Ford Racing Notes and Quotes
NASCAR Cup Series
Hollywood Casino 400 Qualifying — Kansas Speedway
Saturday, September 27, 2025
Ford Qualifying Results:
13th – Josh Berry
14th – Noah Gragson
15th – Chris Buescher
19th – Ryan Preece
23rd – Todd Gilliland
26th – Austin Cindric
27th – Cole Custer
28th – Zane Smith
31st – Brad Keselowski
34th – Cody Ware
35th – Joey Logano
37th – Ryan Blaney
AUSTIN CINDRIC, No. 2 Discount Tire Ford Mustang Dark Horse – IT’S NOT BEEN THE EASIEST DAY FOR YOU GUYS. WHAT HAPPENED WITH HITTING THE WALL IN QUALIFYING? “I think we’ll probably have to do some damage repair on that for tomorrow, so definitely not ideal from a starting position standpoint, or at least starting on track. I don’t know how the lap looked. It felt like it was a pretty good lap going, so it’s a shame. I can’t say I was really expecting it to step out like that, but that’s how it goes. It’s been a pretty challenging day for the team and a pretty important race tomorrow.” HOW DID WHAT YOUR TEAMMATES GO THROUGH CHANGE FOR YOU PREPARING FOR QUALIFYING AND THE RACE? “I don’t think we know why we failed a tire four laps into practice. I would say normally it would take longer than that to have a failure, but, either way, I think even having cautions throughout your session definitely gets you a tough read on balance and so on, but there’s a lot to go over tonight to make the right decisions going into tomorrow if it is air-pressure or setup items or things we can control.”
NOTE: Ryan Blaney blew a tire in practice and will be forced to a backup Mustang for tomorrow’s race.
RYAN BLANEY, No. 12 Menards/Richmond Ford Mustang Dark Horse – WHAT HAPPENED IN PRACTICE? “We blew a tire, so we’ll have to look at it and see why that was. I hate that we crashed a race car and stuff like that, but we’ll take a peek at what we need to do differently and hopefully come from the back tomorrow. I’m looking forward to getting the race going tomorrow.” SOMETIMES YOU START PRACTICE ON LOW PRESSURE. DID THAT SEEM UNUSUAL AT ALL FROM THE START? “Not really. I wouldn’t say I really had any feel of something kind of off until right before it went, honestly. It kind of had that normal feeling to it until it blew. That’s kind of the hard thing about when you blow tires like that. They don’t feel way off and then they just kind of give out the next moment, so I didn’t have any kind of caution beforehand. It’s just unfortunate. I hate that we’ve got to get a backup out and do all that deal, but we’ll fight through it. Like I said, I’m just looking to getting out there tomorrow and see what we’ve got.”
BLANEY MEDIA AVAILABILITY SESSION:
WHAT’S THE MINDSET AFTER WINNING LAST WEEK FOR THESE NEXT TWO RACES? “I said last week after New Hampshire that it doesn’t change our outlook the next two weeks that we won at New Hampshire. I’m a big believer in keeping your head down and keeping the momentum that you have. You don’t want to go kick your feet up for two weeks just because you’re in the next round. You have to stay in that competitive mode and your mentality of racing and go run hard every single week. I think the only thing that changes is maybe you can look at Vegas a little bit earlier than what you would and that’s really the only difference in this team’s mentality with the spot we’re in.”
IT’S BEEN A WHILE SINCE YOU GUYS HAVE RACES ON A TRADITIONAL 1.5-MILE TRACK. WHAT ARE YOU LOOKING FOR? “It’s our first mile-and-a-half since Charlotte in May, our first natural mile-and-a-half, so we’ll get to see where we’re at from Charlotte and then Vegas is only two weeks away, so this is the closest chance you’re gonna get to see what we’ve learned from Charlotte and did it apply and how can we be better, or do you have to go to the drawing board for the next couple weeks to really get ready for Vegas. There are a lot of things you can learn from this weekend. This weekend I wouldn’t say is a science project for us by any means. We’re taking what we think is the best that we’ve learned from Charlotte and seeing if it’s there. If we’ve got to go to work on it for Vegas, then we will. If not, then we have a good direction, but it’s definitely a good base of where you’re at for Vegas in a couple weeks.”
