Ford Racing Notes and Quotes
NASCAR Cup Series
Anduril 250 — Naval Base Coronado
Sunday, June 21, 2026
Ford Unofficial Finishing Results:
4th – Zane Smith
6th – Chris Buescher
9th – Ryan Blaney
11th – Ryan Preece
18th – Joey Logano
21st – Todd Gilliland
22nd – Austin Cindric
29th – Josh Berry
34th – Brad Keselowski
35th – Noah Gragson
RYAN BLANEY, No. 12 Wurth Ford Mustang Dark Horse – “There were a bunch of different strategies going on and it’s kind of hard to pick which one is gonna be the right one, but, overall, we did a really good job today of staying clean and getting really good stage points. We stayed in the race and ended up with a decent finish. It was a fun day for sure. I thought our Ford Mustang was fairly quick and it was fun to work through it all day.” WHEN SVG WENT OUT WAS THERE A FEELING THAT THE WIN WAS MORE WIDE-OPEN? “You just never know who is gonna be good or not and wrecks happen all the time. I didn’t really think of that. I just thought I got a few spots. I didn’t even notice who it was at first until I asked, but that’s part of racing.” WHAT ABOUT THE EVENT OVERALL? “It was a fantastic event. I had a blast all weekend. The Navy was great to us. The base was great to us and personally I would love to come back. It’s a cool event.”
CHRIS BUESCHER, No. 17 Body Guard Ford Mustang Dark Horse – “That last caution certainly did not fall when we needed it. That was kind of the deal breaker for us, but it was so much fun. The weekend was a blast. Practice and qualifying I just didn’t come up to speed quick enough and wasn’t where we wanted to be. We got in the race and we just started driving through the field. It was so much fun. I’d take this Body Guard by Fastenal Ford Mustang and do that every time we had cycles and it was just a really strong day. It’s just that last caution wasn’t what we needed. We needed it about eight laps later and we would have been in a heck of a spot. That’s how it falls. Everybody did a nice job and it was a solid day from start to finish.” WAS IT A STRAIGHTFORWARD DECISION TO PIT? “I didn’t want to, but I knew we had to. It’s one of those you’re riding up there and, at first, we cycle to the lead and you’re like, ‘Alright.’ And then we didn’t make it through turn two and it dawned me, I was like, ‘That was the field pulling off pit road. They’re on fresh tires – zero lap tires.’ That was gonna put us on the front row with no buffer, which is really what saved us the other few times, having that three or four laps to get away and then let the tires come, but it was the only answer. As much as it hurt to do, it was the right play. We ended up passing 10-12 cars at the end versus having to bleed a certain amount. I’ve got a pretty good feeling you would have bled more than five.”
ZANE SMITH, No. 38 Hard Rock Casino Tejon/Hard Rock Cafe Ford Mustang Dark Horse – WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO HAVE A RUN LIKE TODAY IN YOUR HOME AREA? “It feels great. It’s just an amazing racetrack, a crazy racetrack. It’s fun to be back home and have a good run, but none of the cautions really feel for us, it seemed like. Ryan Bergenty did a phenomenal job to put me in the best position possible, to stay on offense and not just put me in a bad spot where things get a little chaotic. Road courses have been horrible for myself and this 38 team and we learned some in practice and made a good run out of it, so that makes me so excited. Whether we had a bad finish or a good finish, we showed a lot of speed today and I felt like that was the final area our team had to check that box of being really good. I’m just proud of this team. I love working with them week in and week out, and it’s an awesome run for Hard Rock, too. The Tejon tribe, it’s cool to go support them next week. We’ll be out in Bakersfield doing an appearance out there on Wednesday. Knowing we’ll have this paint scheme next week, hopefully we get another good run like this.” HOW MUCH CONFIDENCE DOES THIS GIVE YOU GOING INTO SONOMA? “We’ve had a strong year, to be honest, just a lot of misfortune. The speed we’ve had this year is so exciting, so it certainly brings a level of confidence next week.” WHAT ABOUT THE WHOLE WEEKEND? “Honestly, just an amazing weekend. This will go down as arguably the coolest weekend of the year. Obviously, the Daytona 500 and Indy, the Coke 600, places like that stack up towards the top, but this is right there with it. It was just an amazing weekend honoring our Navy and our military. It’s a wild road course and it was cool to have a good run at the end of the day.”
