Ford Performance Notes and Quotes
Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series (MENCS)
Saturday, April 6, 2019
EVENT: Food City 500 Media Availability
RYAN BLANEY, No. 12 PPG Ford Mustang – WHAT WAS THE TRACK LIKE AND HOW WILL QUALIFYING BE? “It was interesting. No one went down in that bottom lane and it looks like no one still is going down in it. I was kind of surprised, to be honest, but I was kind of surprised we didn’t go down in there. I hit once with my left side tires and it was pretty slick. You just need a lot of cars running on it to get it going. I thought the XFINITY cars would run down there with them being in race trim and get it rolling, but it looks like they’re not, so I’m not sure. I was kind of nervous. I was thinking, ‘Oh, these XFINITY cars and K&N drivers are gonna run down in it and then we’re gonna have to be in it for qualifying and I don’t know how our cars are gonna be.’ No one will because no one is running it yet, so I don’t know. You just kind of see and watch practice and kind of see where everyone is running and this might be a deal to where they use the middle up and they just go to the top and then we’ll all be at the top of the race track. It’s kind of interesting. The first handful of cars don’t go down in it and then everyone just says, ‘All right, we’ll just run the middle.’ It’s kind of weird how that flows and works, but you never know. It might work down and we might be in it in qualifying, you just have to keep watching.”
THREE TOP FIVES AND FOUR FIINSHES YOU’D RATHER FORGET. HOW FRUSTRATING HAS IT BEEN? “There are moments you get frustrated at it. You just wish stuff would stop happening. We had that run there of really good finishes like we finished where we had been running. I wouldn’t say it’s relieving, but it was nice to finally actually not have anything go wrong in those races, and then you look at last week leading the race and a part falls off and we end up blowing up. That part is frustrating. It kind of got taken out of context. I was angry and like the one story that came out last week was I’m tired of looking at the positives, and the good thing about it is we have really fast cars, so that’s always the positive. I kind of meant it as I’m tired of being in spots with a chance to win and just dumb luck happens and it just gets taken all away from you, so that part gets frustrating, but I’m really only frustrated for 10 minutes after the deal happens. You move on and figure out what you can do to prevent stuff from like that happening and then you focus on the next week because there’s nothing you can do about it after something like that happens. You just try to make sure it doesn’t happen again. The good thing is we’ve had speed all year and sometimes it can get frustrating that we haven’t won a race yet because, honestly, I think we’ve had cars good enough to win almost every single one of them – at least have a shot at them – and, yeah, more bad things have happened than good – but as a whole group, as a whole Penske group, we have to stay on top of the circle here. We’re at the top of our game and I think our cars are the fastest ones out there – us and the Gibbs guys seem to be the class of the field, and this all goes full circle. You’ll have slumps, you’ll have good times and you just try to capitalize on the good times.”
IS THAT WHY IT’S IMPORTANT TO GET A WIN NOW BECAUSE YOU HAVE AN ADVANTAGE? “Yeah, I think we’re in contention to win all year. Our team is capable of that, but when we have so much speed right now as a whole group, yeah, you want to capitalize on it. I mean, you want to rack them up as much as you can as quick as you can when you can, so that part kind of stinks sometimes, but I’d rather have fast cars and things happening when we’re in contention to win races than be running 15th and wondering, scratching our heads where the speed is at. They’re both frustrating, but I’d rather be in this position and you just keep having fast cars and running up front. You hope the problems stop and you hope you can figure out a way to try to pull through at the end of one of these races.”
IS THERE MORE PRESSURE BEING THE ONLY PENSKE DRIVER WHO HASN’T WON YET THIS YEAR? “I don’t feel pressure at all. Yeah, you want to be part of the group, but we have the ability to do it and it’s just a matter of kind of getting it done. Everybody knows that, my whole team knows and all of Penske knows and all of the competition knows that we’ve been one of the best cars all year. Yeah, you still hate to have a zero in that column even though it’s still really early in the year, but, no, the pressure thing I used to let get to me a handful of years ago and then it doesn’t help you, so you just try to stay pressure free no matter how good or bad things are or how things look, so, no, there’s no pressure just because Brad and Joey have won. You just try to focus on your deal and what you need to do to try to get your team in victory lane and help your teammates and your team the best you can, but you just try to overlook all that stuff and just focus.”
