Ford Racing NSCS Notes & Quotes:
NNS Jimmy John’s Freaky Fast 300
Saturday Sept. 13, 2014
FORD FINISHING RESULTS
4th Ryan Blaney
5th Trevor Bayne
12th Chris Buescher
14th Aric Almirola
22nd Dakoda Armstrong
24th Ryan Reed
RYAN BLANEY, No. 22 Discount Tire Ford Mustang – “Getting the right rear in the wall might have been the biggest thing to tighten it up all day. We tried everything to tighten it up and made little gains but not a lot. Jeremy Bullins did a great job of adjusting to it and being able to hang with this car all day even though it isn’t what we wanted. We want to be in victory lane but when the day started like that I would have taken a fourth and it is good to see the resilience of this team and being able to come home with a decent finish.”
TREVOR BAYNE, No. 6 AdvoCare Ford Mustang – “I am just glad this team didn’t give up early when we didn’t have a whole lot of speed. This AdvoCare Ford was really tight and I was concerned with the run we had last time we thought we would come back and be fast. Chad and the guys worked really hard and were able to free it up all day long. My pit crew did a good job giving me track position and our restarts were really good to get spots back. I am proud of my team. Top fives are what we need to click off here at the end of the season. Hopefully that leads to victory lane at some point. This was a good run for us after the last few weeks.”
ARIC ALMIROLA, No 98 Smithfield Ford Mustang – “We stayed out on our tires there and we held on as long as we could and that was fun. That was fun to race up front with the Smithfield Ford Mustang but all those guys with tires ended up beating us. It was worth a shot though because if our caution would have come out there with 15 laps or so we could have put four tires on when a lot of people would have been stuck with what they had and we could have made gains. I think it was a decent day for us though and I think we learned some stuff for tomorrow.”
TREVOR BAYNE PRESS CONFERENCE – “I haven’t been able to come to the media center after races much lately but Chicago is a place wen’ve gotten to come twice. Last year this is a place we really struggled. We came back in the spring with a different package and finished second and we brought that car back here today and we thought it would be a little better than it was. My car started really tight in practice, tight in qualifying and started the race tight compared to the last race here. We spent the whole race trying to get the thing to turn. By the end it was pretty good and we got to the top-five and had decent lap times. Chad did a great job with strategy and giving us tires at the end even though it made for some sketchy restarts when nobody had tires. Kyle Busch was putting his car in places a lot of people wouldn’t trying to get his car through the field. I know it was a fun race for people to watch but I am glad to be back in the top five and in contention here. It feels good after the last few weeks we’ve had.”
WHAT DID YOU LEARN TODAY THAT WILL BENEFIT YOU NEXT YEAR? “This place has been good to me at times and bad to me at times like last season when our best finish was maybe second or third here. We’ve always been decent in Nationwide cars. Today what I learned was being able to move around. If I were racing tomorrow what I would take from today was you have to run where nobody else was running. Whether that meant up in the gray at the top but then as Kevin Harvick and Kyle would move up to the top it would rubber quickly until the next caution so you would have to move back to the second lane or third lane or even the bottom again. It was crazy how it went in cycles and a caution would come out and we would pick up all the rubber and it would start over again. That is what I would take from today. If we come back with a different tire I will have to learn it all again. Seat time has been the biggest thing for me. I love my double-duty weekends when I am in the 6 car and 21 car where I can go out and get a ton of laps in practice to find out where I need to be on the race track and what my car needs to do as the track changes. I think that is a big advantage. That is why you see the Cup guys atop the Nationwide pylon at the end of the race, it is the extra track time every weekend. I am looking forward to next season for sure and the rest of this year with AdvoCare and we are ready to go race on Sunday’s all the time next year.”
