Ford Racing Notes and Quotes
NASCAR Cup Series
Goodyear 400 — Darlington Raceway
Sunday, March 22, 2026
Ford Finishing Results:
2nd – Brad Keselowski
3rd – Ryan Blaney
5th – Austin Cindric
9th – Chris Buescher
13th – Ryan Preece
17th – Josh Berry
22nd – Zane Smith
23rd – Todd Gilliland
26th – Noah Gragson
33rd – Joey Logano
37th – Timmy Hill
BRAD KESELOWSKI, No. 6 Solomon Plumbing Ford Mustang Dark Horse – WHAT DID YOU NEED AT THE END? “A lot. Tyler was really, really fast. Those problems earlier in the race that he got kind of buried and he was just methodical. He did a great job. He took the fastest car and ran an amazing race. When he was by me he was way faster. We had to fall into racing the track and even at the end I think he was managing it pretty hard, so, all in all, it’s a great day for us. We won two stages, led a lot of laps, scored a bunch of points, so a lot to be proud of.” WHAT KIND OF ENERGY DOES THIS INJECT INTO THE TEAM? “It’s great. I was joking when we walked out of the garage area last night after qualifying that we’re on the right side of the garage area. Our hauler is parked to the right side and we’re just showing ourselves as a team that is highly capable.” HOW IS YOUR LEG? “I feel my best in the car. You get a little adrenaline pumping and that position is not so bad on my leg. It sucks standing up. It sucks getting out of the car, but in the car I feel great.” HOW MUCH FUN DID YOU HAVE WITH THIS PACKAGE? “It was a lot of fun. The cars were fair to drive. You really had to be careful. You couldn’t be a foot offline and I thought our team did a good job with that today.”
RYAN BLANEY, No. 12 Menards/Delta Ford Mustang Dark Horse – YOU OVERCAME SOME PIT ROAD ISSUES, BUT HOW CHALLENGING IS THAT? “Really challenging. Having that deal after the first stage and then honestly didn’t really have good stops the rest of the day, so that’s something we’ve got to work on, but we had a fast enough car to get back to third. I’m proud of that effort. We’ll take it and move on, but definitely stuff to work on.” WHAT DO YOU MAKE OF YOUR DAY? “I’m proud of the fight back to run third. I thought our car was pretty good, we just got set back too many times and it was hard to make it back up. I’m proud of our effort. We made gains on it all day, so that’s good. I was third and Austin was fifth, so a good showing for the Penske cars and I’m proud of that comeback.” PIT ROAD? “It’s something we’ve got to work on.” WHAT ABOUT THE PACKAGE? “It’s a handful. You can crap the bed quickly if you were kind of rough on your stuff, which was good, so that part was good. There was tons of fall off. I think you saw guys kind of get too much early and then they were done. Very rarely in my Cup career have I just let guys go, whether it’s on restarts or green flag runs and say to myself, ‘I’m gonna see you in about 20,’ and that was kind of the way it went today, so I think it was good. I’m looking forward to running it at more places that are a little bit bigger.”
AUSTIN CINDRIC, No. 2 Freightliner Ford Mustang Dark Horse – HOW DID THIS PACKAGE RACE FOR YOU? “It was a difficult weekend for the teams to kind of decide what to bring and the right things to do. My group proves time and time again that they come prepared, whether it’s changes or practice to race, things like that, so we really had a solid package to work with all day, something that we could adjust with and change with the conditions. We were overdue for this group to have a good run and I’m proud to be able to deliver it and get us to the finish line for the first time, it feels like all year without an issue, so I’m proud of the team and something to build on.” HOW MUCH WAS THIS A LEARNING WEEK FOR YOU GUYS? “It definitely is. I mean, you can’t replace on-track data and on-track feedback. We only have so many tools to help make decisions throughout the week, whether that’s the driving inputs that I make or just what the setup of the race car is when it leaves the shop on a Wednesday. Like I said, I’m just proud of the team. Total execution, no mistakes all day and it comes with a good results.”
CHRIS BUESCHER, No. 17 Fifth Third Bank Ford Mustang Dark Horse – “It was a fun day. That was fantastic to come down here with this Fifth Third Bank Ford Mustang Dark Horse and run that well from practice, qualifying, race, to make improvements. The pit crew was awesome yet again. To be leading laps there late. Obviously, it was a racing deal. That’s straight up all it is. We got caught by the guys that did come and take tires and made an aggressive move to try to get to pit road real fast and kind of jump it and it was a little bit of an aggressive move and it didn’t work out. We’re trying to win races here. That’s what we were after and just came up a little bit short today.” DID YOU THINK ABOUT A COUPLE OF YEARS AGO WITH THE SAME CAR? DID YOU FLASHBACK? “It’s ironic, but this was a racing deal. I don’t hold any fault for this one. That’s just part of it. We were being aggressive and trying to take our opportunity and roll down. I don’t know exactly what happened, but I can take a pretty good stab at it. They were coming on tires. The 6 had just gotten by us and he probably was gonna go to the bottom and dive through there and pull a slider. That was probably what was on his mind and we kind of turned down last second to take that and it’s hard to check up that fast. I’m assuming that’s what happened. It was nothing intentionally and I know that from where I’m at without ever having to talk to him. We’re all good. It’s just racing, trying to jump those guys and just missed it a little bit.”
