Ford Racing NSCS Notes & Quotes:
O’Reilly Auto Parts Challenge (Texas Motor Speedway)
NNS Saturday Post Race Quotes
Saturday, November 2, 2013
BRAD KESELOWSKI/JEREMY BULLINS RACE WINNER POST RACE PRESS CONFERENCE
BRAD KESELOWSKI, No. 22 Discount Tire Ford Mustang – YOUR CAR LOOKED STRONG OUT THERE TODAY. TALK ABOUT YOUR RUN. “It was strong. Our Discount Tire Ford Mustang from the get-go just took off fast and it looked like it was going to be a classic battle between the 54 and us. That probably would have ended in a good or bad way. Obviously it didn’t shake out that way. Some circumstances played out with the way the yellows fell and we had to not take tires trying to get through that scenario was really difficult. We made it through and the 54 did not. The 18 and the 20 were the cars up front and we kind of shuffled at that point. I think the team did a great job of getting us to where we could utilize our strengths of having a fast car and being able to get through traffic fairly well and we utilized those strengths to perfection at the end to get back by the 18 and the 20 and I think that was some pretty good Texas side-by-side racing. This track in particular with the asphalt and tire combination made the cars really squirrely which I think is great. It falls right to my style. You have to be really up on the wheel and really smooth and really understand your car and how to drive it to run well here. I think to me that is what racing is supposed to be about. I hope they never have to repave this place. I am starting to really take a liking to it.”
JEREMY BULLINS, crew chief, No. 22 Discount Tire Ford Mustang – TALK ABOUT THE WORK THE TEAM PUT IN TO GET THIS CAR HOOKED UP. “To be honest with you we talked about things with the truck that he learned and tried to put our heads together. We know that going into the last three weeks that we have to continue to improve to do what we need to accomplish in the next three weeks. It felt like we had a decent car yesterday in practice but not the best car. We put our heads together again and made some changes overnight and felt pretty good about it at the beginning of the race and just tried to manage it from there. The Nationwide races are tough trying to manage tires and we were trying to have good tires at the end. The points racers were saving a set of tires and the guys that weren’t racing for anything did what they should have done and put tires on. We had to take our licks there and know that greener pastures would come later and it all worked out when it was all said and done.”
YOU WILL PLAY A LARGE ROLE ON IF THE 22 WILL WIN THE OWNERS TITLE. IT ISN’T THE CHAMPIONSHIP I AM SURE YOU HOPED TO BE RUNNING FOR BUT IS IT A CONSOLATION? “Yeah, I wanted to compete for both championships. I didn’t want it to be just one and I certainly don’t want to trade but it is what it is at this point and you move on and do the best you can with the circumstances. I think we have had some great runs this year and this is my sixth win in the Nationwide car and I think AJ (Allmendinger) has two and Joey has four. Is that right? I can’t remember the math. He only has one race left so I can’t wait to rub that in. Or maybe he has three wins. Blaney won one, so I think Joey has three. I can’t remember what I was talking about now but I dug us a hole at Kansas with getting tangled up there and we lost some points so it is great to be able to recover from that hole and grow a little bit of a lead but two races is a long ways left and 22 points is better than nothing but it is certainly not a guarantee of anything as well. I will be running the car next weekend at Phoenix and then Joey Logano will finish it out at Homestead. To get back to your point, it is about Roger. It is about getting him something that he hasn’t done. I take a lot of pride in that. When I came to drive for him he didn’t have any NASCAR championships and that was not a point escaped on me or any of you guys in the media. Together I guess you could say we have won three if you count the Sprint Cup owners, drivers and Nationwide drivers. I think it is somewhat an incomplete feeling to not have that Nationwide owners title. At least it is for me. I want to finish that off and be a part of it. It has been rewarding so far and it isn’t over but if we were to win it that would be very rewarding for me personally to be a part of providing that for Roger.”
