Ford Racing NSCS Notes & Quotes:
Food City 250 (Bristol Motor Speedway)
Friday, August 24, 2012
Ford Finishing Order:
2nd – Ricky Stenhouse Jr.
8th – Michael Annett
16th – Trevor Bayne
19th – Josh Richards
20th – Kevin Lepage
28th – Fain Skinner
41st – Tim Andrews
RICKY STENHOUSE JR. – No. 6 NOS Energy Drink Ford Mustang – POST-RACE PRESS CONFERENCE – “We qualified fifth and got to the top and felt like we were rolling pretty good there at the beginning of the race. We decided to stay out at the competition caution, which worked out for us. We were able to lead some laps and see what our car was doing in the lead. We tried to free it up there on the pit stop we made and made it a little too tight there on that last run for us to put the NOS Energy Drink Mustang in Victory Lane. But you definitely wanted to be on the outside on those restarts, and then we got into the 2 there coming off turn four. I definitely didn’t expect to do that. He definitely had a better race car than we did and I didn’t expect to get that run on him that we did, but luckily he was able to save it. I definitely don’t want to crash anybody and ended up second, but I was really hoping the last 20 laps or so were gonna go green. I felt like we were running down the 18 and might have had a shot at a win, but that caution came out and we ended up second.”
MICHAEL ANNETT – No. 43 Pilot/Flying J Ford Mustang – “It was a long one, obviously. We still need to qualify better so we don’t have to work so hard to move forward, but we had a good strategy and took two tires there and then took four the next time. We stayed out for about 150 laps, but started out too tight. Phillipe made some good adjustments and I think there were times when we were the fastest car on the track. We just really needed the top. That was huge for us. I think that was how everybody was because whoever could get to the top first definitely had the advantage. I knew coming down to the last restart we were at a little bit of a disadvantage. We restarted seventh and came out eighth, so we’ll take that and take a top 10 after last weekend.”
HOW WAS THE TRACK? “I actually thought I had more grip up high than I had in the past, but I also could have just had a better race car. It was pretty much the same and it was fun. I like this kind of racing. I think the fans got a little bit more of what they were looking for with guys moving each other out of the way and more cautions for people getting spun, so maybe it’s a happy medium right now.”
TREVOR BAYNE – No. 60 “We Back Pat” Ford Mustang – “I thought we were OK. We were starting on the outside, so we had decent position for the restart. I thought we were gonna at least get a top-five, which we were in position for, and then the 3 car just drove over his head and took us out. That’s all there is to it.”
YOU STARTED UP FRONT AND THEN STAYED AROUND 7TH-10TH THE REST OF THE NIGHT. “It’s hard to pass here and we kept getting pinned on the bottom every time for restarts and never got to go to the top to try and get by them. It’s hard to make up positions unless you’re on the top for the restart, but we were on the bottom every time so we just got pinned back there.”
