500 | Sunday, September 3, 2023
Ford Finishing Results:
3rd – Chris Buescher
6th – Brad Keselowski
9th – Ryan Blaney
12th – Joey Logano
14th – Aric Almirola
15th – Chase Briscoe
19th – Kevin Harvick
26th – Todd Gilliland
27th – Ryan Newman
28th – Ryan Preece
30th – JJ Yeley
31st – Austin Cindric
32nd – Michael McDowell
35th – Harrison Burton
CHRIS BUESCHER, No. 17 BuildSubmarines.com Ford Mustang – “It was really good. This BuildSubmarines.com Ford Mustang was strong. I’m really proud of everybody on this team. This is the first time we’ve had Build Subs on board. I know Brad has had it several times, but I’m proud to have a bunch of them out here with us and to get a good, solid day. It just goes to show that what we’ve been doing at RFK the last several months is doing a good job, working hard and getting the results. It hurts a little bit to be that close to a win. We had a little bit more speed a couple times there and then Byron was really fast and we had to start defending that and that actually checked us up a little bit i the process, but it was a really strong day for us. I’m really proud of that and a heck of a start.”
YOU WERE UP THERE ALL NIGHT AND WERE IN IT. “It feels good and it hurts a little bit at the same time. To be this close and watch it right there in front of us and to watch the 45 go up there and slap the fence over and over I’m like, ‘Man, surely we can get by.’ And the 5 car didn’t make any mistakes. It ended up being a hard day to pass, for sure. We definitely had big aero issues as we tried to get by cars. We worked hard on that and our team did a great job. The pit crew really stepped up in the final half of this race and got us a bunch of spots that put us up front and put us in a great spot to fight for it at least. It hurts just a little bit to be that close and not be able to get it.”
LARSON AND REDDICK WERE RIGHT UP AGAINST THE WALL. “Him and Reddick both are usually the first ones up there, so I had to just try to follow suit and got up there. We made a lot of really good time up there, but I felt like we were in a good spot. Even though we made speed up there, you really needed to go somewhere else to be able to pass and there at the end there just wasn’t any other options.”
A NUMBER OF PLAYOFF CONTENDERS HAD ISSUES TODAY, BUT NOT YOU. “Absolutely. I don’t know who you’re talking about yet because I had my blinders on, but our team did a fantastic job. Our pit crew guys all stepped up. Our team brought a really fast BuildSubmarines.com Ford Mustang and I feel like we were in the hunt. I was really happy after practice. At the start of the race and in the daylight we were super tight and it took us a while to get this thing underneath us, but even with that being the case, we had good speed and kind of hung right around the top 10 and once we got this thing dialed in a little bit and the sun went down, it cooled off and certainly picked up a good amount of pace.”
BRAD KESELOWSKI, No. 6 Solomon Plumbing Ford Mustang – “It was one of those days where it was just up and down. We got up to I think fourth there with 30 to go when that yellow came out and we pitted and we thought a whole bunch of cars would pit and they didn’t. That dropped us back to 17th or 18th and we were able to get back up to sixth but not all the way back up to where we were running. We just needed a few more cars to pit.”
ARE YOU SURPRISED BY THE UP-DOWN SWING TONIGHT? “Everybody is just so close and this car is just really finicky with small adjustments.
YOU DIDN’T DO ANYTHING TO HURT YOUR CHANCES OF ADVANCING IN THIS ROUND. “We were just solid. It was a solid day for us. We scored a lot of points and showed some strength from third to sixth with our two cars. We were just very solid.”
KEVIN HARVICK, No. 4 GEARWRENCH Ford Mustang – “The caution came out and the light was on, and I didn’t think I could turn right.”
FRUSTRATING NIGHT AFTER A GOOD STRONG EFFORT. “It was great.”
IS THIS A STEP FORWARD FOR YOU GUYS? “It’s the same stuff we’ve been doing.”
HOW DO YOU FEEL MOVING FORWARD? “We’ll just go and put the gas pedal down and do the exact same thing we’ve done for 23 years.”
RYAN BLANEY, No. 12 Advance Auto Parts Ford Mustang – “This race is such a weird race. It just goes through so many swings throughout the day and night. You start off the race in the full sun and it’s hot and by the end of the second stage it’s all night time and the track temp changes. This place is really tricky with how the track changes and it went the complete opposite way of what we thought it was gonna go, so that kind of threw us for a little bit of a loop. It was just a weird pit strategy race, too. You usually don’t get that here, but just the way the cautions fell. There was a group of people with two laps on their tires and then split and it was kind of a wacky race. Luckily, we were able to get back to ninth. It was a hard-fought battle, for sure. I’m proud of the effort and it was a decent day on points.”
YOU HAVEN’T SEEN IT SWING THAT MUCH BEFORE? “It kind of happened really quickly at the end of stage two. We adjusted for it a little bit, but didn’t think it was gonna be that drastic. It was just doing massive swings. It was such a big swing that I thought something was wrong. I’ll be curious to look at it because I’ve never had one like that where one run and, boom, you’re like a 10 tight, so that was kind of odd. It was good to overcome that. You throw the kitchen sink at it to try to get it to work somewhat reasonable and get an OK finish.”
JOEY LOGANO, No. 22 Shell/Pennzoil Ford Mustang – “I got ran in the wall a third time and bent the toe link. The guys did a great job changing that and staying pretty much on the lead lap and then started to grind our way back through the field. I probably could have done a little better. I probably gave up overall 15 points on the day. I think we’re one point to the good right now, so those 15 would be nice.”
WHAT WERE YOUR MISTAKES? “I hit the wall. That was a mistake and then I hit the wall again just enough. It doesn’t take much to bend stuff and I just bent the toe link and that hurt us for a few laps.”
MICHAEL MCDOWELL, No. 34 StageFront VIP Ford Mustang – “We just didn’t execute tonight. We had one set of tires that just got us really far off. I’m not sure what happened. The car just went really loose and lost a lap there. It kind of spiraled from there. We hit pit road when the caution came out. That’s never good. I sped on pit road. That’s never good. It all came apart. It’s not how we wanted to start, but we still have two more and we’ll race hard, so we’ll see what we get.”
WHAT HAPPENED IN THAT LAST ACCIDENT? “I didn’t see what happened to Todd. I just saw the 11 start spinning in front of me. He checked up and then I ran into the back of him.”
HARRISON BURTON, No. 21 Motorcraft Ford Mustang – “I couldn’t tell. I saw all of that, I guess it was the 99 and somebody else got into each other and by the time I saw him coming down, he was in my lap. Darlington, the way in one and two is when you commit to entry, that’s all the speed you’ve got and that’s all the left turn you can get. I saw him coming down and tried to slow down, but at that point I was in trouble. It’s really unfortunate. I felt like we had a pretty good day going. We qualified poorly, but we were digging ourselves out of that hole all day. We finally got into the top 15 and felt like we were probably gonna be able to race there the rest of the race and just got caught up. I want to give a shout out to our guys. It was a really long, hard-fought race for us and to get up to where we were, I’m proud of that effort. This is stuff you can’t control and that’s part of racing, but we’ll just move on and be better next time.”
