Ford Racing NSCS Notes & Quotes:
AAA 400 Qualifying – Dover International Speedway
Friday, September 26, 2014
Page 5
Ford Qualifying Results:
4th – Brad Keselowski
16th – Joey Logano
17th – Marcos Ambrose
18th – Carl Edwards
21st – Aric Almirola
24th – Ricky Stenhouse Jr.
27th – Greg Biffle
31st – David Gilliland
37th – David Ragan
BRAD KESELOWSKI – No. 2 Wurth Ford Fusion – “We’re strong. The 4 car is a little bit better. We seem to be right there with everyone else or maybe just a touch better, but we’ll keep working on it. We’ve got tomorrow’s practice and we’ve got a good starting spot for Sunday. It’s not a pole, but you can’t always get poles. Still, it’s something to be proud of.”
JOEY LOGANO – No. 22 Shell/Pennzoil Ford Fusion – “We just didn’t go fast enough, I don’t know. We unloaded pretty far off today and we spent a lot of time on race trim. We got started behind the eight-ball and trying to make that up and didn’t put a great effort into qualifying today, so we’re gonna start a little further toward the back. We’ll just work on it tomorrow and try to make our Shell/Pennzoil Fusion a little better.”
CARL EDWARDS – No. 99 Fastenal Ford Fusion – “We were waiting for conditions to be a little bit better and I feel like they were, but we just couldn’t get the speed out of the car there. I think I either hit the apron over there or just got a little bit tight in turn one, but our Fastenal guys are not happy with that and I’m not happy with that. We’ll go battle tomorrow in practice and we’ll be ready for the race. This is obviously a really important race, a lot of pressure and a lot of stress and we would have it no other way. We’re gonna go enjoy it and hopefully have a solid run on Sunday.
HOW WOULD YOU COMPARE THIS PRESSURE TO 2011 WHEN YOU WERE RUNINNG FOR THE CHAMPIONSHIP? “I put that same type of pressure on myself every week, I really do. I get nervous before going out to qualify. I get wound up and anxious and I kind of feel that way every time. I do understand the consequences of this race are higher than any of the other ones we’ve run this year, but that’s kind of fun. There aren’t many things that make me focus like that and get me excited, but everybody is different, so I don’t know how everybody in the garage responds to that stuff. But for me I enjoy it. It’s not quite the gravity of 2011 at Homestead, but you realize that your championship could be determined here.”
WITH SO MANY GUYS IN THE MIX FOR THESE FINAL SPOTS WILL YOU JUST CONCENTRATE ON WHERE YOU ARE OR DO YOU TRY TO FOLLOW THE OTHER GUYS YOU’RE BATTLING? “It’s simple with this many guys involved – you just have to go out and perform. You have to just do your job. Every competitor’s goal is to not worry about the other guy, just to go be the very best you can be and then you can walk away from the field or the race and you can say, ‘Hey, that was it. That’s what I had,’ so hopefully we’ve able to do that on Sunday.”
ARIC ALMIROLA – No. 43 Nathan’s Famous Ford Fusion – “That’s actually kind of par for the course for us. We typically qualify 21st. I think we’ve qualified 21st or 23rd the last three or four weeks and we’ve run top-five, top-10 during the race, so hopefully that’s the same this weekend and we’ll have a good race. During practice in race trim our car was driving pretty nice, so we’ll just work on it some more tomorrow and see if we can’t get this Ford Fusion up front.”
