Ford Notes and Quotes
Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series (MENCS)
Pennzoil 400 (Las Vegas Motor Speedway)
Sunday, March 4, 2018
FORD’S KEVIN HARVICK WINS FOR SECOND STRAIGHT WEEKEND
- Kevin Harvick won for the second straight weekend, his fourth race win with Ford.
- Harvick led 214 of the 267 race laps en route to the win.
- The win marks his 38th career Cup Series triumph and his 100th career NASCAR National Series win.
- The victory marks the fifth time in Harvick’s career he has won back-to-back races.
- This marks the fifth win for Stewart-Haas Racing since joining Ford last year.
- The win is Fusion’s 91st Cup Series triumph since becoming Ford’s flagship vehicle in 2006.
- Today’s win is Ford’s 660th all-time in Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series competition.
FORD FINISHING RESULTS
1st Kevin Harvick
5th Ryan Blaney
6th Brad Keselowski
7th Joey Logano
9th Paul Menard
10th Aric Almirola
14th Ricky Stenhouse Jr.
18th Clint Bowyer
20th Trevor Bayne
22nd Matt DiBenedetto
23rd David Ragan
25th Cole Custer
35th Kurt Busch
37th Michael McDowell
KEVIN HARVICK, No. 4 Jimmy John’s Ford Fusion
Finishing Position: 1st
VICTORY LANE INTERVIEW: “We have definitely had three good race cars with the Xfinity Car and the Cup car and we had a good race car at Daytona as well and got caught up in a wreck. As you look at the last two weeks and our 1.5-mile program in general it has been really good since I started here at SHR. They put a lot of effort into everything we do from every standpoint to get these cars going like they are. I have to thank everyone from Stewart-Haas Racing, Gene and Tony, it is fun to have them here when we win. Everybody who helps put this thing on the race track, we couldn’t do it without them. And the fans for coming out to the racetrack today. We really appreciate you all coming out. It is always fun for me to win on the west coast and I didn’t have a lot of luck here until I came to SHR. It is great to win on the west coast for me.”
WERE YOU EVER CONCERNED ABOUT GETTING BACK UP TO THE FRONT LATE IN THE RACE? “Yeah, we had some trouble getting through traffic there. That was our worst run as far as where the car was. I don’t know if it was just the car, tire set, handling, whatever it was. We were just stuck in traffic and needed to come make an adjustment. We got everything situated on pit road and got a good restart. It was definitely not as good in traffic but when it was out front, it was on time.”
THIS IS YOUR 100TH WIN IN A NATIONAL SERIES IN NASCAR. AMAZING ISN’T IT? “That is. I think as you look back and you look at all the different wins and the wins that we have had here and at KHI and Richard Childress Racing and Junior Motorsports. All the different vehicles I have been fortunate to drive, and there have been a lot of good ones. I know how hard it is to get to victory lane and to know we have been there 100 times is something I almost can’t fathom.”
RYAN BLANEY, No. 12 Menards/Pennzoil Ford Fusion
Finishing Position: 5th
“I thought it was a solid day for us. We had a pretty decent Ford all day. The first run we weren’t great and we got better. I thought our strongest run was right before the last green flag pit stops. We lost a little speed the last run there. Overall it was a good weekend for us. That is what we need to do, just have good, consistent weekends like that. Hopefully we can do the same for the rest of this west coast swing and the rest of the season. We will see.”
PAUL MENARD, No. 21 Motorcraft Ford Fusion
Finishing Position: 9th
“Just a solid day for the Motorcraft Ford Fusion. A great weekend for us. We unloaded fast on Friday and fell behind a bit on Saturday. We all got together last night and talked about what we needed to do and it worked out for us. A solid car all day.”
LONG GREEN FLAG RUNS DOMINATED THE RACE. WERE YOU ABLE TO MAKE YOUR CAR BETTER DURING THE RACE? “You just have to buckle in and log laps. There are some things that you can do on pit stops but when you have such long green flag runs it’s tough to do much. Track position was the name of the game.”
BRAD KESELOWSKI, No. 2 Discount Tire Ford Fusion
Finishing Position: 6th
“We had really good short run speed and I thought we would be really good on the long runs today but it turned out we were really good on the short runs. That wasn’t at all what I was expecting. The short run speed was really strong but I just couldn’t get anywhere to capitalize on it.”
JOEY LOGANO, No. 22 Pennzoil Ford Fusion
Finishing Position: 7th
“We were better than seventh. We ran up top-five most of the day and got to the lead for a little bit and took two. We were the only car that took two and the run went really long and we lost a lot of track position there as we fell back on the two tires. We never got a caution to kind of reset and get those spots back. We faded back to seventh, a little further back even, but were able to get a couple spots back. Overall we have been solid with the Pennzoil Ford all season. That was a solid race. Pit crew did a good job. We have okay speed in the car. We aren’t anywhere close to the 4 but we are competitive with the rest. We will keep working toward that. It is a decent start for us and I think we are second in points. We are running hard and running strong right now. We just have to find a bit more to be able to beat Kevin.”
“The strength of the Fords has been nice. Heck yeah. I am excited about it. There are a lot of things that happened in the off season that contributes to that and rules changes that probably contribute to that. I am proud of the effort that everyone at Ford has been putting into these cars from both the Ford camp and the Team Penske camp. We will keep working hard until we get there.”
ARIC ALMIROLA, No. 10 Smithfield Ford Fusion
Finishing Position: 10th
“Finally a top-10 for our Smithfield Ford Fusion. We have had a solid string of races and obviously everybody has been working really hard at Stewart-Haas Racing and the cars are obviously fast. I am proud of everybody at Ford Performance and Stewart-Haas Racing. We had to battle back from a lot this weekend. Our car was not very good on Friday or Saturday morning. The guys made a lot of changes for final practice and we finally hit on something that felt good for me.”
KURT BUSCH, No. 41 Haas Automation Ford Fusion
Finishing Position: Accident on Lap 183
“I was running the low groove and it just stepped out on me. I wasn’t even trying to fill the whole or go 100%. I had it at 90% and I knew Chase was going to be on my outside and it was just that quick. We were back there in the dirty air, but turn four, I always know it is slick and I wasn’t even pushing through there and it stepped out on me. Ruined his day, ruined my day. I hate it for all the Chase Elliott fans and the Kurt Busch fans and my hometown fans. I wasn’t even pushing hard. I knew we had one more stop and then we were going to go. It just stepped out on me. It is ridiculous.”
MICHAEL MCDOWELL, No. 34 Love’s Travel Stops Ford Fusion
Finishing Position: Mechanical Issue, Lap 100
“We are still trying to diagnose exactly what happened. We started to lose some power there and had a lot of smoke in the cockpit. Normally they don’t fix themselves. The Love’s Ford was fast today. We had a good strategy and played it out. We were back on the lead lap, in a good position. We were able to maintain that first run but unfortunately it just wasn’t meant to be for us today. I am really proud of everyone at Front Row Motorsports. We brought a fast car here. It is going to hurt us in the points. We came in here 15th and had a good run going today and were hoping to stay in the top-15. We will go to Phoenix and hopefully we will unload with a fast Ford again and make sure we get to the end.”
