Ford Performance NASCAR Notes and Quotes
Hollywood Casino 400 – Kansas Speedway
Sunday, October 16, 2016
FORD FINISHING RESULTS
3rd JOEY LOGANO
14th RYAN BLANEY
17th TREVOR BAYNE
19th RICKY STENHOUSE JR.
21st CHRIS BUESCHER
25th GREG BIFFLE
28th BRIAN SCOTT
38th BRAD KESELOWSKI
40th ARIC ALMIROLA
JOEY LOGANO, No. 22 Shell Pennzoil Ford Fusion – Finished 3rd
“That was hard fought. I am still breathing hard. We just weren’t very good on the short runs so I had to play defense instead of offense on restarts. After 15 laps we were equal to, not way better to the point we could make up a bunch of time. We did what we had to do. I think they told me I am eighth in points so we will be close on it racing at Talladega. We did what we had to do today. We wanted to get a solid top-five and if we could win that is what we wanted. We had a good effort, we just have to get our cars a little faster right now.”
BRAD KESELOWSKI, No. 2 Miller Lite Ford Fusion – (Involved in accident on lap 189)
DESPITE A HERCULEAN EFFORT FROM YOUR TEAM, YOUR DAY IS DONE, WHAT HAPPENED OUT THERE WITH THE 11? “My guys busted their butt on this Miller Lite Ford to get it back out. They were working like crazy, there was a fire at one point. They worked their guts out. If my team keeps putting up this kind of effort, I don’t worry about today. We will win another race. We will win Talladega and other races and be fine. That is the first thing, I want to thank my team for that effort. As far as what happened on the track I don’t know. I spun and got in the grass and tore the nose off. I probably could have raced less hard with a big points gap coming in. With this format I had a big points gap coming in. With this format it is probably the smart thing to do but I don’t want to race like that. I want to race my guts out and go for wins. I don’t want ot points race. I don’t care what the damn format is, I am going to give it my best.”
HOW DID IT FEEL WHEN YOU TOOK IT BACK OUT? “The guys busted their butt to get me back out. They put a whole new front end. There must have been some kind of damage to the engine from the spin. It was running fine before that. I think it is just unfortunate. I am not going to say for sure what happened to cause the spin. We will move forward. If we keep getting the effort like they did to fix this thing we will be fine.”
YOU GO TO TALLADEGA IN A MUST-WIN SITUATION. YOU PULLED IT OFF TWO YEARS AGO. WHAT IS YOUR CONFIDENCE LEVEL? “I don’t think it is a must-win situation. I am not worried about it. I am going to go there and bust my butt to try to win but I don’t think it is a must win yet.”
WHAT HAPPENED WITH THE 11? “I don’t know what happened but I know what is happening now. A group of guys were busting their butt to put the race car together and get me back out there and they did it in amazing fashion. I am really pumped about that. Days like today are going to happen to anybody and everybody in the Chase. It is about the effort you have when that happens. I am proud of my guys for doing their best to recover and we will move on to Talladega and give ‘em hell.”
HOW DO YOU NOT WORRY ABOUT WHERE YOU ARE AT NOW GOING INTO TALLADEGA? “We are going to Talladega. I like Talladega. Talladega has been good to me and I am going to drive my butt off and at the end of the day I have faith that if it is meant to be it is meant to be. We can’t get down. There is a long way to go still.”
JOEY LOGANO POST-RACE PRESS CONFERENCE
JOEY LOGANO, No. 22 Shell Pennzoil Ford Fusion – YOU ARE NOW SITTING IN EIGHTH PLACE HEADING INTO THE FINAL CUT-OFF RACE AT TALLADEGA, TALK A LITTLE ABOUT YOUR RACE THIS AFTERNOON AND THOUGHTS HEADING INTO TALLADEGA. “We came out swinging. That is what we had to do. We did everything we were supposed to do today. Our team executed perfectly. I am proud of our pit stops and our adjustments and restarts. We just needed a little more speed. That was probably the biggest thing. We were a little off on the short run. After 15 laps or so, we were as good as anybody but not better than them so we couldn’t make up what we were losing on the restarts. We made up a lot of points, just not enough. It is not comfortable being tied with Austin going into next week. That will be fun. Overall, I am proud of the effort and the job we did today but we wanted a win but we did everything we were supposed to do.”
HOW DO YOU BALANCE TRYING TO WIN WITH RACING FOR POINTS NEXT WEEKEND? “I race for the win. That is the way I race. I don’t know a different way to race. That is probably the route I am going to go. I am sure we will talk about it this week but I am a racer.”
YOU MADE UP SOME POINTS TODAY BUT HAS THIRD NEVER FELT SO DISAPPOINTING? “Yeah, the big thing that swung everything around was Kevin winning. We would have been in pretty good shape if he had finished second today. That is not a surprise though. When it comes to these situations they usually find a little more speed somewhere in their race cars. I don’t know how, but when they are in must win situations they find more speed which is always interesting to me that they have a little left in the tank. It isn’t disappointing because we still should be proud of the effort we had today but it would have meant a lot if he finished second. It may have happened too with Kyle and Carl racing the crap out of each other in front of me. I probably held them up enough. I felt Carl was a faster car. They were racing each other pretty hard earlier in that run which set him back a little bit from being able to catch the 4.”
