Ford Performance Notes and Quotes
NASCAR Xfinity Series
Tennessee Lottery 250 | Saturday, June 29, 2024
Unofficial Ford Performance Results:
5th – Noah Gragson
6th – Riley Herbst
9th – Cole Custer
11th – Ryan Sieg
26th – Kyle Sieg
28th – Hailie Deegan
29th – Matt DiBenedetto
34th – Chad Finchem
35th – Blaine Perkins
RILEY HERBST, No. 98 Monster Energy Ford Mustang Dark Horse – ARE YOU OK? “I’m hot. Hopefully, I’ll go to the infield care center and get a couple bags of fluid and then go to sleep in 30 minutes and hop in a Cup car for 400 miles and try to go learn. That’s the goal tomorrow and just make all the laps. The goal is to finish on the lead lap and just learn, learn, learn.”
SO THE SUIT MALFUNCTIONED? DID YOU HAVE HOT WATER BURNING? “I don’t feel burned, but on the grid it made a weird noise. It clunked a little bit, but what are we gonna do when we’re rolling off, so we kept going. I just felt it get hotter and hotter and hotter, so I made the executive decision to unplug it. That’s risky because you can’t really plug it back in, so that was a 100 percent decision and we did. Stage two was the hardest. That’s when it got a little spotty vision, but cold water in the car and the ice got us through.”
DID WHAT YOU DO AT THE END OF STAGE TWO HELP THE REST OF THE RACE? “Yeah. I mean, it’s fun, the challenge. I know when Kevin Harvick ran these cars a few years ago he thought they were extremely hot and mentioned it to NASCAR and they got the rear slots to put in this year. That kind of hurt us aerodynamically. We’ve been struggling with that a little bit, but I don’t know what I would have been like if I didn’t have the slots. I appreciate Kevin and everybody who pushed for it.”
DO YOU HAVE A NEW SYSTEM FOR TOMORROW? “I have a different shirt. I’m gonna give both shirts to the Rick Ware guys and have them make sure they both work. I don’t think it was the suit. I think it was the unit.”
COLE CUSTER, No. 00 Haas Automation Ford Mustang Dark Horse – “We just need to keep digging. We’re right there, but I just don’t know where we’re missing it honestly. We’re just really close every weekend. We just don’t quite have enough. I’m sure there were a few things I could do better and we’ll look back on it, but we definitely need a win now. We need to start trying to click off some wins, so we’ll keep digging.”
WHAT HAPPENED ON THE LAST RESTART. YOU WERE IN THE LEAD, BUT AS SOON AS YOU TOOK OFF YOU LOST POSITION? “Yeah, I tried to drive in kind of deep so I could clear the 20, but then I got super tight off turn two and I just kind of carried that tight through the rest of the run. I don’t know. It was just really weird because the run before the car wasn’t that bad, so it’s just frustrating.”
NOAH GRAGSON, No. 30 Priestly Demolition Ford Mustang Dark Horse – CAN YOU TALK ABOUT FINISHING IN THE TOP FIVE? “It feels good. My cool shirt stopped working there in the middle of the race. It got super hot, but I’m really thankful for this Rhett Jones Racing team. They did a great job. I’ve kind of struggled here in the past, but we were pretty good all day. We just needed a little bit more right-rear grip, but we’ll keep working on it. It was better than Charlotte, which was our first race as a team, so we just want to keep building.”
HOW WILL THE HEAT AFFECT YOU TOMORROW? “It will definitely be hot. I don’t know. Hopefully, my cool shirt stays working.”
