Ford Performance Notes and Quotes
NASCAR Cup Series
Ford Zoom Media Availability | Wednesday, June 30, 2021
JEREMY BULLINS, Crew Chief, No. 2 Ford Mustang — YOU HAVE HAD SOME PRETTY GOOD SUCCESS AT ROAD AMERICA. WHAT IS IT YOU LIKE ABOUT IT THERE AND HOW YOU THINK YOUR SUCCESS MIGHT BODE WELL FOR THIS WEEKEND? “The first time I was there was when I started with Team Penske in 2012 with the Xfinity program. We were fortunate enough to have some really good road racers in our cars. We got the win with AJ and a second with Tag (Alex Tagliani) and ran pretty good there with Jacques (Villeneuve). It is a really cool place and I am really looking forward to taking a Cup car there. Not only is it a fun race track but it is a fun environment. The fans there really love what we do and it should be a great weekend.”
THERE WAS BIG NEWS THAT JUST CAME OUT OF NASCAR MOMENTS AGO WITH GANASSI SELLING HIS ASSETS TO TRACKHOUSE RACING. WHAT IS YOUR REACTION TO THAT? “I certainly didn’t have that one on my bingo card. I think it just shows you where the sport is. I think there was a lot of hope with some of the directions we were going with in the future that new ownership would want to participate and I think that is what we are seeing. I think you are seeing some excitement and things we haven’t seen lately. I think that is great. I think it is a great opportunity for what Justin is doing and the ability to come in and hopefully, those guys can run at a high level and be successful.”
LOOKING AT THIS WEEKEND, ONE OF THE BIG STORIES IS THE LIMITED PRACTICE. WHAT ARE YOU LOOKING FOR AT A LONG TRACK LIKE ROAD AMERICA? “Yeah, we get 50-minutes and just over a 4-mile racetrack. You won’t get a lot of laps. You have to make it count. The biggest thing you are trying to do is get your travels right and balance close. You don’t have time to do any real R&D or try anything. You are taking your road course history and notes from other places and try to build what we think is the best setup and dial that in as quickly as possible.
WE HAVE ALL SEEN WHERE SOMEONE GETS REALLY HOT AND RUNS OUT FRONT AND THEN EVERYONE SEEMS TO CATCH UP. FROM A TEAM PERSPECTIVE, WHAT IS THAT PROCESS LIKE WHERE YOU ARE TRYING TO FIGURE OUT WHAT IN THE WORLD THEY ARE DOING AND HOW YOU CAN REPLICATE IT AND CATCH BACK UP? “I think the best way to describe it is that it goes in cycles. There have been times the Gibbs cars couldn’t be beat and times our cars were really good and seemed like we couldn’t do anything wrong. Lately, it has been the Hendrick cars. It goes in cycles. Other teams will pick up. We are always working as hard as we can. Sometimes when you are behind you push that much harder to find the next thing to make you competitive. With this format, it is about peaking at the right time. They have done a good job of winning a lot of races and getting a lot of playoff points and putting themselves in a good position. We are trying to get better all the time and working really hard to get better. I guess what I am hoping for us as the 2 team is that we can peak at the right time during the playoffs and make a little magic when the 750 tracks roll around> Hopefully we run well at Richmond and do the things that we did last year that got us to Phoenix and give us another chance.”
LOOKING AHEAD TO ATLANTA AND HOW IT CHEWS UP TIRES. IT IS ABOUT GETTING BALANCE TO PUSH HARDER SOONER AND LONGER? “I agree with that. I think the 550 package has a lot to do with that. I think you carry a lot more wide-open time now with the 550 package than you would have years ago with the older Cup cars. It is just a product of the racing and the way it is now. But still, it is Atlanta and abusing your tires will cost you something. It may not be the same penalty as it was years ago when I first started going there but there is still a penalty and it still requires something different than some of the other 1.5 mile tracks do.”
THE STRATEGY THIS WEEKEND, IS IT EASIER BECAUSE YOU CAN JUST KIND OF PLOT OUT WHERE YOU WANT TO PIT AND WHAT YOU WANT TO DO WITH SUCH A LONG TRACK? “I would say it is easy in some ways and more difficult in some ways. The one thing I would point out is that, and if you look back to 2014 when we had Tag there, we ran out of gas near the end of the race and fortunately it was as we were at the pit road entrance. We were able to make it back to pit road to put fuel in. On a 4-mile racetrack, if we had run out of gas a couple hundred feet later, that would have been bad. There are some things with the risk scenario of how you gamble on caution at the end and how risky you are with fuel windows that are a little tough. Some of the things you worry about, you aren’t going to get lapped if you pit. That makes it easier to be more aggressive. It is a risk-reward scenario for sure.”
YOU HAVE A TWO-WEEK BREAK OFF IN JULY. WITH THIS OPPORTUNITY, HOW DO YOU LOOK AT IT? IS IT A CHANCE TO TAKE A VACATION AND GET AWAY AND RESET FOR THE FINAL PORTION OF THE SCHEDULE OR IS IT A CHANCE TO DO THE THINGS YOU HAVEN’T HAD A CHANCE TO DO OR REFOCUS AS A TEAM? “I think it is a little bit of both. We are pushing hard for the road guys, the traveling guys, to spend some time with family and kind of take a break and get themselves reset for this last push as we go into the playoffs. It is also an opportunity in the shop to get caught up on some things and get ahead on some things. YOu just have to find that balance like everything else.”
ALL THE TALK ABOUT BRAD (KESELOWSKI) AND HIS FUTURE. THIS IS THE FIRST TIME YOU HAVE PROBABLY HAD TO ADDRESS THIS AS A LEADER OF A TEAM AND ORGANIZATION THROUGH THE RUMORS. WHAT IS THAT LIKE FOR YOU? HOW HAVE YOU TRIED TO KEEP EVERYONE TOGETHER? “I think the biggest thing for me is honesty and transparency about the situation. Letting the guys know what I know. Having Brad let them know what he knows. Let everybody try to be kept on the same page and understand what the situation is. We are all professionals and our team is handling this very professionally. We know that no matter what happens beyond 2021 that we have a great opportunity with Brad to win races and put ourselves back in the Final Four at Phoenix. We will deal with 2022 then or in the off-season. For us, the main thing is that the timing was unfortunate because we had a few weeks with issues and things going wrong and penalties at a time when all these rumors were going around. It starts to give that outside appearance. I hope last weekend proved a point that we are here to contend for wins and a championship. We had a great weekend at Pocono and feel like we got our legs back under us a little bit and are ready to go through the summer.”
WHAT MAKES ROAD AMERICA DIFFERENT THAN ANY OF THE ROAD COURSES THE CUP SERIES HAS BEEN ON BEFORE? “I think being such a long track, a 4-mile track, I think the cool thing about it is that there are so many different corners. There is the long straightaway with the big braking zone into 1. You have the kink in the back where you carry lots of speed. There is a good mix of corners and speed differentials. It is very similar in a sense to COTA. COTA had that as well. I think it creates a lot of interesting passing zones and should make for good racing. It was always a great Xfinity race. It is an older surface with some character and roughness in places and a lot of challenges you have to work through.
