Ford Racing NSCS Notes & Quotes:
Quicken Loans 500 Advance – Phoenix International Raceway
Friday, November 7, 2014
Carl Edwards, driver of the No. 99 Fastenal Ford Fusion, has two NASCAR Sprint Cup Series wins at Phoenix International Raceway and a third would guarantee him a spot in the Championship Four at Ford Championship Weekend in Homestead, FL. Edwards answered questions from the media after today’s practice about his chances of advancing.
CARL EDWARDS – No. 99 Fastenal Ford Fusion – HOW WAS PRACTICE? “Practice did not go well for us. It was not good, so we’ve got some work to do. We didn’t do any race trim, so there’s still hope for our race trim, but qualifying trim was not good. It’s just like last week, we’re not gonna quit. We’re just gonna go give 100 percent and hopefully we can find something by this evening. Jimmy and the guys are working really hard on it.”
DO YOU SEE ANY DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THE CAMRY AND FUSION FOR 2015? “I appreciate the question, but I’m focused 100 percent on this year and I want to get a win here for Ford and a win next week for Ford and I’ll worry about all of that later.”
CAN YOU GIVE SOME INSIGHT ON JIMMY FENNIG? “Jimmy somehow finds more time in the day and finds a way to work harder than almost anybody I’ve ever met. I’ve been around some really hard-working people – Jimmy Fennig, Jack Roush, Mike Mittler – these guys are unbelievable. To me, Jimmy is an example of what you can do with hard work. He cares as much or more about winning than anyone I’ve ever been around, so to me Jimmy has been a huge positive influence on me and my driving and he’s a friend. Last week was a good example, we were two laps down and he never lost his cool. He knows what to do and when to do it and he never quits.”
WHAT ABOUT PRACTICE WASN’T GOOD? “The balance wasn’t right in the car and it was pretty far off. When I say it didn’t go well, I’m pretty optimistic in general, but the biggest problem is when it doesn’t go well and you walk off to the hauler and your teammates are the exact same speed then it becomes really tough because you don’t have something you can just go to – there’s no speed or no low-hanging fruit left, you have to come up with a whole new plan. That’s what I mean when I say it didn’t go well. There’s no easy solution, so we’re gonna have to roll the dice and make something happen and that’s tough to do.”
WOULD YOU GIVE UP POPULARITY IN THE GARAGE FOR A CHAMPIONSHIP? “I’ve never even considered comparing those things. I’m here to win a championship. I will say one thing about last week. Obviously, I don’t know all the details but it seems like a lot of people have assumed I have some sort of issue with Brad and I do not. Our issue was real simple. I felt like he ran into me a lot and now he doesn’t. It was that simple I think he handled everything really well last week and I’m proud to have him as a Ford teammate, so I just want to make that real clear. I have no ongoing beef with Brad.”
WHAT IS THE HISTORY OF THIS CAR? “What happens is we’ve run well here the last couple years, so we came with a little bit of hope that we could use some of what we’ve learned. It looks like other people have picked up some things, so I don’t think it’s the car’s fault. Without going into too much detail it’s just a combination. Somehow we don’t have the right combination with springs, bars, shocks, weights, tire-pressures and all that, but it’s there. We can do it. I wouldn’t count us out. I think we can do this. I love this race track because it’s one of the greatest race tracks we go to. It’s fun. We just have to put it together. We have to get the right combination.”
HOW BIG OF A HOLE DO YOU FEEL YOU’RE IN NOW TO MAKE THE NEXT ROUND? “We were looking for shovels (joking). I don’t know. You just can’t tell. The track is gonna change a little bit. I think tonight the track is definitely gonna be different and later this afternoon we’re gonna try to forecast what that’s gonna be like with the balance, but honestly we’re slow right now. This is not what we want, but it’s nothing we haven’t dealt with before. We just have to go do the work.”
SO DO YOU JUST START FROM SCRATCH TOMORROW IN PRACTICE? “We talked about that too. We can’t let today affect tomorrow because we didn’t do any race trim practice. Tomorrow will be a different day. Qualifying is a different animal and we’ll just go start with our race trim practice and work through our problems. We’ve got two practice sessions. We’ve qualified poorly here before and still have done very well in the race. I’m not saying we’re gonna qualify poorly, but that’s not going to define our race, I don’t think, so that’s what we’re hoping.”
IS THE CAR SET UP BALANCE-WISE LIKE THE FIRST RACE HERE? “I don’t want to get into too many technical issues, but you can. What happens is everyone comes to the next race and let’s say the field is separated by three-tenths of a second, it’s like you come the next time and everybody has picked up a couple of tenths. So even if you were the fastest car the first time, if you don’t change anything, you’re gonna struggle. So there’s constant innovation, constant development and past success does not mean anything after a certain amount of time passes. In this garage all those engineers and all those fabricators and everyone are constantly making their cars better.”
