Ford Performance Notes and Quotes
NASCAR Cup Series
Coke Zero Sugar 400 | Daytona International Speedway
Saturday, August 24, 2024
HARRISON BURTON GIVES WOOD BROTHERS 100TH VICTORY AND CLINCHES PLAYOFF BERTH
- Harrison Burton’s win today gives Wood Brothers Racing its 100th NASCAR Cup Series victory.
- This also marks Burton’s first career Cup victory.
- Burton is the 89th different driver to win a Cup race with Ford, and the first new winner since Chase Briscoe won at Phoenix 1 (2022).
- Today’s win is Ford’s 734th all-time in NASCAR Cup Series competition.
DRIVERS WHO HAVE WON NCS POINTS RACES WITH THE WOOD BROTHERS
19 different drivers have won points races for the Wood Brothers. Harrison Burton is the latest in a long line of success for the 21 team, led of course by David Pearson’s 43 career wins with the organization.
Full List of Wood Brothers Winning Drivers: David Pearson (43); Cale Yarborough (13); Neil Bonnett (9); Marvin Panch (8); A.J. Foyt (5); Glen Wood (4); Dan Gurney (4); Speedy Thompson (2); Kyle Petty (2); Tiny Lund (1); Curtis Turner (1); Donnie Allison (1); Buddy Baker (1); Dale Jarrett (1); Morgan Shepherd (1); Elliott Sadler (1); Trevor Bayne (1); Ryan Blaney (1); Harrison Burton (1).
VICTORY LANE INTERVIEW:
HARRISON BURTON, No. 21 DEX Imaging Ford Mustang Dark Horse – “I don’t know. I cried for the whole cool down lap. It’s just been the hardest three years of my life. There’s no denying. It’s just been rough and these guys have rallied behind me when it matters the most. Going to every single race with the same mentality of trying to win because we could get number 100. We kept saying that in our meetings that we had a chance to get No. 100 for the Wood Brothers and that’s something that you can’t take lightly. We as a group have that place in history now forever for the 100th win for the Wood Brothers and, to me, that just means the world.”
YOU ARE LOOKING FOR A JOB. WHAT DOES THIS MEAN TO YOU? “I wish it came sooner so I didn’t get fired (laughing), but it’s amazing. Like I said, I just felt worried that I would leave the Wood Brothers with a lot of regret that I had three years to get their 100th win. To get Ford in Victory Lane, to get them in Victory Lane and not have to leave this situation with regret. To me, that means the world and now we have a chance to be in the playoffs, so we’re not gonna roll over and die. We’ve had a rough year, but this is the shot in the arm we’ve needed and we’re gonna go to Darlington set on kill.”
HOW SPECIAL IS THIS? “This place is just amazing. I don’t think I’ve finished a race at Daytona in my whole Cup career. I’ve always been up front and never made it to the end. My dad is filming now. He’s like a TV guy still. Gosh, I don’t know. I just can’t put into words how much this means.”
Ford Performance Unofficial Results:
1st – Harrison Burton
4th – Cody Ware
8th – Brad Keselowski
10th – Chris Buescher
14th – Chase Briscoe
18th – Austin Cindric
23rd – Todd Gilliland
26th – Josh Berry
29th– Ryan Blaney
30th – Michael McDowell
31st – Joey Logano
32nd — Justin Haley
37th – Noah Gragson
39th – Ryan Preece
AUSTIN CINDRIC, No. 2 Menards/Tarkett Ford Mustang Dark Horse – “Obviously, we had a really fast Ford Mustang Dark Horse. The Menards/Tarkett Ford was good enough to win tonight. We were in position there to win and I just got turned and that’s how it goes sometimes here. I’m really happy for Harrison and everybody at the Wood Brothers. They’ve been waiting a long time for win No. 100. I love those guys. I love Harrison. He’s a great dude and deserves this spot in the limelight. It’s awesome.”
WHAT HAPPENED WHEN YOU GOT INTO MCDOWELL. THE RUN WAS TOO BIG? “I don’t know fully who was pushing who with the wreck with McDowell, but I was trying to back out of the gas and not run over the 34. I’m not sure he knew what lane he wanted to be in, but between that and how we got turned from the lead it’s just how it goes. You’ve got guys trying to win the race and that’s the nature of the beast.”
JOSH BERRY, No. 4 eero Ford Mustang Dark Horse – “I just looked like the 2 got pushed into me and, unfortunately, we’re seeing a lot of these blow overs lately, but I mentioned on the TV broadcast – obviously paving that section helped keep me from really barrel rolling. As bad as it looked, they made a big improvement over what Ryan had last year. I just can’t believe we flipped two of our Stewart-Haas cars in a row like that, but it was just a great job by Rodney and this whole 4 team. We were in contention all night and had a hell of a race car and had a shot at it.”
RYAN BLANEY, No. 12 Advance Auto Parts Ford Mustang Dark Horse – “I saw the logo on his rear bumper get really big really fast and it knocked the radiator out of it. I don’t know what happened in front of him and who got turned or what and what made us check up.”
WERE THE CARS SKETCHY ANY MORE THAN NORMAL? “It’s the last few laps, I think. Everyone pushing hard.”
INTENSITY CAME AND WENT. DID IT FEEL ANY DIFFERENT TONIGHT COMPARED TO OTHER SUMMER DAYTONA RACES? “Not really. I don’t really know what caused that wreck in Stage 2. We were all just saving gas. I don’t know how we all wrecked saving gas. Maybe some guys weren’t, but I feel like it’s pretty normal. I was really hoping to make it to the end of this. I haven’t finished a Daytona race in like two years, so I was looking forward to it. I thought Joey and I were in a decent spot to go forward, but it’s just chaotic like normal.”
