Ford Performance Notes and Quotes
NASCAR Cup Series
AutoTrader EchoPark Automotive 400 | Sunday, September 24, 2023
Ford Finishing Results:
6th – Kevin Harvick
7th – Brad Keselowski
10th – Chase Briscoe
14th – Chris Buescher
15th – Michael McDowell
18th – Aric Almirola
20th – Harrison Burton
21st – Joey Logano
23rd – Ryan Preece
24th – Zane Smith
27th – Austin Cindric
28th – Ryan Blaney
32nd – JJ Yeley
35th – Todd Gilliland
KEVIN HARVICK, No. 4 Hunt Brothers Pizza Ford Mustang — (FINISHED 6th)
IT WAS A HOT DAY, BUT A DECENT OUTING ALL IN ALL? “Yeah, it wasn’t too bad in the car. I just struggled a little on the restarts getting the car pointed quick enough to really make ground and didn’t do a very good job of putting the car in the right spots. We lost a couple on the restarts and probably should have finished third or fourth but it was still a great day.”
BRAD KESELOWSKI, No. 6 BuildSubmarines.com Ford Mustang — (FINISHED 7th) “There were big ups and downs today. We ran in the top-10, 10th to 12th most of the day. At the end there we pitted and put two tires on at the end. I think we were fourth of fifth but then they kept wrecking so much that we didn’t get a chance to take advantage of it and were only able to get back up to seventh. All in all it was a great effort today for us and we scored a lot of points and didn’t beat ourselves and I am really proud of that.”
YOU SAID A COUPLE OF THINGS DIDN’T GO YOUR WAY, WHAT WERE THOSE? “Well, we didn’t need all those wrecks at the end of the race because I felt our car was really strong and capable of getting to the front with the newer tires that we had and I missed a few things that I needed to do better that probably cost us a stage point or two in the second stage. Just a few things that I need to clean up a little bit and a few breaks we needed to catch too.”
HEADING TO TALLADEGA, YOU HAVE HAD SPEED, ANY COMFORT KNOWING THAT YOU MAY HAVE A GOOD DAY NEXT WEEK? “Yeah, we are in the hunt with our cars and it is an exciting time for all of us at RFK and we are hoping we can go to Talladega and repeat what we just did at Daytona.”
CHASE BRISCOE, No. 14 Rush Truck Centers/Cummins Ford Mustang — (FINISHED 10th)
“From where we started, 31st, to being on the front row with six to go, I thought our team did a really good job of making our car better all weekend. Yeah, I didn’t know but I guess we got damage on the nose there. I pushed Bubba (Wallace) to the lead the restart before and hit him super hard to get him out there and it split the nose. There at the end I was so tight, just hanging on. I would have loved to have another shot at it without the damage because I feel like it would have been really close. We have been struggling all year long on mile-and-a-halves so to be as fast as we were today and run with the Hendrick cars and Gibbs cars says a lot. I am proud of our effort at Stewart-Haas, we just still have to get better and go to Talladega and see if we can win there.”
CHRIS BUESCHER, No. 17 Fastenal Ford Mustang – (FINISHED 14th)
“It was a great day for us. A really strong day. It was really hot. We made a lot of speed and got a lot of stage points and we ran in the top-five a lot today. At the end there we tried some strategy to make something happen and we couldn’t keep green flag conditions for more than a couple laps at a time so we bled off all the laps that we needed to do something and I ended up back there with people that were all over the place all day, running into us on straightaways and just shouldn’t have been around that group.”
HOW DO YOU WALK AWAY FROM TODAY WITH 15 STAGE POINTS AND UNTIL THE END YOU WERE HEADED FOR A GREAT FINISH AND A REALLY STRONG DAY AND THEN EVERYTHING KIND OF HITS THE FAN? “It is the way these things go sometimes I guess, I don’t know. I don’t know how many cars were wrecked today. It was just a mess there at the end. I don’t know how many green flag laps we actually got in the last 25 but it wasn’t near as many as we needed for it to work out the way we were trying. We got back there and got shoved up out of the groove and run into down the straightaways, it was just bad. We should never have been around that group but we ended up there.”
HOW DO YOU FEEL ABOUT THE FIRST FOUR RACES OF THESE PLAYOFFS WITH A FEW STRONG FINISHES? “We were fast again today. I think that is probably the best qualifying effort we had all year. We had a good practice and good speed in the race. We have been fast at every single playoff race so far. There is a ton to build on and a ton to build on today. There were a lot of things that went really well.”
RYAN BLANEY, No. 12 Menards/Dutch Boy Ford Ford Mustang — INVOLVED IN MULTICAR ACCIDENT ON LAP 257 (FINISHED 28th)
“It was an up and down day, definitely and it ended with a down. I am proud of this group for getting a little better all day and having a good strategy. We took right side tires to get track position and then the car was ok, just kind of hanging on. We got better and then I sped on pit road. That really took us out of it. Took us out of having a good finish. When you put yourself back there then you get in a wreck. A slight sliver of hope and proud of the work all day on getting better and getting stage points but a driver mistake puts us back in the stuff and getting wrecked. Not a very good job by me today but proud of everyone on this Menards/Dutch Boy Ford Mustang group. They did the best they could. We’re still not out of it. We’ll head to Talladega not too many points out. Hopefully we can rack up some there.”
