Ford Racing NSCS Notes & Quotes:
Aaron’s 499 – Talladega Superspeedway
Sunday, May 4, 2014
Ford Finishing Results:
2nd – Greg Biffle
10th – Ricky Stenhouse Jr.
13th – Aric Almirola
19th – Marcos Ambrose
30th – Carl Edwards
32nd – Joey Logano
35th – David Ragan
38th – Brad Keselowski
40th – David Gilliand
41st – Trevor Bayne
BRAD KESELOWSKI – No. 2 Miller Lite Ford Fusion – WHAT HAPPENED? “I just spun out in front of the whole field. I don’t know why, if I just busted my butt on my own or lost a tire, but I feel bad for everyone that got torn up. We had a really fast Team Penske Ford, but I just feel bad for the whole Miller Lite team.”
WHAT HAPPENED IN THE FIRST INCIDENT? “We took the lead there and made a really aggressive move to take the lead and then it all just kind of bottlenecked from there. I don’t know if I cut somebody off or got ran over, but just enough to get spun out and tear the car up.”
WHAT HAPPENED? “We were just racing really hard towards the front half of the field. I was trying to get my lap back and those guys are trying to lead laps. There’s obviously a long way to go and I just had to get to the front and try to stay up there to try and get my lap back. I was racing really hard for that, but for some reason the car took off on me and I spun out. I don’t know why, but I feel bad that we tore up a bunch of cars.” WHAT HAPPENED WITH DANICA? “I’m not really sure what happened. I made an aggressive move to take the lead and the next thing I knew I was spinning, so I’m not really sure. Obviously, there was some kind of contact but I don’t know what happened.”
A BYPRODUCT OF TALLADEGA? “Every wreck is a byproduct of Talladega. That’s just the track we’re on, but racing hard – everybody wants to lead laps, everybody wants to run up front and certainly I wanted to get my laps back and have a shot to win at the end and the only way I was gonna do that was by being really aggressive at the front half of the field.” STILL 41 CARS ON THE LEAD LAP. “Yeah, and that’s even more the reason why I had to race hard to get my lap back because I was at the back half of that.”
HOW AGGRESSIVE WAS THIS RACE BY COMPARISON TO THE LAST COUPLE YEARS? “The cars are handling a lot worse than I thought they would and I think everybody is kind of fighting that. Everybody still has the same level of aggression as when the cars handled a little better and sometimes we learn the hard way.”
THERE’S A FINE LINE BETWEEN FRUSTRATION AND SUCCESS. “Yeah, we had a lot of close calls and I guess most of them were my fault, but I’m just being real aggressive. That’s what it’s gonna take to win here and whoever wins here will be really aggressive, too.”
WAS IT A CASE WHERE DANICA DIDN’T GIVE YOU ENOUGH ROOM? “I don’t know. I’d have to go back and look at it.”
WHAT GOES THROUGH YOUR MIND AT THE END? IS THERE A FEELING SOMETHING IS GOING TO HAPPEN? “You assume something is gonna happen, but you don’t know. That’s why I had to race so hard. I was one or two debris yellows from being back in the race and I wasn’t gonna give up.”
DAVID GILLILAND – No. 38 Love’s Travel Stops Ford Fusion – “I thought my car was good. We got in that accident and I don’t know if the motor got a little warm when we opened up the duct work, but it just wasn’t our day. We felt really good. I think our car was good. We were just kind of playing it out and seeing what lane I could make moves in and what we needed to do to adjust on the car to be able to run in the lane I wanted to run at the end. I felt really good about it, but unfortunately our day has ended a little bit early. All in all, it was a good day. We had good speed here all weekend and I’m proud of the guys. We’ll come back ready for Daytona.”
JOEY LOGANO – No. 22 Shell/Pennzoil Ford Fusion – “The 48 just started spinning out in front of me and when he caught it and had to save it, it’s Talladega. All of us are in a pack so when one car gets free then we all kind of get jumbled up there. I think a product of a lot of it was just old tires when people came in for fuel only and their cars were getting really loose when that happened both times I think is when you’ve seen the bigger crashes. That’s Talladega. You come into this race almost expecting something like that to happen. It’s unfortunate. We had a really fast car. Our car was booking along at the beginning of the race and we just lost our track position with about 50 to go and that’s what we get.”
DAVID RAGAN – No. 34 KFC Ford Fusion – “It looked like someone got turned in the middle or the bottom lane and we were just kind of minding our own business up top and all I saw was some cars coming up toward us. There was nothing you could do. Everyone is running real hot, and I think everyone is kind of ducking in and ducking out and if I would have to guess I would think that someone was probably moving in and out and just got clipped and turned him around.” HOW WAS THE RACING? “I thought the racing was pretty hard. I thought it was good, clean racing. Everyone was giving some other cars some consideration. It looks like tires are finally starting to wear a little bit here and they’re important. You can really tell if you were on a couple runs on lefts or rights, your car was a little tight or a little loose. All in all, I thought the racing was great. There was a lot of passing, but usually when wrecks like that happen somebody makes a mistake and it’s just a shame that when somebody makes a mistake it takes out a bunch of race cars.”
CARL EDWARDS – No. 99 Fastenal Ford Fusion – “I lost a tire. I tried my best to get out of the way, but I couldn’t hang on to it. I couldn’t keep the speed up and hang on to it, but all those guys did a really good job of avoiding me. The car just got too wide and too sideways and Ryan got me, but overall we were having a pretty good day. We didn’t get caught up in any wrecks and that got us. I think that would have got us no matter what we were trying.” HOW WAS THE RACING? “It was crazy, but everybody did a really good job. I think everybody did a great job with what we had to work with. The racing was pretty good. It was really intense, but safe I thought relative to what we’ve seen in the past.”
