Ford Performance Notes and Quotes
NASCAR Cup Series
Jack Link’s 500 Qualifying
Saturday, April 26, 2025
ZANE SMITH CAPTURES FIRST NASCAR CUP SERIES POLE
- Zane Smith earned the first pole of his NASCAR Cup Series career today.
- Smith was also the fastest in the first round of qualifying.
- This marks the fourth straight Cup pole for Ford at Talladega Superspeedway and the third in a row for Front Row Motorsports after Michael McDowell swept last year.
- It’s also Ford’s second pole of the year to go with Ryan Blaney’s at Atlanta Motor Speedway.
Ford Qualifying Results:
1st – Zane Smith
3rd – Joey Logano
4th – Ryan Preece
6th – Chris Buescher
7th – Austin Cindric
8th – Josh Berry
9th – Ryan Blaney
12th – Cole Custer
15th – Todd Gilliland
22nd – Brad Keselowski
27th – Noah Gragson
33rd – Cody Ware
POLE-WINNING PRESS CONFERENCE:
ZANE SMITH, No. 38 TitleMaxFord Mustang Dark Horse
TAKE US THROUGH YOUR LAP. “We obviously had a lot of speed in the TitleMax Ford. It wasn’t a whole lot of my doing, but just off of pit road making sure I hit my lights. I know my up to speed laps were pretty good, so that’s the main thing we focus on and just trying to be as smooth as possible. I’m just really proud of how our whole team has really been working together before our one week break, and I felt like that one week break was perfect for us to not really reset but digest and think about what we need to build on. We’re off to a great start for this next long stretch, so I’m proud of the speed and everything we’ve been doing. We just need to execute a little bit better, but I have a ton of speed this weekend. It’s a long race tomorrow and a lot of things are gonna happen and go on, but obviously we’ve got the speed to do it. We’ll see how it goes.”
DO YOU SHOW UP HERE WITH A HUGE AMOUNT OF CONFIDENCE OR MAYBE MORE HERE THAN OTHER PLACES? “Yeah. FRM has always brought a ton of speed and Fords are always fast on the superspeedways, so it makes you just maybe a little bit more excited to get to these style of races, knowing that your car is gonna be fast and it’s gonna race good. The Fords push and work really well together, so you look forward to those things, but with that said it’s still Talladega. A lot is gonna happen and go on, but you can only execute what you can control, so we can control trying to bring a fast car and we accomplished that and got a pole award out of it. It’s already off to a great weekend and something to check off of an accomplishment that I’ve always wanted. I’ve always wanted to race on Sunday and to be able to get a pole on Sunday now is really cool to say, so hopefully tomorrow I can say I’m a race winner in the Cup Series, but I know it’s gonna be a crazy day.”
HOW HAVE THINGS PROGRESSED OVER THE LAST FEW WEEKS AT FRM? “I kind of expected those first eight or so races, whatever we had there, to use those races to build with this team, but I feel we’ve been able to hit the ground running. That’s something that’s really cool to say, but a lot of familiar faces and a lot of new faces at FRM, but it’s just been a lot of fun being back. It’s a little bit different than other teams I’ve been to, so I’ve just been having a lot of fun. When you can say that, you’re typically running well, so hopefully we keep that happening.”
DO YOU LOOK FORWARD TO TOMORROW OR THE FACT YOU’RE DOING FUEL MILEAGE FOR TWO STAGES FRUSTRATING? “It’s frustrating and just a weird style of racing. I’m gonna have to go through and re-watch how the leader controls a lot of that. I expected to have speed, but didn’t really expect to have the pole there, so I’ve got to go study up on a few things overnight. All in all, a lot is gonna change. I’m not gonna lead every lap tomorrow, but if I can be around rolling at the end and hopefully in the first few rows and have a shot at it is all I can ask for.”
DO YOU KNOW WHAT YOU WANT TO DO IF YOU HAVE THAT OPPORTUNITY OR IS THIS STILL NEW TO YOU ON THE CUP SIDE? “I’m in my second year in the Cup Series so it’s all still kind of new to me, but I’m learning every race and I feel like I learn a lot. These speedway races are kind of weird how they play out sometimes to where it’s a little unpredictable and you just have to kind of roll with it, but that goes back to what I was saying. You’ve got to control the things you can control and we’ll study up on some of that tonight.”
WHAT MADE THIS DIFFERENT FOR YOU AS A DRIVER TO ACCOMPLISH THIS GOAL TODAY? “Not much than it’s cool to say that you’ve gotten a pole in the Cup Series, but I feel like this more so is really rewarding to the whole team. It just shows that it’s not easy to get a pole on Sunday by a tenth, so I’m just really proud of them and the speed that they bring. I know I’m gonna have a fast car tomorrow and look forward to seeing how it handles and how it races and the moves we can make.”
CHRIS BUESCHER, No. 17 Travel Centers of America Ford Mustang Dark Horse – “That’s a really solid start. I’m proud of this group. This Travel Centers of America Ford Mustang is gonna be strong. We know our RFK Fords are always good at these things and we’re gonna be able to work together quite well. We’ll get into this race and find each other and go to work. We know what Talladega is. You’ve got to be fast and make good decisions and have good strategy and execution on pit road to be there at the end. I know that always doesn’t get it done either, so we’ve got to do all we can to control what we can and if we do that, we’re gonna have a shot at this thing.”
