Ford Racing NSCS Notes & Quotes:
AAA 400 Qualifying (Dover International Speedway)
Saturday, September 29, 2012
Ford Qualifying Results:
6th – Greg Biffle
12th – Matt Kenseth
15th – Carl Edwards
17th – Ricky Stenhouse Jr.
21st – Aric Almirola
23rd – Josh Wise
27th – Marcos Ambrose
30th – Casey Mears
31st – David Ragan
32nd – Michael McDowell
34th – Scott Speed
45th – T.J. Bell
47th – David Gilliland
48th – Kelly Bires
MATT KENSETH – No. 17 Ford EcoBoost Ford Fusion – “We struggled a lot yesterday, so it was a good lap. I have no idea where it will stack up, but it was a decent lap to how we have been running. We were so far off yesterday that we never worked on qualifying at all, so that was our first lap in qualifying trim.”
DAVID RAGAN – No. 34 Long John Silver’s Ford Fusion – “It’s a lot of fun qualifying at Dover. That was a pick-up from yesterday because the track is a lot different than when we made our qualifying run, so it was an improvement for sure. We had an OK lap. You always want to go faster, but it’s an improvement from yesterday. I’m proud of my guys for making some good adjustments and hopefully it will be good for 400 more.”
ARIC ALMIROLA – No. 43 Super 8 Ford Fusion – “I was hoping for better than that. I was just a little bit too free right there. I didn’t run the best of laps. My car was just a little bit off. It wasn’t bad, but I didn’t execute a great lap and that probably hurt us some. The car was just a little bit off, I was a little bit off and we’re two-tenths off the pole. I love this race track and I wanted to qualify really good here and I don’t think that’s gonna be a great lap.”
RICKY STENHOUSE JR. – No. 6 Cargill Ford Fusion – “Here at Dover everything happens so fast and you realize you’ve only got 22 or 23 seconds to get it done. It’s quite a bit different. We didn’t get as many laps as we wanted to yesterday in practice yesterday, but the Rancher’s Reserve Safeway Fusion was OK there. We were a little loose in, but the guys did their job of getting a car underneath me that I could go out there and qualify. We got that part down and now we’ll go on to the race.” WERE THERE ANY NERVES KNOWING YOU HAD TO GET IN ON TIME? “I knew we had to run pretty fast. We ran something like a .58 yesterday and had to run a .28 today, so that’s nerve-wracking knowing you’ve got to pick up so much time, but I knew the race track picked up quite a bit from Nationwide qualifying, so I felt OK about it.” IS IT A CONFIDENCE-BUILDER FOR YOU? “It’s good confidence. You never know what to expect, especially coming to a place like Dover. It’s a tough place to get around, period, much less in a Cup car with 200 extra horsepower compared to our Nationwide car. The field is so close compared to a Nationwide race. It’s difficult when you have to qualify in on time, but this is the third time for these guys working on the car at the race track and we didn’t get as many laps in practice as we wanted to in practice yesterday, so we’ve got a lot to learn in the race. I’m just glad that we’re in and we can learn a lot tomorrow.” NASCAR SAID EACH ORGANIZATION CAN GET FOUR TESTS NEXT YEAR AT TRACKS YOU RACE ON. HOW BIG OF A DEAL IS THAT FOR YOU? “That’s gonna be huge. I’ve already thought about testing. The Nationwide cars drive so great compared to the Cup cars with so much horsepower and to get extra tests next year will definitely be a benefit for us. Everybody else will be able to get faster too, but I think it’ll help me kind of speed up and catch up with the learning curve of what we’ve got to do.”
MARCOS AMBROSE – No. 9 DeWalt Ford Fusion – “That was not good. We’ve had a couple of tough weeks here and wanted to get something going, but hitting the fence and running slow is not the way to do it. I’ll just think about it overnight and hopefully come back with a strong race car tomorrow.”
WHAT IS THE KEY FOR YOU TOMORROW? “We’ve just got to get the car flying through the corner. I think we actually made some gains there since yesterday, but we’re just behind and we need to catch up.”
CARL EDWARDS – No. 99 Fastenal Ford Fusion – “It’s so close. I wish I had another shot at it and I think I could go a tenth faster and we’d be in the top three or four. The car is pretty good. I think we qualified 19th in the spring and drove right to the front, so if we get the car good enough in race trim, we’ll be just fine.”
GREG BIFFLE – No. 16 Scotch-Brite Ford Fusion – “That was a really good lap. The Scotch-Brite Ford Fusion was a little bit too free, but it was a better lap than we’ve been putting down. The car turned really good, so maybe that will be a top seven or eight starting spot for us and we’ll get a good pit road selection. We think our car is pretty good, but we thought that the last couple of weeks until the race started, but we do feel better about this car with the way we ran in practice.”
DID THE CLOUD COVER THROW YOU GUYS FOR A LOOP TODAY? “We knew it was gonna be faster and that made us a little looser. Some of the other guys didn’t get affected like that, but we did. Qualifying is only one lap and it wasn’t a bad lap, but we’ll work on it tomorrow.”
