Ford Performance Notes and Quotes
NASCAR Cup Series
Clash at Bowman Gray | Sunday, February 2, 2025
Ford Finishing Results:
2nd – Ryan Blaney
4th – Joey Logano
7th – Austin Cindric
10th – Chris Buescher
11th – Ryan Preece
13th – Josh Berry
14th – Todd Gilliland
20th – Noah Gragson
21st – Brad Keselowski
JOEY LOGANO AND RYAN BLANEY POST-RACE PRESS CONFERENCE
JOEY LOGANO, No. 22 Shell/Pennzoil Ford Mustang Dark Horse – WHAT WERE YOU MISSING TONIGHT? “I got damage early in the race, like lap three. Briscoe tried to get in and we wheel-hopped and it kind of jumped the front of my car up and ripped the steering wheel right out of my hands and knocked the toe out about half-an-inch and then it just plowed the whole first run of the race. That puts you an adjustment behind because in the 100 lap break you’re sitting there saying, ‘OK, I was really tight but was that because my toe was out a lot, or am I really that tight?’ So that makes it a challenging adjustment and really just kind of put us one adjustment behind. I wish I didn’t get that damage. I think I could have maybe been in contention there. We had decent track position. I was trying to manage where I was before the 100 lap break so I could still be in the hunt. We just had a couple of mediocre restarts where I couldn’t launch as good and let a couple cars down in front of me, and then the long haul there I was able to get a couple cars there at the end of the race. I was trying to position myself to where I was in the second row and you never know what happens on a late race restart at a track like this, so it was just trying to say semi close and hope for a caution, which there never was, but, overall, I would say the race was pretty interesting.”
RYAN BLANEY, No. 12 Menards/Great Lakes Flooring Ford Mustang Dark Horse – DID YOU USE UP TOO MUCH TO GET TO SECOND BECAUSE YOU SEEMED TO FADE AT THE END? “No. I got to 10th before the break and I kind of got to the top five relatively quick – a couple of restarts went my way – and by the time I got to second I saved a pretty good bit even to get to second because I knew it might go the whole way, and then it was just kind of like a game between the 9 and myself like who can save more right-rear tire. I just didn’t quite have enough to lean on there at the end. I started pushing like with 25 to go and I just didn’t have enough. I was like, ‘Uh oh.’ I needed some help by lappers and I just never really could get there. I kind of just didn’t have enough to lean on, but it was fun coming from the back and just not quite having enough, but it’s always fun when you can move forward like that.”
JOEY LOGANO CONTINUED – WHAT DID YOU THINK ABOUT THE ATMOSPHERE TONIGHT? “It was really, really good. I thought the pre-race ceremony was pretty cool. The fans being right there. It’s what Bowman Gray is, right? You’ve got the fans heckling you and saying whatever they want and saying your number one in two different ways, so that’s what Bowman Gray was built off of. I don’t know if you got the boos I got, but, overall, I would say it was successful. You look at when fans are cheering and screaming and those type of things, drivers brands are being exposed to everybody, which is great. Everyone has a favorite or not and they’re passionate about it and when you get everyone this close, I mean, you look at yesterday. People hung out for the modified race all the way until practice and the heat races. It was packed yesterday and tonight was standing room only, so, from that standpoint, the atmosphere was successful.”
RYAN BLANEY CONTINUED – “I agree with Joey. From the crowd yesterday that hung out for three hours from the modifieds to when we first got out on the track is a lot of commitment, and there was a lot of energy on the frontstretch before we got going there and that’s what it’s all about. It was really, really cool to be here and I’m happy that it was a good show for everybody. I’m looking forward to hopefully coming back next year. I don’t see why you wouldn’t come back, so I hope everyone had a good time.”
JOEY LOGANO CONTINUED – HOW FUN WAS THIS WEEKEND? “I didn’t win, so I didn’t have that much fun. I don’t really do it for fun at this point in my career, but it went better than I thought it could possibly go. You look at what the modified race was and they’re wrecking the crap out of each other, and you saw some heat races were very aggressive, but I think you got a little bit of everything here. You had the restarts where everyone was bottled up and I’d say bulldogging around. That’s kind of what it looked like for a while – a lot of contact and it’s very entertaining. I sat there and watched the LCQ and I was like, ‘This is an entertaining race. It’s pretty good.’ I’d say as the race went on you seen the top lane kind of come in a little bit and you could start to work some crossovers and stuff. Tire wear was real. I mean, at the end there I don’t think anyone was getting wide-open, not even close probably so that was fun. I can’t remember the last time I went around a racetrack and I didn’t get wide-open. It reminded me a little bit of the old days with the old car, which was a lot of fun to have that tire wear and that fall off to where you really have to manage your car and be a smart racer. We don’t have that everywhere, so it was nice to see that Goodyear could bring that tire here.”
RYAN BLANEY CONTINUED – DID YOUR TIRES JUST LOSE GRIP OR WAS CHASE WAS ABLE TO SAVE HIS TO BE FASTER AT THE END? “Yeah, I think he just had better drive off than me that whole last run. I turned better and he had better drive off, so it was kind of a trade off, I feel like. Honestly, I felt like our cars were kind of evenly matched. My car was better in one area and he car was better in another, but I felt like if you just swapped our two cars, I don’t think we would have passed each other. If I was in front of him or if he was in front of me, I think we were pretty evenly matched, but when I started to go I just didn’t have enough right rear. I was not gonna make that pass and couldn’t just bulldog into him and get chased out of here with pitchforks, so when it was time to go I just didn’t quite have enough. I could turn really good, but I paid the penalty on exit to where he could just keep the power down a little bit longer and the right rears seemed to wear out more than right fronts, so it just helped him out a little bit more at the end.”