A NEW RIGHT SIDE TIRE FOR GOODYEAR. DO YOU WANT TO SEE A LOT OF WEAR? “Yeah, I think that’s always the goal is the fall off and things like that, laying rubber down on the track. I think it being hot this weekend is gonna help that a lot to where it starts getting slick in the dominant top lane and you have to move down. I feel like it’s started to creep that way the last couple of races here and hopefully that takes another step. We’ll see. I’ll give Goodyear credit, they’ve been doing a really good job of trying to figure out how we can manufacturer these softer tires. Here it’s tough because you’re running so fast that you can’t just bring a gumball because it’s gonna fail, so where is that balance? They’ve been creeping in on it.”
NOTE: Joey Logano had a tire go down during practice, but he was still able to post a qualifying lap.
JOEY LOGANO, No. 22 Shell/Pennzoil Ford Mustang Dark Horse – POST-PRACTICE QUOTE: WHAT DID YOU FEEL IN PRACTICE? “I just felt it starting to feel funky through three and four. It just didn’t feel right, so I took it a little safe than sorry and lifted off in the corner, which is when it really came apart. I’m glad I caught it there. I got a little lucky, but, overall, it should be OK with the Shell/Pennzoil Mustang. We’ll put four tires on it, make some adjustments, cross our fingers and hope she runs good.”
LOGANO MEDIA AVAILABILITY SESSION:
“At this point we have to just keep maximizing the day. We did great in Loudon. That was good. We’ll try to score somewhere around 35-40 points minimum, which probably puts you in a pretty good spot no matter what happens for the Roval, so I think at a minimum you do that. If you can win, it’s even better. We’ll just go out there and maximize the day no matter what we’ve got.”
IS THERE A NUMBER ABOVE THE CUT LINE YOU WOULD LIKE TO LEAVE WITH? “It’s hard to be very specific because there are a lot of what if’s. If somebody behind the cut line wins, it gets you and obviously that buffer shrinks a lot really quick. It’s different being 30 over the cut and sixth, or 30 over the cut and being fourth. That’s a big difference, so we’ll do the best we can and the points will take care of themselves. We’ll go out there and do the best we can to score as many points as possible.”
IS THERE ANYTHING SINCE CHARLOTTE THAT RELATES TO THIS TRACK? “Maybe some, but not a lot. Darlington-ish, but not really at all. There hasn’t been many since then, so I think everyone is curious to see where they stack up this time of year on a mile-and-a-half. I feel like we’re gonna be decent. We ran top 10 here the last time, so I think we’re gonna be in the ballpark, but it’s been since May to really see where you stack up and a lot of things have changed since then for all the teams, so we’ll see.”
IN TWO WEEKS YOU’LL HAVE THE SAME TIRE AS HERE, SO HOW CRUCIAL IS THIS WEEKEND? “It’ll be pretty similar, so what you’ve got here will probably, you’ll have enough time to really make some big differences. The only thing that’s really different there is that you’re going to a track that’s got some bumps. The tire fall off is pretty comparable here and there, but the bumps are probably the biggest thing that’s different when you go to Vegas.”
CHRIS BUESCHER, No. 17 Body Guard Ford Mustang Dark Horse – “I was pretty happy over there in one and two. I was not happy in three and four. Obviously, practice was pretty good. I’m pretty happy with our Fastenal Body Guard Ford Mustang. I think our long run pace stayed with it, and I think we made some good improvements from the last time here. There are a lot of things that are positive, but I wish that would have gone a little bit better for qualifying.”
JOSH BERRY, No. 21 Menards/Dutch Boy Ford Mustang Dark Horse – “I thought it was OK. It’s probably not the best lap I made because we were a little bit too free, but that should be a decent starting spot for tomorrow. I felt like we had a really good car in the spring, so hopefully we can build off of that.”