THE FORDS WERE STRONG ALL WEEK. WHAT CAN YOU TAKE FROM THAT? “It’s good. I think that’s positive to have. Hopefully, we can carry that to Atlanta. Obviously, we were pretty good there in the spring, but it doesn’t matter when you’re sitting on a flat bed.”
JOEY LOGANO, No. 22 Shell/Pennzoil Ford Mustang Dark Horse – “It’s speedway racing. It’s a lot of fun until it’s not. We did a good job keeping our car in position all night, up in the top five the whole race. We got a stage win, which is great. McDowell just got turned and came down in front me with nowhere to go. I think he’s OK as well. Some pretty big hits there, and then horrible to see Josh Berry there a second ago upside-down into the wall. We’ve got to figure out how to keep the cars on the ground. We’re not doing enough to fix that.”
MICHAEL MCDOWELL, No. 34 Long John Silver’s Ford Mustang Dark Horse – “I’m fine. I don’t know what it looked like. I closed my eyes. Anytime you get turned in front of the field while leading it, you know somebody is gonna hit you. There’s no way you’re getting out of it. I’m just bummed. We had a really fast Long John Silver Ford Mustang. I’m really proud of everybody at Front Row. We had a ton of speed with both cars this weekend and with a few laps to go we put ourselves in position to win the race and that’s what we wanted to do. Unfortunately, we didn’t get to the end and that’s part of this racing. I haven’t watched it in detail to know exactly what happened, so I don’t want to throw any opinions out there because Lord knows that I’ve made plenty of mistakes at superspeedways and I want to make sure it wasn’t me. But I felt like I got turned getting down into turn one. The wrong angle at the wrong time, but Austin was doing a great job of pushing me. We had a good run and you’re at the end of these races, so I’m not faulting him. We were trying to do what we could.”
YOU WERE EXPECTING A PUSH. “We’re all pushing hard. Typically, you don’t push going into the corner as far as entry goes. You kind of pick somebody up, push them, and then you kind of release as you get off into it, but he was just a little bit off center and I think that’s what did it more than anything.”
DID YOU FEEL THE CAR GOING OVER? “It was going over. I had my eyes closed, but whoever hit me it felt like it set me back down because I had that moment where it got real light and it got real quiet and then I got hit and then I was back on the ground. I haven’t seen the replay, but I’m just glad Josh Berry is OK. That one looked definitely worse than mine. It’s the end of a Daytona race and these things happen. Everybody is pushing hard and we had guys up there that had to win, so you know everybody is gonna go for it.”
TODD GILLILAND, No. 38 Grillo’s Pickles Ford Mustang Dark Horse – “We had a really fast car. I thought we could go about anywhere and we had a lot of speed. It’s disappointing when you feel like you kind of waste one, but it is Daytona. We missed the first wreck, but weren’t so lucky on the last one. That’s racing for you and our car is really fast.”
JUSTIN HALEY, No. 51 Beef a Roo Ford Mustang Dark Horse – “You know it’s gonna happen, but you just have to keep going. That’s just part of it. It’s unfortunate. We’ll keep digging and go the next one. The last few laps is just speedway racing. It was a good run for us. I appreciate everyone at RWR for their hard work. We had a good car and led some laps and we go to one of our better tracks next week. We got lucky to flip one of the stages there and were able to get up front, so we had a good run.”
RYAN PREECE, No. 41 TRUEWERK Ford Mustang Dark Horse – “I don’t know what happened. We were all kind of riding. We were all saving fuel, so I’m kind of shocked it happened, but I checked up. I got hit from behind and, I don’t know, the car didn’t even look that damaged. It was just we couldn’t change the toe link. We ran out of time and that was it, so kind of a tough deal.”
IT SEEMED LIKE IF IT WAS GOING TO HAPPEN IT WOULD HAVE BEEN IN THE FIRST STAGE. “There was a wreck right there, but honestly, we were all getting really aggressive. I thought it was gonna happen in the first five or six laps, so I was planning on racing really hard and being aggressive but then it crossed my mind that this stage is not worth not potentially trying to win and change your whole season. They didn’t wreck and then when you wouldn’t have thought they would wreck with fuel saving, we all did. I don’t know. It’s a tough deal.”
NOAH GRAGSON, No. 10 Rush Truck Centers Ford Mustang Dark Horse – “I’m good. I haven’t seen what happened yet, but we kind of struggled at the beginning of the race with the front balance and then we made adjustments out of the first pit stop and felt like we had it decent. We had the bottom lane rolling and were up to maybe the top 10 or the top 15 on the bottom line. I got up to the middle and I was behind the 1. He looked real darty, real squirrely so I was trying to bail out of there and get out. I haven’t seen what happened yet, but I was trying to get out of that line. I don’t know if I got ran over or what the case was, but once I see it I’ll see more. If it was my fault, I want to apologize to the other guys, but I don’t really know yet. It’s just a bummer.”
IT LOOKED LIKE LAJOIE GOT IN THE BACK OF YOU. “I was trying to get away from the 1 in the middle line. I was pushing him and I pushed him a couple times and he just couldn’t take a push. He was super squirrely and I didn’t feel comfortable pushing him just because he was out of shape by himself. I was trying to get out of that middle line. I haven’t seen what happened yet, but I don’t know if the 7 got into me or what. I can’t comment on it yet, but I’m just disappointed.”
