Ford Performance NSCS Notes and Quotes
Bank of America 500 Qualifying – Charlotte Motor Speedway
Thursday, October 6, 2016
Ford Qualifying Results:
10th – Joey Logano
14th – Greg Biffle
15th – Ricky Stenhouse Jr.
18th – Ryan Blaney
20th – Brad Keselowski
26th – Chris Buescher
27th – Trevor Bayne
30th – Brian Scott
32nd – Landon Cassill
33rd – Aric Almirola
38th – Jeffrey Earnhardt
JOEY LOGANO – No. 22 Shell/Pennzoil Ford Fusion – THERE WERE SOME MOMENTS IN ROUND ONE WHERE IT LOOKED LIKE YOU MAY NOT MAKE IT TO ROUND 2? “I was thinking the same thing. On the first run we hit the splitter and made some adjustments to get off of that. Once we did that it came to life. Our Pennzoil Ford is fast. We had that extra run on our tires. How much did that hurt us? I don’t know. We got our car to where it was pretty good. We were sixth or seventh after the second round and the driver tried to get more than maybe he should have, but when you’re sitting there eighth after the second round you don’t have anything to lose so you just go for it. I got down in turn one and pinned the throttle and went for it, but then I started getting free and lost the speed that way. It was a good recovery, but not exactly where we wanted to start. We’ll be fine. We’ll be able to fight from there.” WHAT DO YOU FEEL LIKE YOU HAVE IN RACE TRIM? “I think it’s pretty good. It doesn’t look like we’ll get on the race track tomorrow with the way the weather is, so we made some extra laps in race trim along with everybody else. I thought my car drove really good in race trim, so I was excited about that. It had that feel that I need to have at Charlotte to go fast, so I was excited about that. We have 500 miles to pass nine cars, so we’ll just try to pick them off one at a time and be there at the end and try to get a win here again. This is one of our best race tracks and we have a fast race car again, so I’m looking forward to it.”
BRAD KESELOWSKI – No. 2 Wurth Ford Fusion – “We just lacked a little bit of speed in qualifying trim, but the race trim stuff we did today I felt we were really, really fast, so that was encouraging. You want to qualify and race good, but it’s more important to race good, and I think we’ve got a great Ford Fusion to do exactly that.” HOW DOES THE MINDSET CHANGE FROM THE ROUND OF 16 TO THE ROUND OF 12? “It doesn’t really, to me. I just want to have some solid finishes and have a shot to win, and we’ll take it.”
RICKY STENHOUSE JR. – No. 17 Sunny D Ford Fusion – “That was one of our better qualifying sessions of late. From where we were in practice we picked up a lot of speed, so I’m really happy about that. We only missed the third round by a couple spots and it’s been a while since we’ve been that close. Four-hundredths would have put us in, so I was happy with our Sunny D Ford and the way it drove. I don’t know where they’re getting all this speed from because I felt like that’s about all it had. It drove better in the second round than the first round, and went just a hair faster, but not enough. We’ll just keep working on it and see if we can get it better.”
