Ford Performance NXS Notes and Quotes
Fitzgerald Glider Kits 300 – Bristol Motor Speedway
Saturday, April 16, 2016
Ford Finishing Order:
9th – Joey Logano
10th – Aric Almirola
12th – Jeb Burton
21st – Ryan Reed
25th – Bubba Wallace
RYAN REED – No. 16 Lilly/American Diabetes Association Ford Mustang – “Since we unloaded we weren’t great, but we made a lot of progress. We were running somewhere in the top 15 and felt like we were just salvaging for what wasn’t a great weekend and then we broke a right-front wheel, so that kind of put the cherry on top for the weekend. Now we’ll just move on to Richmond, which is a place I like to go to.”
ONE THING SEEMS TO GRAB THIS TEAM ALL WEEKEND TO SPOIL YOUR DAY. “The 20 has definitely shown a lot more speed than us for right now, but we’re gaining on it. They had some trouble at the start of the year and have battled through it and now their standing in victory lane. We’ll do the same thing. I’m proud of my guys. They’re doing everything right. They’re not making mistakes. They’re just keeping their heads down and grinding through it and trying to get the bad luck out of the way. There’s nothing you can do about broken wheels and things like that. It’s just part of the business.”
ARIC ALMIROLA – No. 98 Fresh From Florida Ford Mustang – “We struggled. We were off on our balance. We did all of our practice in the morning yesterday and the track was never really the same today. That’s good though because I felt like I learned quite a bit that will help me tomorrow and we’ll go from there. All in all, it was a pretty good day for us. We don’t get to run full-time and when we do get to run it’s fun and we get to learn some stuff for the Cup car. It’s a good opportunity for me to go do that and the Fresh From Florida Ford Mustang was good all weekend. We qualified in the top 10 and pretty much raced in the top 10 all day, so I’m proud of that.”
JEB BURTON – No. 43 J. Streicher Ford Mustang – “I think this is probably our second-best race of the season as far as just putting it all together. We raced with some good cars, but after the first and second pit stop, we just missed it a little bit. We probably were at our best at the beginning of the race, but I’m proud of my guys. We struggled all weekend. We weren’t a 10th-place car and we got to 12th. I’m happy with that. I want more. In qualifying, we were really fast for that one lap and the next session when the tires got heated up they didn’t grip up for me. But I’m proud of the guys and look forward to going to a home track next week in Richmond and hopefully, we can keep gaining some momentum and keep doing our jobs. We had a good points day today, so that’s the main thing. For the most part, we had a really clean race today, so I’m happy about that.”
