Ford Racing Notes and Quotes
NASCAR Cup Series
Bristol Night Race — Bristol Motor Speedway
Saturday, September 13, 2025
Ford Unofficial Finishing Results:
2nd – Brad Keselowski
3rd – Zane Smith
4th – Ryan Blaney
5th – Joey Logano
11th – Chris Buescher
21st – Ryan Preece
23rd – Noah Gragson
24th – Todd Gilliland
29th – Cody Ware
30th – Austin Cindric
33rd – Cole Custer
35th – Chad Finchum
39th – Josh Berry
BRAD KESELOWSKI, No. 6 Castrol/Travel Centers of America Ford Mustang Dark Horse – “Jeremy Bullins, my crew chief, played the strategy really well. We did all the things we needed to do to be in position and was really happy with where we were for the last restart. The 77 didn’t get a good launch and then the 38 missed the corner and cleared him up and the bottom lane took off. It was a 50/50 shot and, like everything else, got the wrong one.”
YOU MADE CONTACT WITH BELL ON THE FINAL LAP. WERE YOU JUST TRYING TO RATTLE THE CAGE? “It’s Bristol, baby.”
ZANE SMITH, No. 38 Long John Silver’s Ford Mustang Dark Horse – “Hat’s off to this whole group at FRM. It’s kind of a home race for our team owner, Bob Jenkins, and it was really cool to have a couple Fords up there battling for it. I could just taste it, but it was crazy there on old tires and a few things just didn’t quite play out.”
WHAT WAS YOUR THOUGHT ON THE FINAL RESTART? “I felt like I did a pretty good job on that restart, but you’re just so loose. I got so loose. I don’t know. You’re picking up marbles there on the back and pulling it up into the 77 and unfortunately that kind of lost our fighting chance.”
AUSTIN CINDRIC, No. 2 Discount Tire Ford Mustang Dark Horse – “I felt like we only got two long runs. Everybody kept wrecking. I liked the long runs because I thought our car was strong. We tried to adjust on it and kind of went back and found a good sweet spot, so our guys brought a really fast car tonight, no matter the conditions, whether if it was yesterday with kind of normal conditions or today with the higher wear and the low temps.”
IT TURNED SO QUICKLY WITH THE FIRE. HOW DID YOU GUYS RECOVER AND KEEP YOUR COOL? “Everyone kept their cool. A credit to all the guys from the top-down transferring information, being prepared, not getting any penalties for going over the wall. I mean, everything that went on there and still being able to come out only losing a handful of laps and be in the position we needed to – whenever we do great things we do it as a team and it’s cool to see.”
JOSH BERRY HAD TO GET OUT OF THE CAR BECAUSE OF THE SMOKE INSIDE. WHAT WAS IT LIKE FOR YOU? “When they told me to leave the pit stall I couldn’t see anything, so I was hoping there wasn’t anyone with fire extinguishers or anything else like that. It was pretty bad, but it’s gonna take me a lot to get out of the car.” HOW CHAOTIC WAS IT? “Which part? I mean, 40 laps into the race tires are shredding themselves apart, all of the restarts, all of the different tire strategies and then catching on fire there was obviously a huge challenge for us to overcome. I’m just proud of the team for being prepared for the scenario and not lose too many laps under green. It takes a team effort. It seems whenever we do great things as a team we do it together, so I’m proud of the effort and happy to have a Sunday at home and ready to reset.”
WHAT WAS IT LIKE ON PIT ROAD? “I definitely felt good about the points we had gotten throughout the day and been able to run well, but you just never know if it’s gonna be over while you’re sitting there on pit road. I think we would have been able to transfer even if we would have stopped then.” YOU HAD A POINT OR TWO POINTS. “Whatever the scenario, I’m just proud of everyone being able to respond that well. It made all the difference in the world.”
DO YOU FEEL GOOD ABOUT THE NEXT ROUND? “I feel like our team can do a lot of great things and there’s no reason why we can’t reset and give ‘em hell.”
RYAN BLANEY, No. 12 Menards/Sylvania Ford Mustang Dark Horse – YOU HAD TO WORK AT IT TONIGHT. “Everyone did. It was another one of those things where we thought we knew what the tire was gonna do and it did something completely different. I guess that’s happened multiple times and that makes for an exciting race and trying to figure it out on the fly and what to expect what to do and how to strategize and all that stuff. It was a wild night. I wish we wouldn’t have run so many laps under caution. The middle part of that race, two thirds of that race was kind of getting pretty boring, but we were really fast all night. It’s nice to win a stage and good to come home fourth. Overall, I’m really, really proud of the night and the effort. We’ll go on to Loudon next week. I’m looking forward to it.”
THOUGHTS ON THE TIRES. “The tires were interesting. No one expected that. I guess that’s what they want. It practices one way and then it races a completely different way, so we just tried to manage tires and ran a bunch of laps under caution and I thought we were pretty good all night and glad to get a good finish.”
