Ford Notes and Quotes
Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series (MENCS)
GEICO 500 MENCS POST-RACE (Talladega Superspeedway)
Sunday, April 29, 2018
JOEY LOGANO LEADS FORD DOMINATION OF TALLADEGA
- Joey Logano piloted his No. 22 Ford to victory today at Talladega Superspeedway, his first win of the 2018 season.
- It marked Logano’s 3rd career MENCS win at the race track.
- Ford now has 27 all-time series wins at Talladega, including 9 of the last 11.
- The Blue Oval has now won 17 of the last 30 Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series events at Daytona and Talladega combined.
- Ford has won six straight MENCS events at Talladega.
- In addition, Ford has won seven of the last eight and nine of the last 12 at the track.
- The win is Fusion’s 94th Cup Series triumph since becoming Ford’s flagship vehicle in 2006.
- Today’s win is Ford’s 663rd all-time in Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series competition.
- Of Team Penske’s 59 MENCS wins with Ford, 32 have come since rejoining Ford in 2013
FORD FINISHING RESULTS
1st – Joey Logano
2nd – Kurt Busch
4th – Kevin Harvick
5th – Ricky Stenhouse Jr.
6th – David Ragan
7th – Aric Almirola
18th – Ryan Blaney
19th – Matt DiBenedetto
23rd – Timothy Peters
30th – Paul Menard
31st – Clint Bowyer
32nd – Michael McDowell
33rd – Brad Keselowski
38th – Trevor Bayne
JOEY LOGANO, No. 22 Shell Pennzoil/Autotrader Ford Fusion — Finished: 1st –
VICTORY LANE INTERVIEW
WHAT DID YOU DO THE LAST COUPLE LAPS TO KEEP THEM BEHIND YOU? “I guess we got luck. I have a great spotter. Dale Jr. left me a good one with T.J. Majors who allowed me to make the right decisions. He gives me the picture behind me and tells me where to go. I just hold the steering wheel and make the right moves. It was a great car, very fast. The Fords dominated today. I am so proud to be in a Blue Oval with Roush Yates motors under the hood. That is a huge deal. A big part of our victory today. Teamwork was a big part of it as well. At the end you are racing and don’t know what will happen, you just hope to get in the right lanes at the right time with the right moves. It is always exciting to win at a superspeedway, especially Talladega because you never know you’ve got it until you cross the line. After waiting a full year since our last win it feels so good to get back in victory lane and get our 22 Shell Pennzoil Ford into the playoffs. It feels really good to get those playoff points and now we will make a run at a championship.”
KURT BUSCH, No. 41 Haas Automation/Monster Energy Ford Fusion — Finished: 2nd
“We just needed the assistance from behind. The 17 car was strong. All the Fords were great today. I was hoping he would get to us on the back straightaway so we could go on offense on the front to go win it but it just didn’t materialize. I wanted to stay with Harvick, my teammate, and navigate around the 22 but everyone behind kind of broke off and was racing too hard and nobody got that big head of steam to try to push through and break apart the 22’s lead.”
HOW FRUSTRATING IS IT TO HAVE A CAR CAPABLE OF WINNING BUT TO NEED HELP? “It was one of the best Fords I have ever had here and it was fun to race it and lead some laps and be right there but I just didn’t get the job done. The 22 out-foxed us and we didn’t get the push from behind to go on offense at the end but a top-five day so I can’t really complain.”
RICKY STENHOUSE JR., No. 17 Fastenal Ford Fusion — Finished 5th
“I just wasn’t sure what to do there. I knew the 9 was going to try to get by us and we are all trying to get a win there. The 22 was in a great position. When we got two-wide behind him it didn’t slow him down much. We weren’t ever really gaining on him. It was a lot of fun out there today. I made a few mistakes on pit road and we caught some good cautions to keep us on the lead lap. I thought the racing was good. The cars were super tough to drive. They were sliding around everywhere which was fun. I think that made for a good race throughout the runs and the stages and the different strategies that we had. All in all it was a fun weekend and I had fun on the boulevard with all the fans. I appreciate all of them coming out. I really wanted to win on Dale Sr.’s birthday. That would have been really cool.”
KEVIN HARVICK, No. 4 Busch Beer Flannel Ford Fusion — Finished: 4th
“We had a really good Bush Ford. We got the handling a lot better there after the first run of the race when it was pushing really bad and loose in the corners and through the tri-oval. They did a good job adjusting the car. The 41 pulled out sooner than I thought he would there and we wound up getting hung out. All in all it was a really good day. I am happy to finish the race. It is a good day for the guys. We can tweak on one finally rather than having to rebuild one.”
DAVID RAGAN, No. 38 Bad Boy Mowers Ford Fusion — Finished 6th
“We had a fast car all weekend. We qualified 12th and if it wasn’t for my speeding penalty early I think we could have run in the top-15 all day. Kudos to the Front Row Motorsports guys for assembling this car and the team at the shop and the engine shop and even Roush Fenway Racing who put a lot of effort in. Special thanks to Jimmy Fennig for helping us on this car.”
ARIC ALMIROLA, No. 10 Smithfield Ford Fusion — Finished: 7th
“It was an unusual Talladega. The cars are a big handful. They keep getting them lower and lower and lower and we are going faster and faster and faster but the cars just drive worse. It is a lot harder to run in a big pack three and four-wide all day long. You definitely saw it kind of file out and pit strategy and a lot of that stuff. The one thing that I do know is that the Fords were all really fast. All of us were really fast. We had a great Smithfield Ford Fusion the whole weekend. We put ourselves behind in qualifying but that was a nice way to battle back with a solid day for us. I thought we had a car capable of getting up there and racing for the win but we got shuffled there on the restarts. Coming from the back to get a top-10 is a good day.”