THOUGHTS ON RICHMOND NEXT WEEK. “I’m curious about that. We’ll have to see. It’s kind of hard to judge that. It’s been hard to really even, you know we haven’t been to a place like Richmond yet. Phoenix is way different. Here is way different. Martinsville obviously is way different, so Richmond will kind of be the first of its kind with this new package, so I’m not really sure how it’s gonna race with the cooler temps and being able to move around maybe a little bit more with these cars and things like that, so it’s kind of hard to tell right now, but I’m optimistic for it. Richmond hasn’t been our best place and I feel like we’re starting to turn it around there, so hopefully we can keep it going, but it’s kind of hard to judge right now. It’s hard for me to give you an answer of how the racing is gonna be, but I’m optimistic about everything. I think this package this year has shown some pretty decent races. It’s obviously worked the bugs out of it and things like that, but I think Richmond will be a good race. It always puts on a pretty good show there and the night race there, I think, is pretty cool under the lights. It should be a good one.”
DID YOU THINK YOU WOULD BE FASTER HERE WITH THIS PACKAGE? “What did we qualify last year? (15.0 or 15.1) We were 14.8. I feel like some of that. I feel like we would be a little bit faster if we were on the bottom. I think last year we were on the bottom right away and I don’t know what that was from, from the sun being out all day or just cars committing to it right away. I’m not sure. It might not have rained so much, so there as a little bit more on it. I was guessing we were gonna be running 14.6’s, so I was a couple tenths off, but I felt like we’d be a little bit faster if that stuff on the bottom was good to go, but, no, you can feel it. Two tenths here is a lot. That’s a lot faster than what you’re used to is throttle time and how hard you get in the corner compared to last year, but you knew you were gonna be up. I think speeds are gonna be way up here, Dover is gonna be fast – really fast with this package, so that will be interesting – but, yeah I expected us to be a little bit faster, but that’s just the way it is.”
SO DO YOU EXPECT THIS TO BE PHYSICALLY DEMANDING FOR 500 LAPS LIKE BRAD SAID? “This race is always tough. It’s a long race, one of the more physical race tracks that we go to – physical and mentally challenging – but as far as just holding on for dear life so much more than we were last year? Not really. I don’t really expect that to happen.”
MICHAEL MCDOWELL, No. 34 Love’s Travel Stops Ford Mustang – HOW HAS THIS SEASON GONE SO FAR? “It has been a rough one. Daytona obviously went well with a top five and then it was down hill from there. We really struggled with executing the races well. We had parts failures, pieces and made mistakes, so it was rough there and then last week it felt like we got back on our feet. We qualified in the top 15, raced in the top 15, ran in the top 10 a lot of the day and probably our best race to date – maybe not our best finish – but just overall competitiveness of the car and execution of the day and not a lot of attrition either, it was a really good day for us. So we’re excited to be back here at Bristol, where last year was a pretty tough go for us. We just have to do everything we can to get all the laps in.”
HOW ARE YOU LIKING IT WITH THE TEAM THIS YEAR? “I’m really excited where we’re at as a team and an organization. We haven’t had a whole lot to show for it, but my new crew chief Drew Blickensderfer is great. I’m really excited that we got him and he’s done a good job. We haven’t done all the things that we wanted to do, but it’s early yet. The season is still young and I feel like last week was good indication of what we could do and hopefully we’ll just keep building on that.”
HOW MUCH MOMENTUM DO YOU GET FROM A RUN LIKE LAST WEEK? “Momentum is something that’s really real in our sport. It is absolutely real. When the momentum is going the wrong way and when the momentum is going the right way. It definitely happens and I think more than anything is once you start clicking off results it’s not that it ever gets easy, but you just know what you have to do and you do it and then it just goes. It’s hard to explain until you’ve experienced it, so momentum is a very real part of our sport. It’s hard to get and you just can’t have any mistakes and that’s the biggest thing.”
HOW DO YOU DEAL WITH BEING A SMALLER TEAM AND REALIZING YOU MAY NOT HAVE A CHANCE AT WINNING EVERY WEEK? “I don’t think about stuff like that. I just want to do the best I can every single lap and every single day, and that changes. This sport is tough. There’s one winner and 39 losers every single weekend and if you look at an entire season, you guys will do the numbers better than I can, but what is it, 13 guys maybe that win a race – 13, 14 guys a year? It’s been like that for a long time, so you have to set expectations and goals and you just go out and try to achieve them. Now, Kyle’s goal is to win every race. That’s my goal, too. I’d love to win every race, but we know where we’re at and we know where we want to get to, so 15th last weekend, that was winning the race for us. We executed all day long. We did a lot with what we had and we hit it perfect, so you just look at those days and you build on those days. You just can’t let your highs be too high and your lows too low in this sport, otherwise you end up miserable and you can see some of those other guys are.”