YOU HAVE WON SIX NATIONWIDE RACES IN JUST 14 STARTS. TO YOU GET A SENSE OF PRIDE FROM THAT? “I don’t really like stats because I feel like you can twist stats to your favor and they don’t really tell the whole story. If there is one that I do like, that is it. The car has been really strong this year and that is something that will really stick out for me. I think Ford has an excellent package for this Nationwide side and a lot of that credit goes to Doug Yates and his group at Roush Yates engines which I think is kind of another story about the potential that the Ford product has in being in the first year together I want to see things get stronger. Those are the things I look at. I don’t really sit and count the win totals and that. I enjoy it, don’t get me wrong, but I am interested in doing the best I can every time I get behind the wheel. For me as a driver I still evaluate my day from the perspective of if our equipment was fifth and I ran fourth then that was a good day. If it was 10th and you ran second that was a great day. You try as a drive to out pace your equipment. That is what I take pride in. Being able to execute with a winner car is something you take pride in as well. I think there is more to the story than winning percentage. The cars have been great and that is not always a reflection of me but a reflection of the crew.”
WHAT IS YOUR PREDICTION FOR THE TIRES TOMORROW? “I think this track is becoming more abrasive. There is a great case to be made for the zone tread tire that we ran at Atlanta to be used here and give us a little more margin. We did not see any issues in Cup practice and the issues we did see today were with cars that tried to execute more than one fuel run on a set of tires. The tires were made to execute one fuel run. Every time there is a tire issue the tendency is to go right to Goodyear and point the finger but sometimes you have to look at yourself.”
WHAT ARE YOUR PLANS FOR NATIONWIDE NEXT YEAR AND WITH YOUR CUP CAR TOMORROW CAN YOU BREAK UP THE SHOW BETWEEN JOHNSON AND KENSETH AND MAKE IT TWO OUT OF THREE? “Yeah, I think as of right now it is really early to talk about Nationwide plans but I can say that I would expect it to be very similar to what we did this year with maybe Ryan Blaney running a few more races but it is really early and I don’t want to jump the gun on letting Penske announce that themselves. As far as the Cup race is concerned, I think we are really strong. I think we have a great shot at it. I think there is probably about three or four cars and whichever one gets the lead at the end will probably win. Whichever one gets the lead on the last restart or last pit cycle is probably going to win the race. I think the 20 car, myself, the 18 and the 48 are all really strong. We might be just a touch stronger than them but it is hard to say. I am interested to see and really excited and kind of kicking myself because I think we have a great shot at winning tomorrow and I wish I would have done a better job yesterday to have a shot at pulling off all three. So it goes.”
WHAT IS THE FEELING LIKE TO GET INTO A CAR THAT HAS HAD SO MUCH SUCCESS? DOES IT ALMOST FEEL LIKE SECOND PLACE IS A BAD DAY AT THIS POINT? “It is hard to put that in context of the moment. I think that is something you reflect upon when the season is over or maybe a couple of seasons later. From that perspective I remember getting in cars that I had no shot in hell of ever winning in. It feels a little balanced from that perspective, from a career perspective, but it is hard to appreciate in the moment because all you can think about in the moment is to not screw it up. You have the best car, don’t screw it up. When you win it is almost a relief that you didn’t screw it up. It still obviously is a lot of fun and something that I am obviously very privileged to have an opportunity to do.”
ARE YOU IN A GROOVE RIGHT NOW AT THE TWO TOP LEVELS? “I don’t know if that is fair to say about myself. I think that this particular track I finally found what I need as a driver to run well here and be competitive. I think that Phoenix as well, that track I look for us to be exceptionally strong at. We have hit what we need to be competitive on both the Cup and Nationwide programs and to really win out the next few races. That said, there are still weaknesses in my game that I realize and thankfully those are past us for the season.”
JEREMY BULLINS CONTINUED – HOW IDENTICAL WAS THE SETUP BETWEEN THE 22 AND 12 CARS? “Normally they are pretty close but today not so much. Brad and myself talked about some things this week and decided to try to better ourselves a little bit and tried something where we tried to refine an old set up basically. Sometimes you have to take a step back to take a step forward. We went through a couple nights of digging through old notes to figure some things out for this weekend. Today, I would say 50-percent close but probably not as close as normal. Nevertheless, it is a matter of giving both drivers what they need and sometimes that takes things being different.”