CLINT BOWYER, No. 14 Haas Automation Demo Day Ford Fusion — Finished: 31st
(Retired after multi-car incident on lap 165)
“It looked like, I don’t know if he got loose or was trying to get in a whole but the 48 wasn’t clear and wrecked a bunch of us. That was just kind of par for our day. It started when we locked the right-rear wheel up somehow coming to the pits and flat spotted that and had to come back in. We finally got two laps back, I got one lap back and then finally got on the lead lap and then we wrecked. Par for the course.”
PAUL MENARD, No. 21 Motorcraft Ford Fusion — Finished: 30th
(Retired after multi-car incident on lap 165)
“We just got the bottom lane rolling decent and kind of got shuffled back. It is so hard to get back forward. We went for the top and that wasn’t working so we went to the bottom and started going forward but the 48 just cut across the 24 from what I saw and caused a big wreck.”
BRAD KESELOWSKI, No. 2 Snap On Ford Fusion — Finished: 33rd
(Retired after multi-car incident on lap 165)
“There was just a wreck in front of me and I couldn’t make any sense really of what happened and we just got into it.”
MICHAEL MCDOWELL, No. 34 Love’s Travel Stops/Roller Bites Ford Fusion — Finished 32nd
(Retired after multi-car incident on lap 165)
“All I saw was smoke unfortunately. We were just in the wrong lane at the wrong time. We had a really fast Love’s Travel Stops Ford. Unfortunately that happens here at Talladega and it always feels like it is 20 to go when we crash. I am not sure how to get to the end of these ones. It has been a rough last few years.”
TREVOR BAYNE, No. 6 AdvoCare Ford Fusion — Finished: (Retired after multi-car incident on lap 71)
“We went into turn one and I saw Kyle Busch kind of get rooted up high. The third lane seemed to be the best for us. The car was on the splitter and the higher I could stay the better off we were. I went to the top to keep my run going and coming off the corner I didn’t see what happened but watching the replay it looks like the 20 got turned and turned up into us. It stinks. You try to manage your highs and lows though. We will move on and go to Dover next weekend. It is frustrating because Talladega is one of the ones you know you can win at and we wanted to do that today.”
KURT BUSCH POST RACE PRESS CONFERENCE
KURT BUSCH: “It was an awesome finish. But I thought two Stewart‑Haas cars running second and third should have been able to pull this off. Stenhouse came up from behind and tried to make some moves. Nine times out of the 10 the 17 car statistically is going to be the guy to beat at a plate race. Once he got to my rear bumper the one time and pushed me by Kevin, he didn’t get to stay with me. I lost track of him. Everybody from Chase and Stenhouse, everybody is back there three‑wide ripping and gouging, trying to go hard. It takes two cars to try to break through the leader. I’m happy that a Ford won. It wasn’t the right one. Kevin was in good position. I was going to roll with him in any direction that I could. We just got broken up by Stenhouse. Man, it’s just so close. You wish you could go over and do it again. I feel like I left that one out on the table.”
KEVIN SAID HE FELT LIKE YOU GUYS GOT SEPARATED SOMEHOW. YOU TOUCHED ON THIS, BUT YOU WENT OUT WITHOUT HIM, BUT HE WASN’T EXPECTING THAT. WERE YOU PLANNING ON GETTING TOGETHER AND GOING TO THE FRONT? “That’s what common sense would say. I was going to roll with Kevin whichever direction he went. Stenhouse came with such a run from behind, I knew at that point the 9 would shove to the inside, then it would be the 17 and 41 to the outside. It happened for half a straightaway then things kind of broke apart with everybody getting stuck side‑by‑side. If I had to do it all over again, I just needed to manage the run that the 17 had on me because when we stayed single file, the 22, the 4 and the 41, we could lay down some good lap times and the others couldn’t quite catch us.”
KURT, BASED ON WHAT CHASE SAID, THAT HE COULDN’T GET ANY HELP, YOU GUYS WERE TOO PATIENT, WAS THAT THE STRATEGY? WERE YOU DELIBERATELY TOO PATIENT, LINED UP TOGETHER LIKE THAT? “Well, I mean, the guy that’s leading the race is pretty fast. The guy that’s second is really fast. The guy that’s third is fast. When you time together three guys that are from the same manufacturer, that’s what puts you in position to win. But then once it’s five to go, nobody’s really caring who’s got what brand underneath the hood, the shape of their car. It’s my job as a teammate to help Kevin a little bit further down into getting two to go, one to go. Then there’s Stenhouse, who has won a lot of these plate races recently. He came in there with a head of steam. I wanted to roll with him. Didn’t materialize. That’s how we got all strung out, trying to be the one guy by himself, where you need three to kind of hook up and go and try to pass the leader.”
HOW DIFFICULT WAS PASSING TODAY? DID THE RULES PACKAGE HAVE ANYTHING TO DO WITH THAT? “I feel like the ride height rule dropped the rear of the car even more from where it was at Daytona. When you look at some of the numbers, there’s less downforce on the cars. These rear spoilers still to me are way too narrow. They need to be all the way out to the edge of the fender so it’s easier to side draft off of people. That would help with stability and with side drafting.”
