Ford Performance Notes and Quotes
NASCAR Cup Series
Clash at the Coliseum Advance| Saturday, February 5, 2022
RYAN BLANEY, No. 12 Menards/Great Lakes Flooring Ford Mustang — YOU WERE NEXT TO LAST IN THE FIRST SESSION AND JUMPED UP TO SECOND IN THE SECOND SESSION. IS THERE THAT MUCH ADJUSTABILITY IN THE CAR OR WERE YOU JUST GETTING USED TO THINGS? “We found a lot. We changed a whole lot between the first and second practice. We were really bad the first run and just really loose. The corners are so tight here that the moment your rear slips out from under you it takes forever to catch it and you lose tons of time. we came in and put tons of wedge in it and changed the right front spring and rear springs. There is a lot of adjustability in these cars with rear and front bar and stiffness on the arms on them, you can change a lot. We did a good job of getting on top of it and taking a huge swing at it. We were so far off. The adjustability on these cars is a lot though. On any other practice weekend I don’t know if you would make as much changes as that in the short time frame we will have on other weekends but you can change a bunch on these cars in not a ton of time. It is nice to have so many options where you can tweak on things.”
DID YOU FIND IT EASIER TO TURN FROM THE PREVIOUS CAR? “Yeah. I feel like this new car has more grip than the old car. The tires are wider and it just has more grip on the track and it feels like you are going faster than you would have with the old car here. There are things that are similar and other things that are different. The steering is so quick here, when you get loose with the power steering system we have in these cars is not as smooth. It can kind of catch and be harder to correct and turn but I feel like these cars have more grip so you can really lay on the wheel and the tires will take it and not just chatter. The old car you had a lot of chatter with tires but these ones feel like they will take it a little bit more.”
WHAT IS IT LIKE DRIVING ON WHAT IS ESSENTIALLY A TEMPORARY TRACK? “Honestly, I think everyone kind of didn’t know what to expect when we announced this. When we got here yesterday and were able to walk around and now sitting up here, this is awesome. What a cool venue. A great event, I think. I think the fans coming to watch it tomorrow night are going to be really pleased and put on a great event for everybody. I think it is really neat that we are out here and doing this and getting the first laps on the track were tough because you are trying to find the limits and things like that. The track was really slick getting going this morning, that is for sure. But it got grip by the end of it and everyone learns pretty quickly here. I couldn’t tell it was a temporary track. It is asphalt. You can run on it.”
YOU HAVE A NEW CREW CHIEF AND BRAD (KESELOWSKI) ISN’T THERE ANYMORE. HAS YOUR ROLE CHANGED WITHIN THE TEAM AT ALL? “You go through changes all the time with Austin and Harrison (Burton) coming in, it is cool to get some new minds in there. Everyone thinks differently and it is cool to get some fresh blood in there that brings up some points that maybe you haven’t thought of that way before. It is good to get all these different collective minds working. Working with Jonathan Hassler has been really good and it has been nice to have some tests with him in the offseason and be able to get down each others languages and things like that and how we go about things. It has been great. He has been a part of Penske for a long time and I was really impressed with the job he did the second half of last year on the 21 car and I am happy to be working with him and see how we do. Yeah, a little different but we are strongest when we all work together, all the team and drivers, and we do a great job of that as a group at Penske. It is a matter of getting the season going and that kind of comes naturally. It is a little different look but the same objective, really.”
WHAT KIND OF OPPORTUNITY DOES THIS EVENT REPRESENT IN THE QUEST THAT YOU HAVE HAD THE LAST FEW YEARS TO TRY TO HELP GROW THIS SPORT? “I think it is great. You always want to get new fans and at the same time please your fans that have been around forever. That is hard to do. YOu always want to do your best at growing the sport in general and keeping people happy who have been a part of it for a long time and attracting new eyes. I thought I read somewhere that 70% of the people coming here tomorrow it is their first time coming to a NASCAR race or watching NASCAR. That is great. Where else are you going to get something like that? This venue, I am jealous that you guys get to look at the backdrop while we are talking. It is nice. And the George Lucas museum. You know, what I was doing, I was just doing those things because they were fun to me and I thought it would help grow myself and the sport of NASCAR as well. If I drove cars and people liked something I was in or they saw me in a show or something then maybe they would check out NASCAR and get hooked because they liked me on something else. It was never my main goal. I just thought it would help everybody, myself and NASCAR included. I think it is really great and honestly, staying at the hotel, a lot of people know what is going on this weekend here. It is not a secret. They have done a great job of branding it and putting it out there that the Clash is here at the LA Coliseum. That is the first part. You have to get the word out. I have tons of friends I have made over the years who are actors and artists who are coming out to this race tomorrow and a lot of them it is their first time. It is something new and it is right here and it should be exciting. I would love to be here as a fan. If I was a fan of the sport and a spectator, I would love to watch this race for the excitement that it is going to bring. Ask me this tomorrow night if I am pissed off after getting wrecked, but as a fan it is going to be a lot of fun to watch. I never would have thought I would be able to drive in the LA Coliseum. It is really cool.”
YOU TALKED ABOUT HOW YOU FELT THE TRACK GETTING MORE GRIP. YOU PRACTICED IN THE MORNING AND YOU CAN FEEL THE HEAT COMING UP. WHAT ARE YOUR EXPECTATIONS AND WHEN IT GETS MORE GRIP TO YOU GET MORE AGGRESSIVE? “Yeah, Austin had the fun one. He as in the first session this morning. We got to run last night for the NBC Super Bowl thing and we were kind of putting around then but you could feel how slick it was and how dirty it was. You get that with any new asphalt especially when it is cool outside. It just got better and better as rubber got laid down and temps got up a little and drivers got more confident at knowing what to do. Just speeds pick up. Everything gets better and better as you get running on it and you saw that with speeds getting faster and faster as the day went on.”