YOU SEEM TO HAVE A BIT OF A SWAGGER THIS YEAR. HAS THAT ALWAYS BEEN THERE? “People have said that, I don’t notice it. I feel the same. I think more than anything it’s just, for me, if you look at my entire career this is really only my fourth season running full-time. I’ve been doing it 12 years, but those were start-and-parks and only running a handful of laps, so, to me, I just feel like I’m getting in the rhythm of coming back year after year with quality equipment and building on that momentum. You go and you run 15th and you run 13th and you run 12th and you do that over and over you go, ‘OK,’ you start to get that confidence. I don’t think anything has really changed other than just getting more seasons under my belt and more races. Like I said, the first half of my career was just getting seat time.”
IS THERE ANY KIND OF CHIP ON THE SHOULDER OR STATEMENT MAKING SEASON? “No chip. I know this sounds crazy, but I could really care less what people think. I really don’t try to do anything to please people because it’s empty. I mean, people-pleasing is impossible, so if you try to do it, it’s just an empty road. I just know what I’m trying to achieve and what I’m trying to do and I know my goals personally as a driver and I know our team goals and I know the things we have to do to achieve those and I just focus on those. I don’t worry too much about the perception because you can let that build you up and you can let it tear you down. It goes both ways, so I just don’t put a whole lot of value on it. I just try to do the best I can.”
WHAT DO YOU EXPECT THIS WEEKEND? “Bristol is always so challenging, it has been for a lot of years. There’s just not a lot of time to think about what you’re doing. You just get in that rhythm and get in that fish bowl and you’re swinging around here and it’s fast. It’s just a momentum race track. You get in the zone. It’s hard to do in qualifying trim, though. I got done with my first run and I’m out of breath. ‘I did three laps. It’s like 45 seconds and I’m out of breath,’ and it’s just because it’s so intense here you forget to breathe and you’re holding on and it’s fast and it’s fun. In the race, about 25 laps into it you’re like, ‘OK, if I don’t stop death-gripping this wheel, I’m not gonna make it 500 laps,’ so you just get into that zone and get into that rhythm and I feel like Bristol is the same Bristol. When you unload here it feels very similar. The extra downforce and all those things I think the cars are a little bit faster, but not a tremendous amount faster. I think the speeds were probably pretty similar just because that PJ1 hasn’t really come in yet, but Bristol is Bristol. Last year, I think I did a total of 10 laps here out of the 1,000 allotted and one was my own doing and the second one I had nothing to do with it. It’s just everything happens so fast. You can just have one of those races here like we did last year.”
RYAN NEWMAN, No. 6 Wyndham Rewards Ford Mustang – HOW DO YOU FEEL YOUR YEAR HAS GONE SO FAR? “I wish I was sitting here saying it was better than what it is, but I think we’ve progressed – maybe not to the pace that I was hopeful of – but I feel like we’ve progressed. Last weekend was a good race for us. We’re off a little bit here, a little bit there. The way the state of the sport is now when you’re competing so tightly against other organizations from a manufacturer’s standpoint we’re one of 14 Fords, so if you’re at all behind a little bit you’re behind 14 or more potentially. I’m not saying it’s bad, I’m just saying the way it is it’s really tough to have yourself be that top five percent. I think right now we’re the top 40 percent and that’s not good enough, so Scott, all the guys on the team chemistry-wise I think we’re getting better and stronger. I guess I never really thought about it before the start of the season, but this is the first time I’ve ever had everything new – I mean absolutely everything. Even when I started, when I had no idea what NASCAR Cup racing was about, we still did a bunch of testing. Here, we did one test for a day-and-a-half in Vegas and came out with a new car, a new engine, a new crew chief, a new manufacturer so to speak – not just body and aero rules, but a Mustang body. Everything was new and I think I underestimated that just a little bit, but in saying that I think we’ve done a good job of making ourselves competitive. We’re obviously on the outside looking in now of the top 16, but I feel like we’re more than capable of racing our way up and performing better each and every week.”
YOU DIDN’T THINK ABOUT ALL THIS CHANGE BEFORE THE SEASON STARTED? “I think you have a lot of confidence in all the things you have around you, the people you have around you. It’s like assembling a group to go to battle, like we all know our jobs, but we have really never done all our jobs together and I think I underestimated that just a little bit and that’s why I said chemistry-wise and personality-wise, what are we seven races together now? It has definitely gotten better and grown, which is good because it needed to, and at the same time starting with everything new it’s totally different than if we had been starting with last year’s package. If we could have taken the things that we knew from last year, whether it was Scott from Gibbs, me from RCR, the people at Roush obviously, it would have been so much easier, but it’s magnified our need to improve, which is good as long as we have our eyes open.”
