Ford Racing Notes and Quotes
NASCAR Cup Series
Xfinity 500 Qualifying — Martinsville Speedway
Saturday, October 31, 2026
Ford Qualifying Results:
4th – Austin Cindric
5th – Joey Logano
6th – Ryan Preece
10th – Josh Berry
13th – Ryan Blaney
18th – Chris Buescher
22nd – Todd Gilliland
23rd – Brad Keselowski
31st – Noah Gragson
33rd – Zane Smith
36th – Josh Bilicki
AUSTIN CINDRIC, No. 2 Menards/Delta Ford Mustang Dark Horse – “I think this is a track where you definitely need a good qualifying run because of pit selection. It’s a tough one maybe not to manage from midpack, but if you have a bad qualifying effort, especially with how long the first stage is, you’re in big trouble. It’s a critical hurdle for us to get right, especially after kind of a weird practice session for us, so I’m happy to obviously have some pace in the Menards/Delta Ford Mustang.”
HOW BIG OF A HELP HAVE BLANEY AND LOGANO BEEN FOR YOU HERE? “When I re-watched the race from the spring, there was some absurd stat that Logano has had consecutive top 10 finished out the wazoo at Martinsville. Between him and obviously Ryan has been stellar here the last several years, so I think having some good gauges. We’ve been bringing fast race cars and this statistically is probably one of my better tracks as well, so I think it’s been a good fit for us, but having some quality guys to lean on is a great advantage for us, for sure.”
A LOT HAS GONE INTO TRYING TO GET THIS CAR TO RUN LIKE THE PREVIOUS GENERATION. ARE THEY GETTING CLOSER TO HOW THE O’REILLY CARS RUN HERE WITH THE NEXT GEN? “It’s certainly become its own thing. I think the O’Reilly race and the Truck Series race are so much shorter. The amount of rear tire fall off that we have in these cars and how difficult they are to drive after 20-30 laps is way different than the other two lower series. I do feel like this is a track where the tire really drives what happens in the race, but the temperature also does just like any concrete track. I think the combination of those two things, and I feel like this track more than any other track, I know there are two or three at least Goodyear tire tests since I’ve been in the series, and I feel like that’s more than most tracks and I think because we all recognize how much the tire does drive things. It’s been different, but at the same time lane manipulation and different lanes you can run, I feel like it happens super early. We’ve been able to have tires that lay down a boatload of rubber, so I feel like Goodyear has definitely done their part to enhance what happens during the race and the options we have as a driver. As far as what a 500-lap race used to look like, I don’t think my experience from those other series paint the picture well enough to comment further.”
DO WE NEED TO HAVE THE SOFTER BUMPERS HERE? “I’m definitely interested to see how tomorrow goes. I don’t think we’ve done a Martinsville race with the softer bumpers and I think this is the track everyone had in mind as far as what that would look like. I think it’s yet to be seen from that standpoint. From a spotter’s standpoint, I want to know stacks. I want to know what’s happening because although I don’t think it’s gonna be catastrophic what happens to your car, I think you can easily reduce the power by crunching the snorkel and doing those things. If you look at the structure that’s gonna crush first, it’ll definitely hurt your day.”
