Ford Notes and Quotes
Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series (MENCS)
Auto Club 400 Qualifying (Auto Club Speedway)
Friday, March 16, 2018
Ford Qualifying Results:
6th – Joey Logano
7th – Kurt Busch
8th – Ryan Blaney
10th – Kevin Harvick
11th – Brad Keselowski
13th – Trevor Bayne
14th – Paul Menard
16th – Ricky Stenhouse Jr.
18th – Matt DiBenedetto
21st – David Ragan
22nd – Michael McDowell
26th – Clint Bowyer
27th – Aric Almirola
ARIC ALMIROLA, No. 10 Smithfield Ford Fusion – HOW DISAPPOINTING IS THIS FOR YOU? “Very. Man, Fridays are just our Achilles heel right now. Vegas, we showed up and I was out of control and we weren’t very fast and I think we qualified 29th, and then last weekend we qualified a little bit in qualifying, so Fridays have just not been good for us. This weekend, we came here with a heavy focus on qualifying. Our car was really fast right off the truck. We ended up third in practice and I was really excited about qualifying, and then we didn’t make it out to qualify. I’m disappointed because our Smithfield Ford Fusion was really fast, but it is what it is. We’ll get ready for the race now and one of these days we’re gonna get Friday figured out and it’ll just make it a lot easier and cleaner weekend, but, nonetheless, a lot of cars didn’t make it through. We’re gonna start two spots better than we did in Vegas and we’re gonna start on sticker tires, so we have that to look forward to.”
KEVIN HARVICK, No. 4 Busch Ford Fusion – “We were just tight as we went through every round. We had the same thing in practice where the second round was just so much tighter than the first round. We tried to adjust on it and we made it better entering the corner and through the middle of the corner, but as we got to the exit, right at that three-quarter mark, I just kept getting tighter and tighter, and then I got up the race track and got hung on the seam and got loose and kind of screwed it up.” WHAT HAPPENED IN ROUND 3? “There was really no difference, it’s just the car at the three-quarter mark of the corner was tighter than what we wanted and every round it kept getting a little worse and I pushed up high enough there to where I got hung up on that seam with the left side tires through one and two and just lost a bunch of time as it got the left-rear on it and got sideways. But they did a great job with our Busch Ford. We had a little bit of the same issue in practice where we just fell off too much the second time out on tires and just where it was at for me I was having trouble keeping the throttle down on the exit to get the run down the straightaway. It’ll be interesting to start the race. You’ve got all the cars with penalties all on brand new tires, so you’re penalized because you’re out here and went through tech and qualified good at the start of the race, so we’ll have to manage through that.” WHAT ARE YOU LOOKING FOR IN THE FEEL OF YOUR CAR? “I think coming here you just want the car to be as consistent as possible throughout the falloff of the run and manageable. You’ve got to be able to manage the car and be versatile as you move up and down the track to try to work through traffic and adjust for the different speeds of the run. It’s an interesting race track, a lot of fun as a driver and you just need the car to be versatile and have options.”
JOEY LOGANO, No. 22 AAA Southern California Ford Fusion – “We’re starting sixth, so we’ll see. We’ve got practice tomorrow to work on it and see where we end up, so we’ll keep working on it.”
RYAN BLANEY, No. 12 PPG Ford Fusion – “We made good gains from practice, which was nice. I thought our second run was getting to where we needed to be, but on the last run we kind of missed it a little bit. But we made good gains from practice and that’s all you can really ask for.”
PAUL MENARD, No. 21 Menards Ford Fusion – “I just screwed up in qualifying bad. We had a really good Ford and I tried getting a little too much maybe and I skipped across two sets of seams and that just killed our lap. An interesting qualifying session for sure.”
DAVID RAGAN, No. 38 1,000Bulbs.com Ford Fusion – “Our first run I got a little too loose and we made a little bit of an adjustment and I thought we could pick up some speed, but our second run on the race track I didn’t get through turns one and two like I needed to and I knew I wasn’t gonna make the final 12, so we just decided to come on in and save that other half-a-lap on tires. Tires are really important here and they wear out really fast, and I didn’t think another full lap on a set of tires to start four or five positions better was gonna make any difference, so we worked on race trim a little bit today and I look forward to working on it a little bit tomorrow and get ready for Sunday.”
