Ford Performance NSCS Notes and Quotes
Sylvania 300 – New Hampshire Motor Speedway
Sunday, September 27, 2015
Ford Finishing Results:
3rd – Joey Logano
4th – Greg Biffle
12th – Brad Keselowski
13th – Ricky Stenhouse Jr.
16th – Trevor Bayne
20th – Sam Hornish Jr.
24th – Cole Whitt
27th – Brett Moffitt
28th – David Gilliland
35th – Jeffrey Earnhardt
43rd – Aric Almirola
ARIC ALMIROLA – No. 43 Smithfield Ford Fusion – “Something happened in the right-front and it’s really odd that it happened that early. We ran a lot of laps in practice on a set of tires as well, so we thought we would have seen some issues in practice, but I don’t know. Something in the right-front broke or the right-front tire blew out and it just went straight when I got to turn one.”
ANY IDEA IF IT WAS THE TIRE OR A MECHANICAL ISSUE FIRST? “I honestly don’t know, it just went straight when I got to turn one. I honestly don’t know if it was something mechanical or a right-front tire went down, but whatever it was it wouldn’t turn when I got to the corner.”
BRAD KESELOWSKI – No. 2 Miller Lite Ford Fusion – DESCRIBE YOUR UNDERSTANDING OF THE PENALTY YOU RECEIVED ON THE RESTART? “It’s a pretty basic understanding. It’s an entertainment sport, not a fair sport, but we had a great car. The Miller Lite Penske Team was really strong. I don’t know if we would have been able to beat the 20 and the 11. It looked like they probably had four tires, but it was a heck of a rebound. I’m really proud of my guys to come back and get a top-12 out of that without getting another yellow or catching any other breaks after the black flag, so that’s part of it.”
HOW DOES THIS SET YOU UP FOR DOVER? “Not as well as I think it could have, but not terribly.”
TALK ABOUT THE RESTART WHEN NASCAR PENALIZED YOU. HAVE YOU SEEN IT? “I had to pry myself from the car. I got the chance to do something again for the first time. The first person to ever be penalized for jumping a restart when I didn’t pass anyone, so that’s a new one, but we moved on and we made the most of a good day with the Miller Lite Ford and got a solid finish that hopefully will make our Dover a little bit easier, so that was good.”
DID THEY MAKE AN EXAMPLE OUT OF YOU? “Yeah.”
JOEY LOGANO – No. 22 Shell/Pennzoil Ford Fusion – “We’ll take it. It was a blue collar day. It maybe wasn’t the fastest car and maybe not even a top-5 car at times, but we did a good job working on it. Todd made some great calls and had some great pit stops and executed the race as good as we can with the car we had. I’m proud of what my guys did and that sets us up pretty good for Dover.”
YOU FOUGHT ALL DAY LONG. “My team did a great job and Todd did a great job calling this race. We didn’t have the most speed in our Shell/Pennzoil Ford today, but I felt like as we worked on the car we got a little bit better. He made some great calls and got us those four tires and started kind of weaving through the field. I didn’t quite have enough to beat the guys in front of me, but, overall, that’s what we’ve got to do. We’ve got to have those blue collar days to get a nice top-5, which sets us up good for Dover at the end of this first round.”
GREG BIFFLE – No. 16 Kleen Performance Products Ford Fusion – “The car in clean air, it was unbelievable how good it was in clean air. Once I got out front there it was pretty good. I wasn’t quite as fast as the 4 and the 20 and 11. They had better tires than I did, but I would have liked to have tried it on equal tires.”
A GOOD FINISH FOR YOU. “I feel really good about this run, especially when we got out in clean air how fast the car was. Our Ford Fusion ran really good and we’re happy to have Kleen Performance on it this week, but we still have a little bit of work to do. They were on a little bit better tires than we were, so they showed a little bit more speed than we did right there – the 4, the 11 and the 20 – but I was trying to save a little bit of gas too. I knew I had a long ways to go if we were gonna make it that far, so it was a great run for us. The team needed this. We need to continue to work and try to make our cars a little bit better.”
YOU WERE THE FIRST BENEFICIARY OF NASCAR’S RESTART REVIEW. DID YOU NOTICE ANYTHING? “To be perfectly honest with you I didn’t notice. I saw Brad kind of going a little bit and I waited until about the middle of the zone maybe, I don’t know. I didn’t go right at the two marker, but I maintained my speed and I didn’t speed up or slow down and I took off when I felt like it was time for me to go. I wasn’t really paying that close attention to the 2 or what he was doing. We were pretty even getting down into one. I don’t know what they called him for, but I’ll have to take a look back I guess.”
JUST THE FACT THEY CALLED IT, IS THAT WHAT YOU WANT THEM TO DO IF YOU FEEL THEY’VE DONE THAT? “I hate to speculate because I’d really have to see it. I saw him beside me. He had a little bit of momentum on me kind of coming up, but he kind of sustained that and then when we both kind of went at the same time, I guess, but I honestly don’t know. I’ve got to take a look back at it. I feel bad for Brad. I wasn’t playing any games. I wasn’t doing anything. I just went in between those two marks like we’re supposed to.”