THIS IS YOUR FOURTH TEAM IN CUP. DOES EACH ONE HAVE ITS OWN DISTINCT PERSONALITY? “I guess not a lot of drivers can actually have that conversation, but, yeah, I think for sure. I’m not gonna go into the exact details of it. I think it’s fairly obvious from the outside and it’s pretty spot on from the inside, but definitely different families I guess you could say. The mentality is still a lot the same. It’s racing. It’s do what you can to try to win and you’ve always got somebody in the organization that is full of excuses and you’ve always got somebody in the organization that is trying to overcompensate. That chemistry, that makeup is always there at all four organizations, but it’s interesting. It’s still fun.”
THE FORD PECKING ORDER. IT’S FAIR TO SAY ROUSH SLOTS IN….”No, I wasn’t saying it in respect to that. What I was saying was if say for instance if Ford goes to the race track with five less horsepower one weekend, there are 14 of us that have five less horsepower. Do you know what I mean? It’s more something like that. That’s not a dig on Doug Yates or anybody else, it’s just the facts are the facts. When it comes to us, which the post Texas wind tunnel results will be interesting and a great tool for us to learn from a Roush standpoint of where we are and how we shake out compared to those other guys.”
DO YOU FEEL YOU CAN COMPETE WITH THEM EVEN THOUGH SHR HAS FOUR CARS AND PENSKE THREE? “The number of cars, to me, isn’t so much of a factor. I still go back to the 78 winning the championship. It’s not a necessity to have four cars. If it was, Hendrick would be winning the championship every year and that obviously has not been the case, so I don’t see it as that’s the make up of how to become a champion. I think it’s all about the assets that you have and those assets are the people and the parts and the chemistry that goes along with everybody doing their job.”
HAS SHORT TRACK RACING CHANGED SINCE YOU GOT INTO THIS DEAL? “It’s gotten a lot faster. Going around here in sub-15 second laps routinely and racing 15.50s where we used to fall off to 17.50s is definitely different, but it’s just the downforce of the cars, the speeds of everything has made it more like Indy Cars. I don’t know if that’s ideal for me. I kind of liked where we were – downforce and driveability-wise and what we were doing inside the race cars as far as lifting and having to brake a little bit. My throttle time at Texas was 90 percent. Ninety percent throttle wide-open. It’s hard to out-drive somebody. It’s hard to out-brake somebody. It’s not gonna happen in that three-tenths of a second that lap. It’s just not.”
HOW IS THE PHYSICALITY AT THESE TRACKS? IT SEEMS YOU GUYS GET INTO EACH OTHER LESS AND LESS? “It’s a combination of things. The bumpers, the way they line up now, it’s almost impossible for us to spin somebody around. It’s like you have to drive through them and then knock a hole in your nose, where before you could just lift a guy’s tires up off the ground and kind of shake him out of the way. If he saved it, he saved it. If he didn’t, well, we’d talk about it afterwards. Now, the bumpers line up and we race so close to the same speed that it’s really just a challenge to race people, whereas before if you raced up on somebody and he blocked you or whatever, you just kind of moved him out of the way and it’s not that cut-and-dried anymore.”
WHERE ARE YOU IN RELATION TO WHERE YOU THOUGHT YOU WOULD BE AT THIS POINT IN THE SEASON? “I expected to be better than where we are. I think 37 other guys would tell you the same thing, but at the same time we are where we are. I recognize our strengths and I recognize our weaknesses and we just have to go out there and fix everything we possibly can and then some. The guys that are winning are still doing a better job the next week, so we’re behind the eight-ball, but at least we have a little shade.”
DO YOU AND RICKY TALK MUCH ABOUT DIRECTION? “I’ve spent more time at the shop this year – let me put it to you this way, I’ve spent four times as much time at the shop per week than I did in the last five years, which is bad and good because as a driver you’re spending time there because you need to make things better, but you’re spending time there to make things better so I think we have some really great meeting when we have our sitdowns, and layers of meetings – not just a meeting but layers of meetings that make us perform better and learn where we’re at and I think that we have much better potential of showing what we’re made of as we hit some of these race tracks the second time than we did the first time just looking at our experiences so far this year.”
HOW DO YOU LOOK AT RICHMOND? “Richmond is kind of an animal all its own because of the forward drive issues that you have there. We really didn’t even have forward drive issues at Martinsville, so when you go to a place like Richmond it’s probably gonna be there, but with the amount of downforce that we have not as much as we’ve had in the past. Usually, Richmond is all about forward drive and getting your car to cut in the center so that you’re not trying to accelerate while it’s still trying to turn.”
THE NIGHT RACING. DO YOU LIKE IT? “Yeah, I like night races, but it seems anymore we don’t get home until morning anyways, so our night races still kind of make you a waste the next day. It still takes another 12 hours to try and recalibrate. Maybe I’m just getting old.”