RICKY STENHOUSE JR. – No. 17 Zest Ford Fusion – “It was really good. Our car was super-fast, especially when I could hook up with the 22 and the 21, we went to the front. I pushed the 9 to the front with the 16. I would have liked to get up there and help Biffle. He was kind of stuck out there as the only Ford, so I wish we could have got up there and helped that. We were on our way back up there when the 48 got into the right-front when he was spinning and we had to pit, so we had to restart at the tail end. That kind of ruined our day, but we got a really good restart on that last restart and was able to come home with a decent finish. We’ll get one of these speedways soon. We keep running up front. Our cars are fast. The horsepower was good and I look forward to working on this car and get ready for Daytona and hopefully have another good showing.”
ARIC ALMIROLA – No. 43 Gwaltney Ford Fusion – “I expected a few of the big wrecks and tried to avoid those and did exactly that. I don’t know. At the end with so few laps the track position is really tough to go anywhere because they fan out three and four-wide, but all in all it was a solid day. We didn’t end up on our roof or anything and back there where we’re at in points we certainly want to win a race, but we can’t afford to have 43rd–place finishe like we’ve already had this year, so it was a solid day and we’ll go on.”
GREG BIFFLE PRESS CONFERENCE
GREG BIFFLE – No. 16 3M Ford Fusion – “The last few restarts were actually really good for us. The 88, or somebody got, I think the 11 got shoved by or they got a run on the top and this race track is so wide here I didn’t really even attempt a block or try and go up and block the upper lane because you lose some momentum and it’s so wide, so I just focused on staying on the bottom and keep the momentum up. That final restart Clint gave us a huge, huge push and we had a huge run at the 11 car. I looked in the mirror and saw the smoke behind me and I wasn’t really sure whether the caution was gonna come out and I didn’t know what to do and I thought about making my move on the 11 right then because I had a huge run and I could have, and then probably off of two I could have passed him again – got beside him and sucked by him – but I just didn’t want to pass too early. I was gonna be the lone soldier on the outside lane and I was gonna be 15th by the time we got back around to the start-finish line. So I was just waiting. I was backing up off of him quite a bit on the backstretch and I got probably two-and-a-half, three cars away from him and they said, ‘Caution is out.’ I was setting up to go by him, but just never had the chance. I wish I had known we weren’t gonna race all the way back, but it was a good day for us. The car was really fast, a lot of speed, and I’m just happy to come out of here with a clean car.”
WHERE WERE YOU WHEN THE CAUTION CAME OUT? “We were about halfway down the backstretch, I guess, and I thought when I saw the smoke and I was trying to make a decision to go or not, and I decided to wait, I figured once we got in the middle of one and two if the caution wasn’t out then it wasn’t gonna come out. I figured, ‘OK, we’re good all the way back,’ so I figured if it hadn’t come out yet, we were gonna be OK. When I got back around I was wondering why nobody told me there was half of a car laying on the track, we’re probably not gonna race back so go ahead and try to pass him now, but that’s a lot to happen in a short amount of time.”
IS IT FRUSTRATING OR GRATIFYING TO HAVE A RESULT LIKE THIS BEING IN A CONTRACT YEAR? “It’s sort of bittersweet for us. We’ve run a little bit better the last couple weeks. I wasn’t sure how we were gonna run here and I was extremely happy with the speed my car had on Friday and then today all day. I’m really happy with it. Our restrictor plate program is in decent shape. We still have some work to do, but it sure would have been nice to get a win toward the Chase, but we’ve got some great race tracks coming up as well. That would have been nice.”
YOU COULD BE THE FIRST THREE-TIME WINNER AT KANSAS NEXT WEEK. WHAT WOULD THAT MEAN? “I didn’t know that stat. I’d be super-excited to win there to start with, but to be the first guy to win three there would be pretty neat. I love that race track. It’s a lot of fun to race on and puts on a good race. Clint really wants to win there, too. I love Kansas.”
DID YOU HAVE PROBLEMS WITH YOUR FEET GETTING HOT? “I’m glad somebody else’s feet were hot because my feet were on fire all day. It wasn’t even that hot out.” CLINT ASKS IF GREG DID THE OLD CROSSOVER FOR A WHILE. “Yeah, my heels are burned up. I’m not sure why.” WHERE WAS YOUR RIGHT FOOT? “Up off the hot floor. It was hot.”
GREG BIFFLE CONTINUED — IS IT SATISFYING TO FINISH SECOND WITH A FAST CAR? “I just wish I was where the 11 was on that final restart when the white came out and they were getting ready to make a run at me, but it was pretty satisfying. Once the outside lane got a push there towards the end and I got shuffled back to about the third row and we were three-wide I was a little bit nervous that the bottom lane was gonna start stalling out. It seems like the bottom lane for some reason, when the outside two lanes get up there it seems like the bottom lane wants to stall, but if the outside lane isn’t shoved up there that far, the bottom lane seems to have speed so it’s kind of weird how that works. But I’m extremely happy to finish second. We’ve been moving up a little bit in points. I know it doesn’t mean all that much this day and time, but it’s not as much about points as wins, but it will help us kind of keep trudging toward the front a little bit.”
WERE YOU SURPRISED EARNHARDT WASN’T UP THERE AT THE END? “He was leading until the caution came out and he pitted, so he probably would have been leading or right there if he wouldn’t have pitted. I thought he was on the same plan as everyone else, but he was the only car to pit from the lead. It’s hard to pass here. I was back there and got shuffled out of line and got moved to the back and you just hold it to the floor and there’s nowhere to go. You try a lane – the third lane it just stalls out and won’t go – so it’s hard to get back up there.”
