Ford Performance MENCS Notes and Quotes
Bank of America 500 – Charlotte Motor Speedway
Friday, October 6, 2017
Ricky Stenhouse Jr., driver of the No. 17 Fastenal Ford Fusion, came to the infield media center after Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series practice on Friday at Charlotte Motor Speedway to discuss advancing to the Round of 12.
RICKY STENHOUSE JR. – No. 17 Fastenal Ford Fusion – “It’s good to be in the second round. That was our goal when we started the Playoffs and we accomplished it and now obviously we focus on our efforts to continue to the third round of eight. It starts here at Charlotte this weekend. We changed a lot in our car this week, showing that Chicago was not a good race track for us. It didn’t go as planned, so we changed a lot in our cars this week, all the way up to later yesterday and last night just trying to make sure we put the best car that we can on the race track. We’re working through some things. The last practice, I don’t want to get too caught up in practice. I think we were 29th. We were 30th in practice here before qualifying for the 600 and we qualified 13th, so we know some adjustments we’re gonna make for when the sun is starting to go down. The track is gonna cool off and we’ll see where we qualify, but I’m definitely glad to be on the track.”
DO YOU GO INTO TALLADEGA WITH MORE CONFIDENCE THERE AFTER THE LAST COUPLE? “I’m definitely looking forward to going back to Talladega. I think, for us, we’re focused right now on Charlotte. Jimmy Fennig has been working for some time now on our Talladega car and been massaging it and getting it ready to go. He kind of takes over the whole speedway program until the week of and then our team gets it and works on it some more, but, yeah, we want to go in and win Talladega. That would be nice and solidify and make sure that we get to that next round with a win, but, if not, I think it’s a race track that we could still gain a lot of points. Nothing is guaranteed when you go there. I’ve been crashed out of them just as easy as finishing well, so we’ve got to do our job here at Charlotte and get a decent points day out of it and then go to Talladega and see if we can’t get a win, but definitely gonna feel confident going to Talladega for sure.”
HOW HAS BRIAN PATTIE INFLUENCED YOUR CAREER? “Even when Brian was Biffle’s crew chief I felt like we hit it off really well when we all worked together in the shop and trying to make our cars faster last year as a team. I felt like we had good chemistry then. Fast forward to this year and I felt like right off the bat it felt like I had already worked with him for a while. I feel like he’s got a lot of experience on top of a pit box for a Cup Series car and I feel like he’s the most similar crew chief I’ve had to a Mike Kelley that I had in the XFINITY Series, so you combine all that together and I feel like it’s a good combination – still having Mike in our corner working on our cars as well just brings me a lot of confidence that I have in those two guys that are bringing the best cars to the track that they can every week. Brian, like I said, our chemistry has been good right off the bat. That’s been easy to do. In these Playoffs I feel like I’ve kind of been probably coached a little bit more than normal, just my outlook on it. He’s been in these places before and these positions, so it’s cool to have him kind of leading our ship.”
HOW TREACHEROUS WAS IT GETTING INTO TURN FOUR? “Yeah, it’s the opposite attraction right now. We’re trying to be buried on the bottom. I got a little high off of turn two. It’s just as slick in one and two as it is in three and four, so I don’t really know – none of us are gonna go up there and run on purpose to get it run in, so I don’t know. A place like Loudon, you’re running 70 miles an hour versus 170 and can kind of run it in. You’ve got modifieds that help run it in. I don’t really see us running that in, so it’ll be interesting to see how that plays out. None of us really thought the compound traction really helped us last race here. We thought it was a little bit slicker as well, so it’ll be interesting to see how it works.”
DO YOU THINK ANYBODY UNDERSTANDS WHAT MAKES THE SUBSTANCE WORK? “I definitely don’t know what makes it work (laughing), and I guess you could argue that nobody really does right now. I know that they didn’t take the tire dragon to it, but they did last time, and I thought last time you could get on the PJ1 or whatever, but it wasn’t that much grippier than the bottom of the race track. So, to your point, it’s been different at every race track we’ve been to, so I think a lot of us are interested in how it will play out. I know there’s quite a few tore-up cars already just from it. I got in it off of two and it’s definitely really slick. I saw that from other cars and I experienced it a little bit myself. I was pretty cautious there in practice just making sure we got through it.”