JOEY LOGANO, No. 22 Shell/Pennzoil Ford Mustang Dark Horse – “On that long run towards the end we were able to drive up to the lead and those cars in front of us, they were tanking before me. They were getting to the cords before me and so I felt like we had a good shot because they all pitted as soon as they got the cords, and I felt like that was gonna give me a good chance to maybe win the race if it stayed green there because the 6 was falling off hard. He was seven or eight tenths off the last two laps. The 12 was starting to tank as well, so I was feeling like I was gonna get them back and then the caution came out and we were out of tires. We had to put old tires back on it, so, overall, a top five and two top fives in a row, which at this point of the season we need to be doing that kind of stuff. I’m proud of the team and proud of the execution. I felt like the win was right there in front of us, but just couldn’t quite grab it.”
IT TOOK SOME TIME TO GET ACCLIMATED TO THE TRACK AND TIRES. HOW CRAZY WAS IT? “We just fired off really, really bad. It wasn’t really getting acclimated to anything. I felt like even that long run to start, after we got the first green flag cycle, I was like, ‘Alright, we’re pretty good.’ We were just trapped a lap down, so once we got it back we just needed longer runs. There was short run after short run. I can’t believe as much as everyone wants to save tires how much they’re all wrecking each other. It’s kind of crazy.”
JOSH BERRY, No. 21 Motorcraft/Quick Lane Ford Mustang Dark Horse – “Maybe seven or eight laps before we came down pit road we started getting some smoke in the cockpit, and then the longer I went the darker the smoke got and then, obviously, by the time we got on pit road it was completely black smoke. Something obviously caught on fire, so probably once again a car burned up for no reason.”
COULD YOU FEEL THE FLAMES? “I don’t think the fire made it inside the cockpit. It was just a lot of smoke. It seemed like the fire stayed in the fender well, which is a good thing, but it’s just disappointing again. The car was really good. That was gonna fall right into our wheelhouse, I feel like, to have a really good night. We were able to make it pretty long on that first set and we were gonna be set up in a really good spot. This one is gonna be hard to watch because that looks like it’s gonna be a lot of fun.”
DO YOU FEEL YOUR PLAYOFFS ENDED BEFORE THEY BEGAN? “Yeah, pretty much, but it really hasn’t been because of performance. We’ve qualified well. We’ve had good cars. We just haven’t had the good finishes. That’s just part of it. I don’t think you could ever script three last-place finishes in the ways that we’ve gotten them over the last few weeks.”
COULD IT BE TIRE RUBBER CAUGHT UP IN THERE? “Yeah, I’m sure it’s tire rubber or cords or something that got wrapped around the rotor or brakes. Something caught on fire.” WERE YOU TRYING TO STAY IN AS LONG AS POSSIBLE? “Yeah, I think given our situation and how the race was playing out and how good we were, we were trying to ride it out. They mentioned trying to put the fire out on pit road and maybe keep going, but when I slowed down it got way worse and I was just trying to make it to the pit box so the guys could help me get out because I couldn’t see a thing.”
DID THE TIRE WEAR SURPRISE YOU? “It definitely caught me off guard. I was fully convinced it was gonna be hammer down, but I could tell probably 15 or 20 laps into the race we were running like 16-teens and you could see some people start coming back to you and you could tell. The pace during practice was 15.70s, 15.80s and it was hammer down the whole time, and when we’re in the 16s that quick, you could tell that’s going on. You could see the marbles start developing and, man, it’s crazy. It just has to do with the weather, I guess. It’s excessive, but I think it’s gonna be a hell of a race to watch, for sure.”
WERE YOU IN DANGER AT ALL WITH THE FIRE GOING? “It wasn’t hot. The flames didn’t make it inside. It wasn’t hot, it just got super smokey really fast would be the biggest thing. They checked me out in the care center and they said all of my levels look alright. We probably should have come a lap or two earlier and just ended it, but we were trying to fight to the very end.”
CAN YOU TALK ABOUT HOW DISAPPOINTING THIS IS FOR YOU? IT’S CRAZY TO HAVE ALL OF THIS HAPPEN. “It’s hard to put into words, but I’d be way more disappointed if we just ran like crap for three weeks. We’ve been up front. We’ve qualified well. We had the issue at Darlington, bottoming out. Last week, we get clipped by the 9 and then tonight the car catches on fire. It’s nothing that we’re doing on our own. The cars have been fast and the performance has been good. If we just had a little bit of luck, I feel like we could be in a much better situation and, honestly, I think the way that was playing out we would have 100 percent had a chance to win tonight.”
HOW WOULD YOU LIKE TO END THIS SEASON NOW? Better than three last-place finishes. Len was saying before the race that he never thought they’d had two in a row and now we’ve got three in a row.”
