Ford Performance MENCS Notes and Quotes
Alabama 500 Qualifying – Talladega Superspeedway
Saturday, October 14, 2017
Ford Qualifying Results:
3rd – Joey Logano
4th – Kurt Busch
5th – Ricky Stenhouse Jr.
6th – Brad Keselowski
7th – Clint Bowyer
9th – Ryan Blaney
10th – Trevor Bayne
13th – Danica Patrick
22nd – Kevin Harvick
26th – Aric Almirola
30th – Landon Cassill
32nd – Matt DiBenedetto
33rd – David Ragan
BRAD KESELOWSKI – No. 2 Miller Lite Ford Fusion – “That’s not bad. I wanted a little bit more. I want to be in the top-six, which is good. It’s not perfect, but it’s pretty good, so we’ll take that and move forward.”
RYAN BLANEY – No. 21 Motorcraft/Quick Lane Ford Fusion – “I thought we had decent speed. We’re wide open. Drivers don’t do much here. (Crew chief) Jeremy (Bullins) and everybody on the team sets its up. I thought we had a good car. We’ll see what we do Sunday.” WHAT DO YOU THINK ABOUT STARTING NINTH? “It’s not bad. It’s a good place to start. It’s better than 30th.”
RICKY STENHOUSE JR. – No. 17 Sunny D Ford Fusion – “That was a bummer. I was hoping we’d get another pole and I think it would have been cool to knock him off the pole again, but obviously this shows our Ford is still fast. We’ve got speed in it and it felt good yesterday drafting with all of our other Ford teammates. The biggest thing is we have a starting spot up front and that’s really all we need. We’re in a good spot because we can see the front.” SO POINTS IN STAGE ONE BECOMES THE PRIORITY NOW? “One hundred percent. We need as many stage points as we can get to help get above the cut line going into Kansas. They’re gonna be very important.”
JOEY LOGANO – No. 22 AAA Ford Fusion – “We’ve got company and we’re close to the front – second row on the inside isn’t a bad place to be. It’s not the front row, but it’s a huge improvement from where we’ve been qualifying. We’ve always raced well, but we haven’t really qualified well here in a long time, so it’s cool to see the speed in our car. That’s a good sign. That’s something we’ve never really had in qualifying, so that makes me feel good about the race and maybe we can make some bold moves and do some things with some speed in the car and keep ourselves up there and win this thing.”
TREVOR BAYNE – No. 6 Liberty National Ford Fusion – “Obviously, I thought this was one of our last shots at a pole, so you’re disappointed with anything less only because we know we were capable of it. Our car has been really fast at these speedways, but these guys work hard. We’ve got a great restrictor plate program and we’ve got a fast Ford, so hopefully in the race tomorrow when it pays we’ll be the fastest one and be able to get to the front.” YOU CAN PLAY SPOILER TOMORROW. “That’s the plan. We’ve got instructions to do nothing less than that and that’s what we’re planning on doing.”
KURT BUSCH – No. 41 Haas Automation/Monster Energy Ford Fusion – “For us we had a really good run. We made the final round and had a shot at the pole and the front row at a restrictor plate race and a lot of that is due to the hard work from the engine shop. I’ve got a great crew chief for plate racing with Tony Gibson, so I’ve got to thank all the guys. I think that’s the highest I’ve qualified in probably a decade for a restrictor plate race.”
CLINT BOWYER – No. 14 Haas Automation Ford Fusion – “I’m happy with that. Being in a Ford is first and foremost when you’re at these race tracks. There’s no question that our bodies and aero platform and everything else just lends itself to being fast at this place. The Roush Yates horsepower is great as always, so you’ll see a bunch of them up front. I think you’ll see all of us up front.”