WHAT IS YOUR OVERALL IMPRESSION OF THIS CAR VERSUS LAST YEAR’S MODEL? “I think I can compare it to the tracks we have been testing it on like Phoenix and the Charlotte Roval and things like that. There are certain things about it that are like more grip in the corner, you feel like you can drive it harder. I feel like it is a double-edged sword. You can drive it harder but the price you pay for driving it too hard and slipping is worse than what the old car was. So that is going to make it tough. It is easier to mess up in this new car I feel like. You will pay a bigger penalty when you do mess up. that part is really neat for me as a driver and makes it more challenging and will put more of an emphasis on being perfect throughout the race. That part is something really big that I have learned just running them at the tests right now. They handle different. It is hard to tell you what your butt feels when you are in the car, just the way it moves around and slides around. It is a different feel from that old car. We will get a better idea when we get in races and traffic and stuff and get 40 cars out there but there are a lot of things different and it will challenge drivers and teams to really be on top of their game at the start of the year. You will see who is on top of their game right away and you just hope to be one of those teams.”
AUSTIN CINDRIC, No. 2 eCascadia Ford Mustang — FOLKS WERE SAYING THAT IT WAS EASIER TO TURN INTO THESE CORNERS WAS EASIER WITH THIS NEW CAR AND THAT YOUR ROAD COURSE BACKGROUND MIGHT HELP. IS THAT WHAT YOU FOUND WITH THIS NEW CAR? “I certainly felt like the track, once you got out there, it didn’t feel as tight as what I probably thought they were going to be beforehand. Even turning into the infield. I had a big concern trying to pull off early in the session if you could even make the turn into the corner. I think the track is fine and the cars can handle it fairly well. Just trying to understand how to make it work the best. I think you almost erase all your concerns beforehand after you make the first three laps. YOu are like, okay, this is a race track and there is a car on it, so lets make it go fast.”
WHAT IS IT LIKE DRIVING ON WHAT IS ESSENTIALLY A TEMPORARY TRACK? “I have driven a lot of temporary tracks in my career. It reminds me a lot of street courses. I think a lot of these walls and fences are from Long Beach. Even the rallycross tracks, a lot of it is similar, even the transition of cleaning up the track and the dust coming off. As a sport it is kind of our first free trial run at doing it. I think for us as an industry, even as drivers and teams, it proves that we can do it on a much larger scale than inside the confines — we basically expanded as wide as we could before we got to the bleachers. I think there are other applications like street course racing that we can be even more creative with the track layout for sure.”
THIS HAS BEEN A TRANSITIONAL OFF-SEASON FOR YOU, WHAT HAS THE WELCOME TO THE 2 TEAM BEEN LIKE? “A lot of transition for me between the car and the race team. Staying with the same team but a completely new group of people. For me, it has been a lot of transition. Not new faces but new personalities and new ways to work around things and a new car that you are not sure of what the process should be in the first place. In some ways it makes it easier and some days I feel like I am learning three things when other guys are learning one. It has been more challenging probably personally than I had anticipated but it has been rewarding at times as well. Even today, our practice was pretty dismal at best. I felt like we went from every extreme of the adjustments we made or the feedback I gave and where we ended up. I do feel like we were able to be very productive in reviewing that and I am excited to see what it holds. I think I have to continually tell myself to be patient. I have certain expectations for myself that I want to hold up, but at the same time being patient with that process and not just blowing through some of the finer details of what is important and building those relationships with the team, Jeremy and the car. Making sure I am paying attention to all the details and not pushing too far ahead.”
WHAT ARE YOU HOPING THESE FANS THAT ARE COMING TO SEE NASCAR FOR THE FIRST TIME TAKE AWAY FROM THE EXPERIENCE? “I think everyone here can attest to the fact that you go to a NASCAR race or any motorsports event and you are able to experience it in person you usually walk away hooked. It isn’t often you get to see people driving cars this hard and racing near each other and the noise, sights and sounds. This is a very compact version of that, a concentrated version, which is why I think it will be very exciting. I think anyone sitting in the stands here tomorrow night will not be able to escape the energy. It will be loud. It wil be fun. It will be a party. Everyone around you is going to be having a good time and that is infectious. I think the more you can have that, the better. That is why I like events like this and why I always loved going to street courses because you brought the party to the people and we are the entertainers. That makes our job more fun and more rewarding to be able to do that. I think it is cool when you can bring it to fun venues and that attracts a following and then that attracts going to events outside of your own ecosystem. It is a great start, a great way to test that theory in a controlled environment for us as a sport.”
WHAT IS YOUR OVERALL IMPRESSION OF THIS CAR VERSUS LAST YEAR’S MODEL? “I think the mechanical components that on paper make this car seem so different are probably actually the things that aren’t so different as far as driving the car. You have the independent rear suspension, differential instead of rear end housing. You have rack and pinion steering and a whole lot of things that on paper are different about this car but doesn’t take away from the character. It is still definitely a NASCAR. We left Phoenix saying it felt like Phoenix. I think the things that are different is how you get the speed out of it and make the right adjustments with those new tools.
