FORD MUSTANG DARK HORSE AND RYAN PREECE WIN CLASH AT BOWMAN GRAY STADIUM
- Ryan Preece captured his first win at the NASCAR Cup level with tonight’s win in the Clash at Bowman Gray
- Preece is the eighth different Ford driver to win the Clash, joining Bill Elliott, Geoffrey Bodine, Dale Jarrett, Rusty Wallace, Mark Martin, Joey Logano and Brad Keselowski.
- This marks Ford’s 11th victory in the Clash.
- It’s also the first win for co-owner Jack Roush in the Clash since Martin’s triumph in 1999.
RYAN PREECE, No. 60 Kroger/Coca-Cola Ford Mustang Dark Horse – VICTORY LANE INTERVIEW
WHAT ARE YOUR EMOTIONS RIGHT NOW? “Man, they all hit me. I feel bad for Roush Yates Engines right now because that thing is bouncing off the chip pretty hard. I’ve got to thank Ford, Ford Racing and everybody there with all the support they give us. As far as emotions go, when you work as hard as I have, I hate talking about it because I hate getting emotional about it, but it’s not just the Clash – winning means everything to me. I’ve put a lot into it.”
WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO WIN AT THIS PLACE? “I’m a quarter-mile killer. When it comes to this style of racing it’s what I grew up doing. I used to drive for a guy, Eddie Partridge, and he owned Riverhead Raceway, and I was racing for Bill Park and it’s an absolute grind. The moment to get here, it’s a lead up to the year and it’s not a points race, but winning means everything. Man, I’m just speechless.”
DRY TRACK. WET TRACK. DRYING TRACK. WHAT WAS THE KEY TO GET YOU TO THE FRONT AND THEN SURVIVE AT THE END? “Just having lanes go my way. I think the short track side of understanding how to not get bullied, but understand you don’t want to piss somebody off. There’s a balance. I definitely didn’t want a caution. I was kind of pacing myself those last 10 laps because I didn’t want to run them down and put ourselves in that position to have to put myself in a bad position. I usually give a good interview, but this is just amazing.”
FORD FINISHING RESULTS
1st – Ryan Preece
3rd – Ryan Blaney
8th – Chris Buescher
11th – Joey Logano
12th – Josh Berry
21st – Austin Cindric
RYAN BLANEY, No. 12 Menards/Great Lakes Flooring Ford Mustang Dark Horse – YOU WENT FROM THE BACK TO THE FRONT SO MANY TIMES, AND PASSED SO MANY CARS. HOW DO YOU DESCRIBE YOUR NIGHT AS A WHOLE? “A pretty wild day. From the race, we were really, really good in the dry. I thought we were the best car by a mile the first half, driving from 16th to fourth and I was really looking forward to getting the second half going and then it started raining. A wintry mix I guess you could call it, and then the rain tires went on and when we fired off in the rain I went straight backwards. I wasn’t good. My car wasn’t handling good, and then as it started to dry out my car came back. Even on the wet tires, my car came back a little bit and we were able to pick a couple good lanes and creep through there and ended up third. Overall, a back and forth night, but I’m proud of the effort and proud of a really fast car in the dry, and then just sticking with it in the wet. It dried up a little bit for us to be able to go back forward.”
WHAT IS THE BIGGEST CHALLENGE FOR A DRIVER WHEN THINGS CHANGE ON THE TRACK? “It’s odd. Honestly, I was pretty nervous because our car was so good in the dry. When you just throw wets on it you can’t really adjust anything. I’m like, ‘Uh oh, I don’t know if we’re gonna be very good,’ because what my car did really good in the dry is not what you really want in the wet, so I was nervous about that. But, I was just looking forward to it to stop raining and hopefully get somewhat of a dry lane going on and it eventually did. My car came back a little bit. It still handles way different on wet tires, but it’s pretty fun as a driver. When it first got raining it was really top dominant. The bottom was so slippery and you saw a bunch of guys that couldn’t really pass anybody, but once the dry lane started and kind of started working down you could have a little more options, so that makes it fun as a driver. An ever-changing racetrack is neat and trying to look at the track lap to lap like, ‘Alright, did it get a little bit drier higher up or lower?’ That’s what is fun for a driver. We don’t do it that often, so it’s neat when we can do it.”