JOEY LOGANO, No. 22 Shell/Pennzoil Ford Mustang Dark Horse – NASCAR IS WORKING ON A FLAP FOR THE A-POST AT SPEEDWAY RACES FOR DAYTONA AND TALLADEGA. HOW DO YOU FEEL ABOUT THAT? “Yeah. You got the same info we got. They have a plan. Time tells on all of that stuff. They’re working on something and it takes a minute to implement it all. How effective it is? I don’t think you know until you’re on the racetrack because there are a lot of things in the wind tunnel that says it’s gonna be better and then you get to the racetrack and there are just so many other variables that the wind tunnel can’t show. We see that as race teams all the time and as a sanctioning body trying to do all of that it’s a little bit different for them, and the things they’re looking for to try to keep the cars on the ground, but hopefully the A-post flap that comes up – the numbers look good. We’ll see if it really works on the racetrack. You don’t know until you put it on there. Surely, it won’t hurt.”
HOW TOUGH IS TO BALANCE THINGS WHEN LATELY YOU HAVE LED A LOT OF LAPS AND HAVEN’T GOTTEN THE FINISHES? “There’s been a lot of wrecks lately on speedways and they’ve been big. Unfortunately, when you look at some of the best speedway racers, you can probably count six or seven that stand out, they don’t win that often. They may win stages and they score a lot of points and they lead a lot of laps, but they don’t always win because everybody wrecks and the get caught up in them. It’s just the nature of the beast right now. The pushing is so aggressive with the cars and the bumpers are round and the cars don’t take the pushes very well with the way everyone is sitting on the stops these days, and everyone is gonna get more and more aggressive because the cars handle so well you can get there and it’s a recipe for disaster. It’s gonna happen again. You just hope you’re in the right place and you get through it.”
DO YOU HAVE A PLAN WITH THE WRECKS ON HOW TO GET YOUR CAR TOWED FIRST BACK TO THE WORK AREA? (Laughing) “I don’t know. How are you gonna convince them to hook you first? I don’t know. That’s a sensitive subject for me and tow trucks (laughing). I’m just hoping they hook me up at some point. That’s all. I know the process of what’s going to happen.”
THE PROCESS IS MOSTLY WHO THEY CAN GET TO FIRST AND TOW, RIGHT? “Yeah, so if there are that many. I can’t remember what there was last time here, but they wrecked a ton of cars and that could happen. Hopefully, that doesn’t happen and there’s not that many cars that need to be towed, but you’ve got the air jack system and you hope that pumps it up enough to where you can get back. If not, what am I supposed to do? I can yell and scream, but that doesn’t help. I tried that. It doesn’t work (laughing). I guess we just have to be patient, which I don’t have either. I can’t get out, so what am I supposed to do? I’m in a tough spot.”
YOU’VE GOT A MEMORIAL DECAL FOR MIKE CHASE ON YOUR CAR. CAN YOU TALK ABOUT WHY YOUR TEAM PUT THAT DECAL ON THE CAR AND WHAT HE MEANT TO THE ORGANIZATION? “You think about how big our teams are these days. There are so many people and unfortunately sometimes things happen and it’s important for us to recognize the team members that we’ve had on our team. Unfortunately, we’ve lost a couple here in the last year or so, and I think that means a lot to their family to see their legacy carried on, especially on the racetrack in a public way as we’re talking about them. Those things matter a lot because we’ve all seen it so many times in our sport. We all talk about how big our teams are. There are 400 people or 500 people and some places even more. It takes everybody to get to the racetrack and sometimes it’s the people that you don’t see. They may not come to the racetrack every week, but they had a big part of winning and the success of our company.”
ARE YOU GOING TO WATCH THE NETFLIX SERIES? “I did. I watched it. I have special privileges. I got to see it. I watched it over the off weekend. We watched it down at the beach at night with the kids and it was fun. It was actually really good. It’s way better than last year and I say that from a very selfish standpoint because I got to actually watch us win, where the year before I watched us get knocked out in the first round, so it’s much better. They’re much better episodes (laughing). They did a good job of telling the story of the playoffs. I thought what they did well is the first episode is very educational to the non-race fan, which is part of the goal of the doc – to try to educate or create new NASCAR fans, and then it gets a little bit more into the nitty gritty of what the playoffs are and NASCAR is, so I think that’s good. It kind of starts a little elementary and then it gets into the deeper levels, so they did a good job of that.”
ARE YOU TRYING TO LEARN ANY SPANISH FOR THE MEXICO RACE? “No. (That’s Spanish). OK, then I got that word figured out. I don’t have much figured out there, so I’m gonna stay around the people I know.”
IS THERE ANYTHING NASCAR CAN DO TO MITIGATE SOME OF THE CHAOS THAT HAPPENS IN THESE SPEEDWAY RACES? “Every action has a reaction and we may not know exactly what that is. There was a point in time where the bubble behind the car was bigger. You take drag off the cars and that creates a little bit more distance in the cars. I think probably, if I was looking to do one thing to superspeedways, I’d probably look in that direction – to try to separate the cars and not make it so easy to get up there and push. You still can, but have it like it used to be, where it was a little bit harder to actually pop that bubble to get to the rear bumper of a car. Now, it’s on command. If you’re not in the top three cars, everyone is running half-throttle and can bump the car in front of them on command whenever you want to. It wasn’t like that before with the older cars, so maybe I would go in that direction. Maybe that would be one thing.”
