Ford Performance NASCAR Notes and Quotes
New Hampshire 301 – New Hampshire Motor Speedway
NSCS POST-RACE
Sunday, July 17, 2016
FORD FINISHING RESULTS
3rd Joey Logano
5th Greg Biffle
10th Ricky Stenhouse Jr.
11th Ryan Blaney
15th Brad Keselowski
19th Aric Almirola
23rd Trevor Bayne
28th Landon Cassill
29th Chris Buescher
38th Brian Scott
JOEY LOGANO, No. 22 Shell Pennzoil Ford Fusion – Finished 3rd
THAT WAS A TOUGH ONE LATE WASN’T IT? “Yeah. I will take a third place after all that. We were awful at the beginning of the race. We tried some new things and apparently they didn’t work so we aborted mission in the middle of the race and got some speed back in the 22 but not enough to beat the 20. I thought we would have something since we had 4 tires but we didn’t have the car to get up there with him. Overall, to recover to third after running 15th or 16th most of the race is pretty good for this team. We have a never quit attitude and it paid off today.”
RICKY STENHOUSE JR., No. 17 Fastenal Ford Fusion – Finished 10th
“All weekend we definitely didn’t think we had a top-10 car. We fought hard, though. Everybody on this Fastenal team worked really hard and we caught some breaks at the right time and the right lane on restarts at the right times. We made it work. It was a hot one out there. It was a lot of fun, though. When the sun was out I thought our car was better than when the shade was out. I think that we have some more to work on and I think we know where we can make up some time. We will come back and hopefully be a little bit better next time.”
GREG BIFFLE, No. 16 NESN Fuel Ford Fusion – Finished 5th
“It was a great run with the 18 car there toward the end. We finally had a chance to race with those guys a little bit. We are still working hard on these cars to get them faster. It was a great run for the NESN Ford Fusion today. There was a lot of attrition there at the end that got us in the top-five but once we got up there we were pretty fair racing with the 18, 4 and 22.”
OVERALL, WERE YOU PLEASED? “I certainly am with the fifth top five but we have a little more work to do to get our car faster. We will keep digging, we have some work to do on it. We have a lot of momentum right now. Everybody did a great job on the NESN Ford Fusion. We just worked hard at it. We got a lap down on that long run in the middle of the race but we were able to come back. Brian made the right calls and we got it up there. Once I got it up in a little cleaner air in the top-10 it started coming to life. I changed my line a little bit and adjusted on the brakes and were able to run down the 4 and 22 at the end there. A few more laps there and we could have maybe been racing with those guys.”
BRAD KESELOWSKI, No. 2 Miller Lite Ford Fusion – Finished 15th
“We were probably a fourth of fifth place car all day today. We were solid right up there. There at the end there was a restart and some guys got jumbled up in front of us and we were in the middle of three and got squeezed. We bounced off the 41 and got hit by the 22 and cut down a tire and had to come in. We got back up to 15th, which I guess all things considered isn’t too bad.”
RYAN BLANEY, No. 21 Motorcraft/Quick Lane Ford Fusion – Finished 11th
“I am disappointed in myself. We had a really good Fusion there about halfway through the race and sped on pit road during our green flag stops and that set us back a lot. Luckily we were able to get a wave-around and it worked out. We just kept missing wrecks and got lucky on that caution at the end to salvage a decent day. I messed up for two weeks in a row and that is unacceptable. I have to clean up my act for upcoming races.”
JOEY LOGANO POST-RACE PRESS CONFERENCE
JOEY, THOSE FINAL LAPS WERE A BATTLE OUT THERE, AND IT LOOKED LIKE IT WAS PRETTY INTENSE. WHAT WAS IT LIKE FROM YOUR VANTAGE POINT? “Probably what you saw was the same thing I was seeing except I got to live it. I think every corner of my car is dented in some way. We hit everything at the end. But we were moving forward, and that’s good. I don’t think I pissed anybody off. That’s another good thing. But overall just proud of the effort my team put in today. We were awful to start the race. We tried some new things thinking that we needed to get better here. This is a track that we’ve been a second‑ to fifth‑place car here the last five races, so we tried something different, and we went from sixth to 20th or so pretty quick early in the race, almost went down a lap, and we aborted that mission in the middle of the race and went back to what we normally do, and we got our car to be an eighth‑ to tenth‑place car, so we started picking them off slowly one at a time. It’s funny, seemed like Tony and I, we fell backward together, we started driving through the field together. We were around each other all day and never thought the two of us would be racing for second at the end of the race like that. Overall proud of the effort the team put in, never‑quit attitude. It really paid off today.”
HOW DIFFICULT WAS IT TO WORK YOUR WAY BACK UP? “It’s not easy, that’s for sure. You’ve got to have circumstances go the right way for you. You’ve got to have good pit stops when you have the opportunity to come down pit road so you can sneak a couple spots when you can. You’ve got to have good restarts to sneak a couple there, and then be able to maintain. I can’t say I passed a car if it wasn’t in the first 10 laps after a restart. Not because it was hard to pass, just because my car wasn’t good. We were able to just be aggressive on restarts and get a couple, and then I was playing defense the rest of the day. It’s not fun playing defense to be honest with you. It’s not fun to do that. But days like today you have to get the best finish you possibly can.”
