Ford Performance Notes and Quotes
NASCAR XFINITY Series (NXS)
Sunday, February 23, 2020
EVENT: Boyd Gaming 300
Ford Finishing Order:
1st – Chase Briscoe
2nd – Austin Cindric
WINNER’S PRESS CONFERENCE
RICHARD BOSWELL, Crew Chief, No. 98 Ford Performance Racing School Ford Mustang – WOULD YOU AGREE CHASE IS BECOMING ACCLIMATED TO ALL STYLES OF TRACKS? “Yeah, from an on-track standpoint absolutely. I think the one thing that a lot of people don’t get to see is just the humbleness that comes with him and his positive attitude and his way to relate to all the guys and sponsors and everybody, so from an off-track and on-track standpoint that’s what I’m most impressed with is just his ability to relate with the people. On-track, you hit the nail on the head. He’s good everywhere.”
CHASE BRISCOE, No. 98 Ford Performance Racing School Ford Mustang – THOUGHTS ON BEING THE POINTS LEADER. “Yeah, it’s so early, but definitely it’s nice to get a win early. I think obviously we were hoping that we could get a win at some point in the year, we expected to, but to get it before Phoenix is definitely nice just because we can go there and kind of try some stuff because I feel like that’s one place I need to get way better at. That being said, it’s nice to take the point lead. It doesn’t mean as much this early in the season like you said, but it’s a good confidence-booster for all the guys and it goes a long way when you’re that first garage stall with your guys and their work ethic and everything else. We knew that we could go win races, but to get one this early in the year I think it’ll go a long way, especially on this west coast swing. It’s hard to stay motivated and for us to win the first one that definitely goes a long way.”
YOU SAID YOU WANT TO WIN EIGHT RACES. WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO WIN SO EARLY? “I think that statement I was saying it’s not like it’s a definite make-or-break thing if I win eight or so races. That’s just personally what I feel like I need to do to prove that I’m ready for Sunday racing. It’s hard to win eight if you wait until halfway through the year, so it definitely makes it nice to kind of get one early, but, yeah, it’s nice just to win in general whenever you do it. Just winning, to be able to show that we’ve won on different types of race tracks goes a long way. Hopefully, we can continue to do that and go next week and win on a two-mile track.”
IS IT TOO EARLY TO MAKE A STATEMENT OR DO YOU FEEL YOU JUST KEEP DOING WHAT YOU’VE BEEN DOING? “Not that it’s a definite statement, but I think it’s always nice whenever you can win. There’s a lot of talk at least on the XFINITY side of who is gonna be those next guys and hopefully us winning shows that we can be one of those guys. If we do our job every week, I feel like we can contend at any race track. It’s not a definite statement, but it shows that we’re capable of winning and that’s something that internally I feel like we all knew, but you never know until you do it. It makes a little bit of a statement, but not a definite statement that this is who you’ve got to go through to win the championship by any means. There are still a lot of guys that are gonna be really good and truthfully we’ve got to get a lot better too to be that definite guy.”
WHAT DID YOU FEEL YOU DID RIGHT THIS WEEK? “Have a good pit stop at the end, that’s for sure. That was key. The race was really weird. I feel like every time I came to Vegas you can run up to the wall or even run the middle really well and the bottom kind of goes away after seven or eight laps. The beginning of the race I felt like I was really, really good and I had clean air obviously and we lost the lead and my car completely changed. It took a total 180 and it was hard to tell if it was really just dirty air doing that or the sun going down. At the end Cindric obviously ran away with it there for a while and then when I was able to get the lead I kind of ran away with it and it seemed like tonight was the fastest I’ve ever felt like I’ve gone around Vegas just because we had so much grip and so much speed around the bottom. It was almost like driving a truck how hard you could drive the thing, so clean air was crucial just because it was so hard to make a pass. I probably gave up a ton of time trying to make the top work and even trying to make the middle work and pass guys and just had to try to stay disciplined to run the bottom and obviously it would prevail.”
DID YOUR NAME COME UP IN THE MIX WHEN NEWMAN GOT SIDELINED? “No, nobody reached out to me. I told Ford that if it was something for a couple weeks I would be willing to do it, but I never heard anything from anybody or never even knew if my name was in the mix. I tried to stay out of it truthfully. I’m focused on trying to win an XFINITY championship and trying to win as many races as I can, so I’ll just let that try to do the talking.”
HAVE YOU HEARD FROM YOU DAD YET? “I haven’t even been on my phone yet. He won’t be disappointed, he’s obviously gonna be thrilled, but he’s only missed two races my entire career on the NASCAR side and this is the first one that I won at, so I know he was sending me texts all day long and telling me to be disciplined on the bottom. I’m sure if he would have come to victory lane tonight he would have ripped me pretty good about how I was not being patient hitting the bottom. He’s definitely my hardest critic and I know he would have been pretty mad at me tonight by how I ran, that’s for sure.”
AUSTIN CINDRIC, No. 22 MoneyLion Ford Mustang – DID YOUR CAR JUST GO AWAY FROM YOU LATE? “A little bit. It was definitely a track position sensitive race after the sun went down. We knew it was gonna tighten up and tried to adjust for it on the final stop and didn’t get quite enough, and then obviously lost a little track position. I tried to hang it wide-open on Chase’s door, but track position is pretty important and then just fell off too tight following him there. It was pretty bottom dominant. It was really weird the track didn’t take any rubber today even in the Cup race. That was different than what I expected, but overall a great day for our MoneyLion Ford Mustang and we’ll try again next week at Fontana.”
IS THIS THE FIRST OF MANY BATTLES WITH CHASE THIS YEAR? “That’s about as tame as it’s gonna be, I’d say (laughing). It’s a testament to everything the guys at Ford Performance have done. This is a brand new body kit for us, so it shows the hard work that those guys at the Tech Center and the guys in Michigan have been doing to get us a little more speed and it’s obviously showing a bit. Chase and I are getting a little more experience and having a little fun racing together, so it should be a fun year that way.”
