Ford Performance NXS Notes and Quotes
Drive Sober 200 – Dover International Speedway
Sunday, October 2, 2016
Ford Finishing Order:
4th – Ryan Blaney
10th – Ryan Reed
11th – Darrell Wallace Jr.
RYAN BLANEY – No. 22 Fitzgerald Ford Mustang – “It wasn’t quite what we wanted. We obviously want to finish better, but it wasn’t that bad all day. There was a point in the day where I thought we were decent early, and then kind of overadjusted and the track changed. The 19 was ridiculously fast. That was incredible, but we probably could have run second, but didn’t quite get going on the last restart and couldn’t quite be close enough.”
RYAN REED – No. 16 Lilly’s/American Diabetes Association Ford Mustang – “I think everyone has those days where we’re off and the crew chief makes a call that bails them out, and that was today for me. Looking at the schedule, we had Dover circled as probably the track we were gonna struggle at the most and today that held true because today was a struggle. We did not have a very fast car, but we worked on it and got it better. We held on and did all we could and salvaged.”
WHAT WAS THE CALL THAT TURNED THINGS AROUND? “On that long green flag run we were on worn out tires and had a little bit of fuel left and we needed a caution for it to all work out. We had taken our set of tires earlier on, so for it to work out we really needed a caution. He just kept me focused and kept me up on the wheel. I think at that point it’s easy to just start going into conservation mode, but he kept me getting all I could out of the car on that long green and it worked out.”
HOW DO YOU FEEL ABOUT YOUR CHASE POSITION? “I won’t feel good until we’re locked in after Charlotte, or if we had a win. The good news is that both guys that have wins were in front of us in points anyways, so it doesn’t knock us back. I guess the best way to put it is I feel cautiously optimistic.”
DARRELL WALLACE JR. – No. 6 Leidos Ford Mustang – HOW DID THAT INCIDENT UNDER CAUTION CHANGE YOUR RACE? “We just got caught there. It’s just hard to swallow. I thought we were a top-10 car. We finished 11th, but my guys gave me a great piece to work with. We’ve still got some work to do, but hopefully we can get it turned around and we’ll win a race.”
HOW DO YOU FEEL GOING INTO CHARLOTTE FROM A CHASE PERSPECTIVE. “We’re OK. I’m not even looking at the Chase though because we need to get better. I can’t thank Leidos enough for jumping on our Ford Mustang. That was pretty cool to see the purple out there. A lot of people loved it, so it was a good wrap for them. Now we’ll have to just keep moving on.”
