Ford Racing NSCS Notes & Quotes:
Auto Club 400 Qualifying (Auto Club Speedway)
Friday, March 22, 2013
FORD QUALIFYING RESULTS
2nd Greg Biffle
3rd Brad Keselowski
6th Joey Logano
11th Casey Mears
21st Marcos Ambrose
23rd Aric Almirola
24th Carl Edwards
31st Ricky Stenhouse Jr.
34th David Gilliland
42nd David Ragan
BRAD KESELOWSKI, No. 2 Miller Lite Ford Fusion (Qualified 3rd) – “The Miller Lite Ford is pretty fast. I am not a really good qualifier so you know if we qualify well we are going to be a threat. It is a good sign.”
WHAT DID YOU FEEL OUT THERE AND WHAT CAN WE EXPECT SUNDAY? “My car was really good and it has a lot of grip in qualifying mode. In the race they tend to have a lot less grip and I would expect that to be the case this weekend. The Gen 6 cars go through the corner really well when they are in clean air and all those things. I would expect that with this track getting so wide and with multiple grooves that you will see that. Quite honestly I think this will be one of the best races of the year.”
GREG BIFFLE, No. 16 3M Window Film Ford Fusion (Qualified 2nd) – “We went through a lot of work after getting only a few laps on the race track. That was a heck of a lap and the guys had to have this car just right to do that. That hopefully won’t hurt us for the race. We have all day tomorrow but lost a tremendous amount of track time today and the guys worked really hard to change this engine out and obviously the new one is running really good.”
JOEY LOGANO, No. 22 AA Southern California Ford Fusion (Qualified 6th) – “I felt like I left some on both ends. I over drove one end and under drove the other end. You are out there trying to estimate what the grip level is going to be and we were just a little off. The car did everthing it was supposed to do. It is always tough. I think we have a really good Auto Club Ford that can go out there and win this thing this weekend. We will tune her in tomorrow during practice and we are going to start toward the front so we will only have to pass a few cars.”
YOU ARE REALLY BUSY OUT THERE WITH THE SEAMS AND BUMPS AND WIND AREN’T YOU? “Yeah, there are a lot of seams, especially off of two. You are going across them so quick and it makes the car jump around and you are chasing it. It is a lot of fun and makes it a little hairy when you go into race trim and are racing guys. It is fun. I consider this one of my favorite race tracks to come to and race. It is fun to move around and go anywhere you want. I think with this new car too with the bigger hole in the air and more drag that the racing is going to be awesome. I can’t wait.”
RICKY STENHOUSE JR., No. 17 NOS Ford Fusion (Qualified 31st) – “We were really loose in practice so we made a lot of changes throughout practice and seemed to get a little better. We thought the race track was going to free up a little bit and thought we would go faster. We thought we needed it a little tighter yet but we got it too tight in one and two. Three and four felt pretty good. Yeah, we won’t do that again. I wanted it tighter. I thought that we needed it tighter and I asked for a little too much I think. Driving it a little harder made it even that much tighter. It wasn’t perfect but we will work on it tomorrow.”
MARCOS AMBROSE, No. 9 MAC Tools Ford Fusion (Qualified 21st) – “I don’t feel too good about that. We will have to just keep fighting. We have a great team, we have just had a sluggish start to our year so we have to pick it up.”
CARL EDWARDS, No. 99 SUBWAY Ford Fusion (Qualified 24th) – “I ended up taking the top and I wanted to run down to the bottom but we were just a little tight. Three and four was awesome. Our SUBWAY Fusion, we will get it tuned in tomorrow and be all right on Sunday. I am real frustrated right now. I thought we would run better than that. I thought we would run three-tenths faster than that in qualifying. I think Greg has a really good shot and we have had great luck with Fords here and especially Jack Roush’s Fords so hopefully we can get one in victory lane.”
ARIC ALMIROLA, No. 43 Farmland Ford Fusion (Qualified 23rd) – “We needed a little more. I am a little disappointed in that. We will get it though. All these guys on this Farmland team will work on her and get this Ford Fusion running better for tomorrow. We did mostly race trim today so I feel like we have a pretty good direction on what things we need to do for tomorrow for race trim. We will go from there.”
David Gilliland, No. 38 Long John Silver’s Ford (Qualified 34th) – “We had a good pick-up. I’m proud of the guys. We changed 15 things before qualifying. Tires are so hard. We practiced on one set of tires, and they really fall off a lot here. This track is pretty abrasive on them. But I’m proud of Frank and all the guys. We picked up, I think, 1.3 seconds from practice, so we’ve definitely got something to build on for tomorrow.”
David Ragan, No. 34 Front Row Motorsports Ford (Qualified 42nd) – “The guys have been making a lot of changes all day but we still didn’t have the qualifying run we were hoping for. And at a track like this, you really only have one shot with the one lap because the tires fall off so much. But we’ll huddle up, talk with our teammates, and we’ll work on it some more tomorrow.”
