Ricky Stenhouse Jr., No. 6 Kellogg’s Pop Tarts Ford Fusion (Finished 19th) – NOT THE WAY YOU WANTED TO START YOUR TITLE DEFENSE I SUPPOSE “Yeah, that’s not the way we wanted to start. I feel bad for Kyle (Busch), I got into Kyle there a little bit it looked like as we were all trying to get to the bottom to miss the melee at the top. I feel bad for those guys. We had a fast Mustang. We put ourselves in position at the right time and I thought we had a good chance at it but that is just one of those days. We are going back to Phoenix next week and we are pumped up to go. We have some good stuff for the 2012 season.”
CAN YOU DESCRIBE THE RACING OUT THERE TODAY? “It was crazy. You could hang for awhile by yourself and it was crazy. It was a lot of fun. You just had to make sure you were in the right place at the right time. I thought we were there and I made a mistake and came down too far and got into Kyle there.”
Trevor Bayne, No. 60 RFR 25th Ford Fusion (Finished 11th) – TELL US ABOUT THE FINISH OF THAT RACE. “Our craziest thing was coming from two laps down. We lost a spark plug wire earlier in the race and they figured it out, got it fixed and we made a big run there at the end. We got hooked up to the 20 car and I thought we had a shot on the top. I thought we would clear the 1 car but unfortunately those guys have been packing air on everybody all day long. Kyle (Busch) and Kurt (Busch) had been working hard at that and they started packing air on us and it slowed us down enough that the 33 could get outside. I haven’t seen it yet but I know it was a really tight squeeze. We still finished 11th, which is a great run for our 60 car. We are trying to make the most out of these first three races and hopefully be leading the points so we can keep racing. We have to get some funding so we can keep doing it. That finish was crazy. I thought for sure Joey and I were going to have a shot to win that thing.”
TALK ABOUT THE RACING OUT THERE. “As long as there was a big pack in front of a single car you could catch up. If there were two cars that got out front it was a little harder to come up through there because those two cars out front could really go. For me, that was one of the craziest races I have ever been in because you have to time it. You have to be hooked up but the question is when to do it and how is it going to look. I really enjoyed staying in the pack because our car was fast after we fixed the plug wire and we could pump through the crowd of cars. You would come off one car and go below and then get the next one. You had to really work the air and I enjoyed that. It was fun.”
YOU WERE TWO LAPS DOWN AND THERE WERE SOME GREAT CALLS THERE TO STAY OUT RIGHT? “Chad Norris did a great job of calling that race. We were going to check the spark plug wires before the green flag dropped when we lost our cylinder but we didn’t have time. We came down later and fixed that, lost our two laps and at the same time cut our rear tire. The guys did a great job fixing my car up, getting under the hood and finding the problem and fixing it. His call to stay out and get the wave around and then later get the lucky dog; he did a great job calling that thing.”
David Ragan, No. 27 Certain Teed/Mercury Ford Fusion (Finished 26th) – “It was a great day for our number 27 Ford. We had a shot to win the race at the end. This is a product of tough, hard racing here at Daytona. We want the best of both worlds. We want to push, we want to pack race and when you do both that is usually when trouble happens. I feel like that if I could have had Trevor on my radio we could have talked some. He was pushing me hard, which I wanted him to because we wanted to win the thing, I just couldn’t drag the brakes hard enough to keep from running over the 12. I wish we had the communication back cause I don’t think that would have happened.”
WE HAVE SEEN TWO STRAIGHT DAYS OF CRAZY WRECKS. WILL WEE SEE THIS TOMORROW? “Not as crazy tomorrow I don’t think because 500 miles will tame it. The Nationwide race was really tame until the last 20 laps and I think you will see that in the 500. I think it will be tame until the final 20 or 30 laps and then all hell is going to break loose.”