IS YOUR BEST WAY TO ADVANCE THROUGH POINTS OR WINNING TALLADEGA? “Man, I don’t know. I’d love to do it by winning Talladega, but I think, realistically, you’ve got to plan on points. That’s our mindset for now. If we took the races – the first Charlotte, the first Kansas and obviously the first Talladega – not counting the win to advance us, but if you take those points, we would have sat sixth out of the drivers that are left, so Pattie kind of showed me that this week, that if we can get back to doing what we were capable of earlier in the season that we can do it on points as well. That’s gonna take a lot of effort. We’re not there right now, at least in this practice, but, like I said, as the weekend went last time we were here for the 600 we got a little bit better until we ran at night. I thought we were a little bit off, but our mindset is points right now and we’ll see how that changes after Charlotte.”
WHAT ARE YOUR THOUGHTS ON GOING TO THE ROVAL NEXT YEAR? “This weekend I’m glad we’re on the oval. I’m not looking forward to running the road course here, so I’m definitely glad we’re on the oval still.”
A LOT OF OFFICE POOLS PROBABLY HAD YOU NOT ADVANCING. DO YOU GET PLEASURE PROVING PEOPLE LIKE THAT WRONG? “Yeah, I love proving people wrong. I feel like going back to our 2011 championship in the XFINITY Series nobody thought we’d win that. We had some new drivers come in in 2012 and they didn’t think we’d win that either, so it’s always nice to prove them wrong and I enjoy doing that.”
DO YOU FEEL LIKE NEXT YEAR IS YOUR BEST CHANCE TO WIN THE DAYTONA 500 AND HOW MUCH TIME HAVE YOU SPEND THINKING ABOUT WINNING THAT RACE? “I really haven’t spent a ton of time thinking about winning it. I just focus on it when I get there. We run so many different races throughout the year you try not to look too far ahead, so, like I said, we’re focused on Charlotte. Next week, we’ll be focused on Talladega and so forth. So I guess when the season ends, I’ll be focused on the Chili Bowl and then after that I’ll be focused on Daytona. But I think it’s definitely a race I really feel like anybody is capable of winning. The speedway races can be a toss-up. It’s nice to have a fast car like we had the last two races and I definitely think having our speedway cars faster than they have been gives us a better opportunity, but the rules are changing for next year’s speedway races and it’ll be interesting to see how the 500 will play out with the rule changes for the speedway. But Jimmy Fennig is working hard on that, so I definitely want to win that race, but I’d rather win Charlotte right now than that next year, really.”
IS GETTING A GOOD QUALIFYING EFFORT MORE IMPORTANT NOW BECAUSE IT COULD LEAD TO STAGE POINTS? “Yeah, I think qualifying for the first stage of the race is definitely really important. I think we’ve noticed that quite a few times this year. We started the season qualifying fairly well and putting ourselves in a position to gain stage points more often, at least in the first stage. It seems like we’ve always gotten our stage points in the first stage and not really the second. I think qualifying contributed to that more often, so it is important to qualify. It’s tough to pass here at Charlotte. I think racing during the day will definitely help passing, but that qualifying spot sure means a lot here.”
WHAT’S THE ANTICIPATION TO GET BACK TO THE CHILI BOWL? “We had a strong run at the Chili Bowl last year and we threw a lot of stuff together and had a lot of cars. I felt we were pretty successful. We almost had all of our cars in the A-Main come Saturday night, so we definitely want to win some prelims and obviously win on Saturday night is the biggest goal that we have for that week. It’s always a good week to do the races for Autism event that Bryan started on Monday night and then continue with all the other cool things that we do throughout the week there. I just got a picture update today of the new trophy room at the Clauson-Marshall midget shop, so we need to add some trophies in there.”
DO YOU FEEL THE ADDED PRESSURE OF BEING THE ONLY ROUSH FENWAY CAR IN THE PLAYOFFS? “No, I don’t feel pressure. I feel a lot of support. I think a lot of our employees are working really hard and they came in early, leaving late, making sure that everything is getting done that we’re asking of them. That’s pretty cool. Seeing a lot here today just walking around is always cool too, so there’s just a lot of support from everybody at the shop and we want to keep it going for them.”