BRAD KESELOWSKI CONTINUED – HOW MUCH MORE ANGST IS THERE THE DAY AFTER FROM LAST NIGHT WHEN YOU MUST HAVE FIGURED YOU SCREWED IT UP? “Yeah, I definitely screwed it up last night. It is momentum for sure. There is a case to be made for it. Momentum and confidence in this sport is crucial to any driver and any team. I think you see that as the gentleman there was alluding to in more than just racing. You do things differently. You act differently. Your decisions are made in a different mentality when you have confidence. That is across the group. When you have failures it can certainly pull you back. This program is a perfect example of momentum because when a practice session is done and it might not have gone as well as we want we still all believe and make smart decisions accordingly. That is because of that success that we have had earlier in the year and I think it just turns into a snowball and rolls down the hill until it is a snowman or whatever you call it. There is a lot to be said for that and I feel like we have got some really strong momentum in both programs, the Nationwide and Cup side, at Penske Racing. I honestly feel like we can win out.”
IF YOU ARE HANDICAPPING THE CUP CHAMPIONSHIP AT THIS POINT, WHO WILL WIN AND WHY? “I would say Matt because he has the strongest pit crew on pit road. We have seen that track position is attained on pit road and is critical and that will probably win him the Chase. That is my gut.”
JEREMY BULLINS CONTINUED – WHAT IS YOUR CONTRACT SITUATION BECAUSE YOUR PHONE MUST BE RINGING OFF THE HOOK. “My plan is to do this again. That was the deal when we signed up to do it last year and I am looking forward to racing this car again next year. It is a lot of fun and a pretty good gig. I am looking forward to the opportunity to have another year like this and I think that is in front of us.”
ARE YOU UNDER CONTRACT FOR NEXT YEAR? “Yes.”
DO YOU THINK THIS CHAMPIONSHIP RIVALRY IS TOO FRIENDLY? “There are two different perspectives and it comes back to who is paying the bills. In this sport right now the business model is sponsors. With that business model you would be a fool to alienate half of the fan base over a rivalry because half the fan base pays your bills and pays your sponsors bills so indirectly they pay your bills. In today’s sport you can’t feud. It reminds me of this Confucius thing I read the other day that said, ‘A man who lives a life of revenge will dig two graves, one for him and one for the next guy.’ That is how this sport is right now. You can’t really have a rivalry with a popular driver because what happens is their fans nag on your fans and vice versa and get on social media and tell the sponsors how you are a big A-hole and they won’t buy the product and then you don’t have a sponsor. Or you lose value and then if that happens your team can’t compete. With that being said and with sponsors paying so much of the direct bill to cover the sport I think it is unrealistic to expect anything different.”
DO YOU LIKE NIGHT RACING OR DAY RACING BETTER? “I like the ones where my car is fast. Other than that I really don’t care. It looks cooler under the lights and I guess under the daytime or with the lights lit up, I was thinking about that in victory lane because the fire looks really cool at night, other than that it doesn’t matter to me. The car seemed to slip around pretty much the same daytime versus night. I make it work.”
THE SUN WAS COMING ACROSS AND THE SHADOWS WERE THERE. DO YOU FIND THAT A DISTRACTION? “Absolutely but it isn’t supposed to be easy. It is supposed to be hard. The funny thing about racing is it feels like there is in infinite set of variables. At Texas, that is one of them. Overcoming those variables is part of the challenge of being an elite race car driver and an elite race team and I think that is a good thing because the cream should always rise to the top and it does so when you throw in variables of that nature.”
CAN SAM OVERCOME THIS SIX POINT DEFICIT AND WIN THE NATIONWIDE CHAMPIONSHIP? “I think it is anyone’s race. I don’t really have a prediction. I think it should be a great two weeks and it is a dead heat.”
HOW DIFFICULT IS IT FOR SAM TO RACE FOR A CHAMPIONSHIP AS A LAME DUCK DRIVER? “I don’t know much about Sam’s status of where he is going from here or what his plans are so I hesitate to use those terms specifically but I can tell you that it is great to see him have an opportunity to win a championship. I think his destiny is in his own hands if he can pull that off. I am excited about helping him out if he needs it to be able to do that.”
