Ford Performance Notes and Quotes
NASCAR Cup Series
Food City 500
Sunday, April 13, 2025
Ford Finishing Results:
5th – Ryan Blaney
12th – Josh Berry
16th – Brad Keselowski
17th – Austin Cindric
20th – Ryan Preece
23rd – Noah Gragson
24th – Joey Logano
25th – Chris Buescher
27th – Zane Smith
29th – Cole Custer
34th – Corey LaJoie
35th – Todd Gilliland
36th – Cody Ware
38th – Josh Bilicki
RYAN BLANEY, No. 12 Menards/Richmond Water Heaters Ford Mustang Dark Horse – WHAT DID YOU MAKE OF TODAY? “It was just kind of a learning thing all day. The first run of the race nobody really knew what the tires were going to do and everyone kind of just rode around there a little bit and we finally got going and we went so long. Then it was like, ‘Alright, we can go a little bit harder.’ The track widened out, which was good. I honestly don’t know if I really anticipated that with the track getting wide and really not having tire problems. I’m glad that’s the way it was. I think it put on a pretty decent race. There were a lot of comers and goers, except for the lead, I guess, but it was a pretty fun day and a really good finish. We kind of took a chance of running really long there, seeing if we’d get a caution and then we finally bailed and had to make all the ground up and got back to fifth. Overall, it was a solid weekend.”
IT WAS WORTH THE GAMBLE BECAUSE YOU WERE FOURTH WHEN YOU STAYED OUT AND ENDED UP FIFTH, RIGHT? “Yeah, it was worth it. I thought it was a good move just in case someone blew a tire or something, but for a while we had everybody lapped and that was the long shot play to try and win the race. I was fifth before that cycle started, so it was nice that we got back up there for how long we ran. I didn’t have a ton of laps to make it back up, but, overall, it was a good call by Jonathan. It was the chance to catch a break and it didn’t really come, but it was a good weekend.”
IT SEEMED LIKE PIT STRATEGY WAS THE ONLY WAY TO SHAKE UP THE FIELD. “Yeah. Running long right there was really our only play to win. We were running fifth before the cycle started, so why not take a shot? I thought I did a really good job of saving my tires to make sure I didn’t have a problem. We went really, really long. I had a lot of people lapped for a while and hung on pretty strong, and then we finally decided to pit and got back to fifth. I had third and fourth right in front of me, so it almost played out even better than what it did. It was a good weekend and a good call by Jonathan to have a shot to try to do something different but it just didn’t work out.”
HOW PHYSICALLY GRUELING WAS IT OUT THERE? “This place beats you up every time you go, especially on longer runs like that. My back started hurting me at the end of Stage 2. I was like, ‘We’re only halfway through this thing. My back hurts already,’ but it’s a physical racetrack. There’s no time to rest. I think that’s the biggest thing. There’s no time to take a breath. Even Martinsville, the g’s shoving you in the seat aren’t as bad as here. You’re going way faster here, so it’s more brutal on your body every lap, but that’s what you sign up for.”
BACK TO BACK TOP FIVES FOR THIS TEAM. DOES THAT GIVE YOU SOME MOMENTUM? “I hope so. Honestly, our cars have been really good and I’m happy to where our speed has been. We had just a few bad weeks of not finishing the race from motor problems and getting caught up in a wreck. The last two weeks of just having good races. We had a car that could win last week and it just really didn’t work out. Today, I might have been able to run third, but I thought about third through sixth or seventh is where I was gonna be and just really proud that we had a couple weeks that were just like a normal race and we finished where we were running, so that part is always good.”
AUSTIN CINDRIC, No. 2 Snap-on Ford Mustang Dark Horse – “With a lot of unknowns going into today with the tires I felt we adapted pretty quickly in the first stage. We made up some spots and stayed on the lead lap. I think being able to recover from having to pit twice there after the pit stop and kind of come back up through the back and get a decent finish. I still feel like we needed a few more adjustments there to get this Snap-on Ford Mustang where we wanted it, but I’m proud of the no give up effort there. It’s a hard place to do it at and it was cool to drive the car with all the Snap-on folks here this weekend.”