AREN’T YOU SUPPOSED TO GET RUN OUT OF HERE WITH PITCHFORKS? “I don’t know what you like, but that’s not something I want to do (laughing).”
DO YOU FEEL IT’S IMPERATIVE TO COME BACK HERE AGAIN, OR DO YOU WAIT A FEW YEARS AND THEN COME BACK? “There’s gonna be just as many people here next year if you come back as there was tonight. I don’t think it would lose any of its luster.”
JOEY LOGANO CONTINUED – “From what I hear, they pack this place out every weekend without the star power of Cup guys. The people who come here are just race fans. They just like racing, and the other thing too is remember it’s not a huge stadium, so you pack it out and it looks good and the energy is real and it’s not like you have this ginormous stadium and you get half or three quarters of it full. This is like standing room only is a special feel. It’s hard to get the ticket, which people want what they can’t have. A lot of people probably watched this on TV and weren’t able to get the ticket here because there’s a limited quantity. Maybe next year they get the opportunity to get tickets. Maybe they’ll say, ‘Hey, I need to get on it and when they start selling them I need to be on it and get them.’ There’s a little bit to be said about that as well, but on the same breath I would say it’s very important for us to move things around. We’ve seen the success of our sport moving to new racetracks and I’m a big fan of going to new places and bringing the racetrack to the fans that don’t typically get to see us because it’s so hard for a lot of people to travel a long ways to see our races, so going to new places is huge for our sport and we’ve done that over the last five, six years. We’ve added new racetracks quite often, so I think that’s successful. Doing the same thing eventually gets stale, but I don’t think that’s gonna happen here anytime soon.”
RYAN BLANEY CONTINUED – CAN YOU TALK AGAIN ABOUT THE ATMOSPHERE TONIGHT? DID YOU FEEL THAT HARDCORE VIBE TONIGHT? “Yeah, definitely. It was neat when you do intros on the frontstretch and you park your car the fans are right there. It was neat to hear them cheering and supporting you. There aren’t a lot of places we go where they’re that close and that passionate, maybe a lot of them for whatever reason everyone wants to have their opinion heard here that’s in the stands, and that’s awesome to me, whether good or bad, it’s awesome that they’re there and they’re wanting to interact and that is a hardcore race fan. I didn’t see any birds tonight by the fans, luckily. My eyesight isn’t as good, so I might have been shot some, but I just think it was cool and it was cool for the fans to stick around for a good bit when we were doing interviews on the frontstretch after the race. You could tell they were excited to be here and they were excited for us to come and put on a heck of a show and they appreciated the race and things like that, so they’re hardcore race fans and you can’t beat that anywhere else. They’ve been like that here for 90 years, so you’ll have that, which is good.”
JOEY LOGANO CONTINUED – “Like I said earlier, it was great. I think you look at whether it was yesterday, whether it was here in person, which was great, or watching it on TV was great. There’s not a bad seat in the house, which is awesome, and I think the fans build off of each other. As they sit next to each other in that tight of quarters, I’m sure they started jawing back and forth about who their favorite driver is and everyone starts cheering louder and louder. We have such a unique sport because when you go to a basketball game, there’s a home team and the majority roots for one team. In our sport, there are 40 of us out there, so it’s pretty wild to see the differences and all that is displayed in driver intros. As long as they’re making noise. They make noise for me, so that’s good. It goes both ways, but it’s noise and that’s always good.”
AUSTIN CINDRIC, No. 2 Freightliner Ford Mustang Dark Horse – “I thought we did a good job of making our Freightliner Ford Mustang Dark Horse better from Saturday night and even from the first 100 laps to the second 100 laps. I can’t really complain. I thought we had speed to race in the top five. We made a lot of passes under green on that long run and felt like we had a reasonable car and kept the tires under it. These quarter mile events have been a struggle for me the last four years, so it’s really good progress and a solid showing to start the season for the 2 car.”
JOSH BERRY, No. 21 Motorcraft/Quick Lane Ford Mustang Dark Horse – “It was a lot of fun. I thought the guys did a really good job making the car better and adjusting on it from practice and the heat races to give me a really good car for the feature. Honestly, I felt like we had some more potential there if things would have went a little different, but, overall, I’m really happy with it. Obviously, the goal is to come here and make the race, so to do that and get a decent finish in our first time out it was a lot of fun.”
RYAN PREECE, No. 60 Fastenall Ford Mustang Dark Horse – “We made gains on the break. I think we were running 20th and struggling to be there, and made good adjustments and got ourselves back to 11th. We didn’t really have any other opportunities to go forward, so at the end of the day I’m happy with positive changes and just ready to move forward to the Duels and the big show.”
WAS THIS EVENT A SUCCESS? “I was really shocked that the racing wasn’t chaos, which is great. It speaks volumes. I think NASCAR, the event at Bowman Gray and this city, that was unreal. Driver intros and the enthusiasm and everything about this place. I’m disappointed a Ford didn’t win, but, at the same time I’m happy to be part of this event.”
