Ford Racing NSCS Notes & Quotes:
Party in the Poconos 400 Advance (Pocono Raceway)
Sunday, June 9, 2013
Ford Finishing Order:
2nd – Greg Biffle
10th – Joey Logano
16th – Brad Keselowski
17th – Marcos Ambrose
18th – Carl Edwards
21st – Aric Almirola
22nd – Casey Mears
24th – David Gilliland
26th – Ricky Stenhouse Jr.
34th – Josh Wise
35th – Timmy Hill
37th – David Ragan
40th – Michael McDowell
41st – Scott Riggs
GREG BIFFLE – No. 16 3M Ford Fusion – “It was a pretty good day for us. We just kept fighting and getting better and better track position. This car likes clean air. We’ve really struggled this season, but once we got some track position we were pretty good. The 48 was definitely in a league of his own today. I was just hoping I could get up to his rear bumper or something would happen and I could get close enough to race with him, but we just needed a few more adjustments. We probably need to work on our car a little bit better. We need a couple more weeks before we’re gonna run like that.”
THE LAST RESTART YOU MADE A BIG MOVE. “Yeah, I made a mistake the restart before. I couldn’t see. That was the first time I started on the inside and I was a little slow on the gas, but I was ready for it on the outside and once I shoved the 48 and got him going, I was hoping he would do what he did the last restart when he went to the bottom to block the 88 and I could have pulled up beside him, I think, but I shoved him too good. I gave him too good of a push to get out front.”
YOU WERE HAPPY ABOUT THAT CAUTION. “Yeah, we were really good on the top and really good on restarts for some reason, so I was really excited because it gave me another chance. I knew I was gonna start behind the 48. The only thing I could do was give him a little shove or tap and wiggle him and try and get going. That’s the only way somebody was gonna beat him today and I was willing to try anything I could, but I just didn’t get close enough.”
JOEY LOGANO – No. 22 Shell/Pennzoil Ford Fusion – “It was frustrating. I really wish we had qualified because you think 400 miles would be enough time to get up there and it really wasn’t. It was just so hard to pass today. I felt like we had probably a seventh or eighth-place car and we about got to where we needed to be. We were up there at one point and then we’d get a bad restart or something happens in front of you and you lose them back and you try to get them back again. I think what you saw were the restarts being so chaotic because it’s so hard to pass after four or five laps into a run. Everyone was gonna make everything the could in one or two laps, which makes it entertaining. It’s entertaining for all of us out there, but you’ve just got to make it happen in two laps. After that, you’ve got to try to out-strategize them as far as pit strategy and try keeping that clean air on your nose. I feel like we were better than we finished with the Shell/Pennzoil Ford, but, overall, a top-10 isn’t the end of the world but it’s not what we wanted.”
DID ALL OF THE CAUTIONS AT THE END HURT YOU? “No, I think we were 14th and then we got up to maybe eighth and then we lost a couple and went back to 11th and then back to 10th. If you started on the inside, you’d usually lose a spot or two and then if you’re on the outside it was the other way. The thing is that every driver out there gets so frustrated, myself included, because it takes a whole fuel run to pass a car, and then when you have the opportunity to pass a car now, it’s gonna be crazy. That’s what happens because we’re all so frustrated out there that we want to make everything happen, so you’re gonna see wrecks and see people pushing the envelope a little more than what they typically would on a normal restart at any other track.”
YOU WERE BEHIND BOTH SPINS WITH THE 2 AND 14 AND THE 20 AND 42. “Yeah, I did good missing the 20 and the 42, and then the 2 and 14 got loose in front of me and I checked up and I lost like four spots because they both saved it. It was a heck of a save by Brad, though. I had an in-car camera, so it was probably pretty cool to watch, but, unfortunately, we lost a few spots on that one.”
KYLE PETTY SAID ON TV AT ONE POINT THAT YOU GUYS WERE 43 WIDE. DID IT FEEL LIKE THAT AT TIMES? “I think what you see is the draft in these new Gen-6 cars is huge and the hole it puts in the air is huge, so you get this big run and then you get two-wide with a guy and you stall out. Then the third-place car gets a bigger run and he’s gonna go three-wide, so you keep stacking and then you go into the tunnel turn, where you can barely go two-wide – you really can’t go two-wide, but we all try our guts out. We’re not usually gonna fit, so it’s a huge funnel, in effect, into the corner and someone has to give eventually. If not, you see the wreck.”
