Ford Performance NASCAR Notes and Quotes
I Love New York 355 – Watkins Glen International
MENCS POST RACE QUOTES
Saturday, August 5, 2017
Ford Finishing Order
5th Clint Bowyer
6th Kurt Busch
8th Ryan Blaney
15th Brad Keselowski
16th Kevin Harvick
20th Ricky Stenhouse Jr.
21st Aric Almirola
22nd Danica Patrick
24th Joey Logano
27th David Ragan
28th Matt DiBenedetto
35th Trevor Bayne
36th Landon Cassill
CLINT BOWYER, No. 14 Five Star Urgent Care Ford Fusion (Finished 5th)
HOW TOUGH WAS IT TO SAVE FUEL FOR AS LONG AS YOU HAD TO SAVE? “Yeah, that’s that hard thing. When you have them there at arm’s reach you want to go for it. That’s the win that will put you into the Chase right there in front of you. But if you run out of gas that’s the dagger that will knock you out for good. It’s the right thing. We just have to keep knocking on the door. Another top-five with our Five Star Urgent Care car. It’s a new sponsor on the car. Hopefully we can get them on board for another shot.”
RYAN BLANEY, No. 21 Motorcraft/Quick Lane Ford Fusion (Finished 8th)
HOW CLOSE WERE YOU? “I stumbled down the back coming to two to go, so we wouldn’t have made it. It stinks. I wish I would have saved earlier like the 78 did. I pushed hard and thought we were better to go on gas than they were. They did a good job saving. I could have done better. If I would have started saving sooner I think we would have made it. you never know. I am pretty proud of the effort. We got up front at the beginning of the day and stayed there pretty much all day. I thought our strategy was right and we had a good race car. Things just didn’t work out for us. That is just the way it goes sometimes.”
YOU DID HAVE A GOOD RACE CAR AND YOU SEEM TO HAVE COME A LONG WAY AS A ROAD RACER: “Yeah, I hope so. I think here and Sonoma we ran eighth at both race tracks. That is miles ahead of where we were last year. That is always what you want. You want to just keep improving and getting better. That is really all you can ask for. I am pretty proud of us getting better. Hopefully we will keep improving as years go on.”
BRAD KESELOWSKI, No. 2 Miller Lite Ford Fusion (Finished 15th)
“Tough break. I guess I drove through too many pit stalls leaving. Gosh, it’s a bummer. We weren’t the fastest car today but we raced real hard and with a lot of heart. That put us in position. I hate that I cost us a top-five to a 15th. Good effort all around.”
CAN YOU TALK ABOUT THE INCIDENT THAT YOU HAD IN THE BUS STOP WITH THE 18? “I don’t know. I was going into the corner and I had the 47 behind me and when I got into the corner the 18 next to me. My spotter called it but we were already in the corner. It was too much for me to avoid. We got into each other and that hurt everybody.”
WAS IT ANYONE’S FAULT? “I would like to see it. All I know is I went in the corner and the 47 was the car behind me and I got to the corner and somewhere the 18 came up and he was behind the 47. I don’t know how he got there or what all transpired. I was already to the corner and unable to do anything by then.”
NOT THE FIRST TIME YOU GUYS HAVE GOTTEN TOGETHER: “Yeah, this is a track where you fight for inches and we both are probably not willing to give in on it.”
WERE YOU WARNED THERE MIGHT BE SOME TROUBLE? “Well, nobody is happy when you have contact. It didn’t help my day at all either, I can tell you that. I wasn’t looking to get into him and I don’t think he was looking to get into me. He probably had the dominant car. He didn’t need any trouble. Neither did I.”
DID YOU THINK HE WOULD COME PAY YOU A VISIT? “Who knows? Not a lot of thought put into that. I am still just kind of cooling off.”
ANY PLANS TO TALK TO HIM AFTER THE RACE? “Nah. I don’t think he is really the listening type, so that is pretty doubtful.”
JOEY LOGANO, No. 22 Shell Pennzoil Ford Fusion (Finished 24th)
“Best case scenario we were going to finish top-10 which does nothing for us. A top-5 or a win is the only thing that is going to help us, so we went for it by pitting and putting four tires on and hoping to get a caution and maybe cycle ahead of cars with new tires. Unfortunately it went green all the way and we didn’t get a good finish. We need to win the next few races here.”
