Ford Racing NNS Notes & Quotes:
F.W. Webb 200 (New Hampshire Motor Speedway)
Saturday, July 14, 2012
Ford Finishing Order:
5th — Ricky Stenhouse Jr.
11th — Michael Annett
21st — Timmy Hill
24th — Josh Richards
25th — Matt Frahm
33rd — Kevin Lepage
34th — Scott Riggs
RICKY STENHOUSE JR. – No. 6 Cargill Beef Ford Mustang – “It was a good points day, but we wanted to win that $100,000. We got our Cargill Beef Mustang back in the top five, which is important for us. We’ve got to keep that going for us throughout the rest of the year, but that was a tough race.”
YOU WERE CLOSE TO AUSTIN AT THE END, BUT JUST COULDN’T GET TO HIM. “He was fast. We weren’t faster than he was, and I was trying to get up there to try and get him to make a mistake, but it didn’t quite work out.”
MIKE KELLEY, Crew Chief – No. 6 Cargill Beef Ford Mustang – WHAT HAPPENED TO RICKY AFTER THE RACE? “Ricky has been sick most of the week just fighting the flu bug and at the end of the race I think the heat and the exhaustion caught up with him. He needed to sit himself down and get cooled off. They’ve got him in the infield care center now getting some fluids in him. He’s fine. He’s awake and alert and I think he’s just getting himself cooled off and getting some fluids in him. He’ll be fine.”
DOES HE KNOW WHAT HAPPENED? DOES HE REMEMBER THE LAST FEW LAPS OF THE RACE? “Oh yeah, he remembers. He remembers we didn’t win the $100,000 and we didn’t get the finish we wanted. I know he’s alert, but he remembers pretty much everything out there. We talked about it a little bit and I think he’s gonna be fine.”
MICHAEL ANNETT – No. 43 Pilot/Flying J Ford Mustang – “That was a hard earned 11th-place finish. We fought a tight race car all day, and there at the end it was like riding a bucking bronco as bumpy as it was getting into the corners. My Pilot/Flying J team never gave up and fought hard all day to make changes, but we never quite got a handle on it. We wanted to win that $100,000 Dash 4 Cash award , but today just wasn’t our day. We’ll head into Chicago next weekend and do our best to qualify again, so we can be racing for $100,000 in Indy.”
The following interview was done with Ricky Stenhouse Jr. after he was released from the infield care center at New Hampshire Motor Speedway.
RICKY STENHOUSE JR. – No. 6 Cargill Beef Ford Mustang – “I feel OK now. They gave me some fluids and got good to go. I think just being a little sick all week, not eating much and not drinking enough fluids caught up with me after the race. I think we’ll be good to go now.”
DID YOU FEEL IT AT ALL IN THE CAR? “I’ve felt it all week being really tired, not eating and not drinking any fluids so that part of it I definitely felt it in the race car, but I don’t think it slowed us down any. When I’m in there, I’m driving as hard as I can every lap. I got sick after the race in Daytona on Friday night and kind of let it go throughout the weekend and was hoping it would get better, but it never did. It’s probably my fault that we ended up like this.”
WHAT WILL YOU HAVE TO DO TO BE READY FOR NEXT WEEK? “The good thing is it’s a Sunday race, so I’ve got all week to get the fluids in me and get better. Hopefully, within the next couple days I’ll feel a little bit better and eat a little bit more. I normally drink plenty of fluids and never have the issue of getting light-headed after the race or anything like that. My throat hurt throughout the whole week. I didn’t really want to drink or eat anything and it caught up with me. Yesterday and today I drank plenty of fluids, but you’ve got to do it before, so I think we should be OK for Chicago.”