AT DOVER LAST WEEK YOU SAID YOU WANTED TO GET FORD’S 200TH NATIONWIDE WIN, BUT IT DIDN’T WORK OUT THIS WEEKEND AT IOWA DUE TO WEATHER. “Yeah, we put the effort into it, but I didn’t get to race. Flying back and forth is always difficult. I’ve done that a couple times going to Kentucky, but it’s a two-hour flight to Iowa, so you get back here around 1:30 in the morning every night. It was difficult and you don’t even get to race, so that was the bummer part of it. It’s funny because we were sitting there in the rain last night and Ryan Blaney was our back-up driver, just in case. He’s a good kid and doesn’t talk much. He’s kind of a quiet kid and all of a sudden it started raining and he’s happy and talking and joking around. I was like, ‘What the heck?’ So it was funny. He’s hilarious and we had a good time up there joking around.”
THE BAD NEWS IS YOU WON’T HAVE A CHANCE AT 200 NATIONWIDE WINS BECAUSE TREVOR BAYNE WON TODAY WHILE YOU WERE ON THE TRACK HERE AT POCONO. “Did he really? Good for him, but that sucks for me (laughing). I wanted that, so that’s a bummer.”
FORD IS AT 999 ALL-TIME NASCAR WINS, SO YOU CAN GO FOR 1,000 NEXT WEEK AT MICHIGAN. “That’s what we’ll go for then. I can’t wait.”
MARCOS AMBROSE – No. 9 DeWalt Ford Fusion – “That’s probably what we deserved. We had a 17th-place car and we finished 17th with it, so we’ll take it. We fought all day and rallied hard. We couldn’t quite get track position there at the end on those restarts, and then I got checked there on that last restart and we lost a few spots.”
GREG BIFFLE PRESS CONFERENCE
GREG BIFFLE – No. 16 3M Ford Fusion – “It was definitely a struggle for us. We had two pit stops that weren’t the greatest. We hung a lugnut and we were struggling for track position all day, and, like Junior said, turn three and four, or three – whatever you want to call it – that was our worst corner. We were really, really good in one and two, and really good in the tunnel, which it’s been many, many years since I’ve been that good across the tunnel, but I was terrible in three and four. Anything I would gain in those two corners, I would lose back all the way back down the front and then I couldn’t get beside him to pass him in one and two, so I could kind of maintain my own, but, like Junior said, the 48 was super-fast. I felt like I was as good as the 48, close to him in one and two or one and the tunnel, but three and four he was driving away from everybody, so he’s got something figured out over there. But it was a good day for us.”
YOU SAID YOU’RE STILL A FEW WEEKS AWAY AS FAR AS PERFORMANCE GOES? “Yeah. We had some good restarts and we were lucky with the lane choices and my car ran pretty good on restarts, but the 88 was faster than we were, clearly, the 78 was faster than us. Most of the top-five cars were probably a little faster than we were on shear speed, but it’s track position and you’ve got to pass the guy. We’ve still got a little bit of work to do. We’re not quite there yet. Clearly, we’re not celebrating that we finished second today quite yet and have our cars figured out, but this is definitely a step in the right direction. We certainly ran better here than we have been all season and certainly that’s a positive for us going to next week, so hopefully we’ll continue to build on that.”
THOUGHTS ON CHEVY’S SUCCESS THIS YEAR AND FORD’S STRUGGLES. “It’s frustrating as a driver to not have maybe the equipment or downforce or whatever that the other guys do, but I don’t work on them, I don’t build them, all I do is drive them. I wish our cars were as good as those guys right now, but we keep working on them every week and make them better. We’re not gonna give up.”
THOUGHTS ON THE 48 BOUNCING BACK FROM LAST WEEK. “I don’t know if you’re saying it’s him or not, but they clearly have the best cars right now in the garage, so it wouldn’t have mattered last week whether he got black-flagged on the restart or not or won it, they’re gonna come here and be fast and they’re gonna show up next week in Michigan and be fast. When you’re on a roll, you’re on a roll when you’ve got good stuff. Just because of whatever happened last week, that’s not gonna affect what they do this week.”
HOW DO YOU LIKE THIS NEW TRACK SURFACE? “They did probably one of the best jobs with what they had prior to it. The thing had a three-foot jump right in the middle of the tunnel turn and this place was real bumpy with a lot of elevation changes, so they’ve done a tremendous job. It’s really smooth. It’s really fast and pretty fun to race on. I think the only thing they could have done to make it any better is make three and four a little bit of progressive banking. If they would have added a little bit of side banking to it, so it wasn’t a single lane down there, that would be the only thing I think they could have done to this place to make it any better.”
HOW MUCH MORE ENJOYABLE IS THIS RACE AT 400 MILES? “I think they’re way better personally. It keeps everybody’s attention. It still feels like a long race inside the car. It did not feel like a short race today, I tell you that. I think it’s a much better race all the way around.”
