Friday, Aug. 31, 2012
NASCAR Camping World Truck Series
6th Annual Jeff Foxworthy’s Grit Chips 200 – Atlanta Motor Speedway
Post-Race Quotes
Ryan Blaney (No. 29 Cooper Standard RAM) Finished 11th TALK ABOUT YOUR RACE: “All day we were really loose with the Cooper Standard RAM. We never could really get it secure enough to run as hard as we needed. I started off the race really loose but by the end we got the truck decent. Right off the bat on new tires we could get our truck to run hard for about 15 laps and then it would get really loose. Overall, we just never could really get the truck secure to run hard like the other guys could. I couldn’t even move around and try different lines. Every time that I moved up a lane or two I would almost wreck. I learned a lot on this big, fast mile-and-a-half. We’ll go to Iowa in a couple of weeks and see how we do.”
HOW WAS THE TIRE FALL-OFF? DID IT PLAY A FACTOR IN HOW YOUR TRUCK HANDLED? “Yeah, a little bit. It made your five-looseness a nine loose. You’re just leaning on that right-rear tire all the time and it just wears down so fast. As the run would go on it definitely made your problem worse and we just never could fix the problem.”
WITH ONLY THREE CAUTIONS ALL RACE DID THE LONG GREEN FLAG RUNS COMPOUND THE PROBLEM? “Yeah. It was hard to get track position especially when we weren’t good on restarts with new tires. The last restart we were OK, just got put in a bad position. Track position was huge with only three cautions and when I couldn’t push the truck like I needed to there wasn’t really too much that I could do.”
HOW MUCH HAVE YOU LEARNED ABOUT THESE TRUCKS OVER THE LAST TWO RACES? “A lot. They’re fun to drive and you can really slip and slide them around the track. To run Bristol and now a fast mile-and-a-half like Atlanta is great experience. I think we’re making improvements with our Cooper Standard RAM and continue hope to build off of our solid finishes.”
