Ford Performance MENCS Notes and Quotes
Bank of America 500 – Charlotte Motor Speedway
Sunday, October 8, 2017
Ford Finishing Order
3rd – Kevin Harvick
8th – Ryan Blaney
13th – Ricky Stenhouse Jr.
14th – Trevor Bayne
15th – Brad Keselowski
22nd – Kurt Busch
23rd – Matt DiBenedetto
24th – Aric Almirola
25th – Landon Cassill
26th – Joey Logano
27th – Clint Bowyer
37th – David Ragan
38th – Danica Patrick
KEVIN HARVICK – No. 4 Jimmy John’s Ford Fusion – “That’s about about where we were gonna run, second or third. We just kind of lost a little bit of the track there as the VHT started to wear off in the second half of the race. But they did a great job all day. For the most part, we had good stops all day – just the timing of the bad one came at the end, but, for the most part, they did a great job. Everybody in the field had a bad stop at some point today, so it was a good day for our Jimmy John’s/Busch Ford, and everybody is doing a good job with the speed of the cars.”
YOU TRACKED DOWN THE 78 AND TRIED TO MAKE A MOVE ON HIM. CAN YOU DESCRIBE THAT MOMENT? “I don’t remember ever making a move.”
IT GOT A LITTLE BIT AWAY FROM YOU AND IT LOOKED LIKE IT WAS ALL YOU HAD THERE. “I would get close and then I would get loose, and as the day went I just got looser on the entrance to the corners. The car started bouncing really bad and started losing grip as the VHT went away and kind of lost what I had at the beginning of the race – to arc it into the corner and do all the things I needed to do to get through the middle of the corner and be in the throttle. I knew where I was running was kind of questionable as to how long it would last, and the entry was the first part that gave up for me and I just had to be really cautious getting in there and that’s why I lost my speed from the first half of the race.”
BRAD KESELOWSKI – No. 2 Alliance Truck Parts Ford Fusion – “It wasn’t the day we wanted for the Team Penske Alliance Truck Parts Ford, so we’ve got two races left to go and we need to have two strong races.”
HOW TOUGH WAS IT OUT THERE WITH THE HUMIDITY? “Yeah, it was hot. I was probably more frustrated with not being as fast as we wanted to be. That makes the day a lot longer, but a little bit of heat, that’s what this sport is about.”
TALLADEGA COMING UP, WHICH IS A GOOD TRACK FOR YOU. “It seems like Charlotte and Kansas we have just not been able to connect what we’re looking for here the last two fall races. Hopefully, we can go to Talladega and connect with what we’re looking for.”
RYAN BLANEY – No. 21 Motorcraft/Quick Lane Ford Fusion – “It’s solid. It stinks we couldn’t get any stage points, especially in that first one, but I thought we did a good job of getting better throughout the race. We were a lot better at the end of the race than what we were at the beginning. That says a lot about the team and hopefully we can keep it up and run decent the next two weeks. I’m proud of the effort to get better and the hard work, so that’s what we needed. We just need to start better.”
WHAT WAS THE MOST CHALLENGING PART OF TODAY? “I was just really loose in all day over the bumps and things. That was something we tried to get better at and we got a little better, but we need a little bit more.”
THOUGHTS GOING TO TALLADEGA? “We’re gonna try to run up front and win.”
RICKY STENHOUSE JR. – No. 17 Sunny D Ford Fusion – “We definitely brought a better Sunny D Ford to the track this weekend than we did with our Fastenal Ford at Chicago. I’m happy with our better effort. We thought if we could be 15th to 10th it would be a good day for us. We didn’t get any stage points, which was a bummer, but we rebounded there on that last restart, which was key.”
YOU GOT SIX SPOTS ON THAT LAST RESTART. “Yeah, I had to have it, had to have it.”
HOW DO YOU FEEL ABOUT NEXT WEEK AT TALLADEGA? “I feel good. It would be nice to run top 10 all race here, but we struggled up and down. We had good runs and we had bad runs.”
DAVID RAGAN – No. 38 TheHouse.com Ford Fusion – “I just got into turn one a little too high. There’s a very fine line where there was a lot of grip and not much grip. Our car was really bouncy and loose. It was a handful for a lot of the day. Our TheHouse.com team made some good adjustments, but we were just trying to hang on. I should have been a little bit more conservative, but we were trying hard to just stay one lap down and I got a little too high and got loose. I thought I was gonna be OK and I just ran back down the track and Danica hit me. She didn’t have anywhere to go. If I would have locked the brakes up, I probably would have just backed it into the wall, so I was trying to do something and I ran out of talent and couldn’t hang on.”
