Ford Performance NSCS Notes & Quotes:
Toyota Owners 400
NSCS QUALIFYING
Friday, April 24, 2015
FORD QUALIFYING RESULTS
1st Joey Logano
7th Brad Keselowski
24th Ricky Stenhouse Jr.
27th Aric Almirola
29th Sam Hornish Jr.
30th David Gilliland
31st Cole Whitt
32nd Greg Biffle
34th Trevor Bayne
43rd Reed Sorenson
JOEY LOGANO, No. 22 Shell Pennzoil Ford Fusion (Qualified 1st)
“We have a fast Shell Pennzoil Ford. I thought we had a shot at the pole all along but after the first run it wasn’t very good and I started second guessing. We made some adjustments and didn’t make much ground on it the second round. Then we swung for the fence. When you are sitting 11th on the board you only have one spot to lose so we went for it and she turned and off she went. That isn’t normal for us. Normally we are really fast in the first run and it is hard for us to stay that fast all the way through. The guys did a great job getting us faster today. It is fun because you go out and run all these laps and that lap didn’t even actually feel that good because you have seven or eight laps on your tires and the car is sliding around a lot so it is funny that the pole sitting car is sliding all over the place but everyone is on old tires out there.”
BRAD KESELOWSKI, No. 2 Alliance Truck Parts Ford Fusion (Qualified 7th)
“I would have liked the pole but I am definitely happy for Joey to see him get it. It is nice for Team Penske and great for Ford. If you can’t get a pole you want it to be your teammate so I am happy that he was able to get it done.” HOW ABOUT YOUR CAR IN RACE TRIM? “It is kind of hard to tell to be honest. This racetrack changes so much when it takes rubber and with the weather situation tomorrow, who knows what kind of track we will have. It will change, so we will have to wait and see.”
RICKY STENHOUSE JR., No. 17 Fifth Third Bank Ford Fusion (Qualified 24th)
“The first run didn’t feel bad. I felt pretty decent in practice all day, we just have to figure out the qualifying deal a little better. Last year we never made it to another round. We struggled all last year in qualifying. Now we are making it to the next round, we just need to make better adjustments with air pressure and things like that to get a better lap in the second round. The Fifth Third Bank Ford isn’t terrible. We have some work to do on it overnight but I am pretty excited we had a decent car today in practice.”
JOEY LOGANO POLE WINNER PRESS CONFERENCE
THAT WAS A HECK OF A LAP YOU LAID DOWN OUT THERE. “It was surprising to say the least. That is the most surprising pole we’ve had I think. Our first run was not stellar by any means. We had to run a third lap to get into the top-24 and the same thing during the second run, we had to run an extra lap. I wasn’t feeling good about the laps we put on our tires. When you are sitting 10th or 11th going into the last session you can swing for the fence because you can only lose one spot. We made a big adjustment to try to find some speed and the guys did a great job with that last adjustment and get it turning and off she went. It is funny though because the car doesn’t feel good because you have eight or nine laps on your tires and it doesn’t feel good anymore but nobody’s car feels good with that many laps on the tires here. It seems the third round here you have to change the feel of qualifying here a little bit.”
YOU SAID YOU TOOK A BIG SWING. WHAT DID YOU DO? “I can’t tell you that. They loosened it up. That is one thing we did. After a couple runs you get a feel for where your car is going, what it is doing and both Todd and I were able to talk about it and understand what we need to do and make the right adjustment. If you are first or second or third going into the last round you are timid to make huge adjustments because you are pretty good and you don’t want to tune yourself out. When you are where we were, you have nothing to lose.”
SO YOU WERE TIGHT? “I was tight the whole time until the last run.”
LAST YEAR YOU AND BRAD WON A LOT OF RACES AND ON VARIOUS TYPES OF TRACKS. DO YOU FEEL YOU ARE ON THE SAME TRAJECTORY THIS YEAR? “I feel like we picked up where we left off. I feel like we do have some work to make some gains. You watch in practice and usually in the race the 4 and 41 are the two fastest cars every week. No matter where we are or what we do, those are the guys. We need to find a little bit to be as fast as them. I think our qualifying effort this year has picked up. Not that our qualifying effort was bad last year but we didn’t get many poles and this year we have had a good gain. I feel like we need a little more speed in every race. A lot of times we get our car driving good but just are not quite fast enough. Everything has to play out right or with race strategy or to do something different to win the race. We aren’t quite the standout car yet and that is what we want to work towards. We have a few weeks to get it straight before the Chase and we are moving in the right direction. We understand where we can be better and that is half the battle, understanding where you need to be better, then you start working on it and that takes time.”
“I feel like we are pretty equal everywhere we go. Right now we are a fourth or fifth place car about everywhere we go. I don’t feel like we are at a disadvantage anyplace, we just need to find a little more and if we keep working hard we will find it.”
HOW IMPORTANT WILL BE WHAT YOU LEARNED WITH THAT QUALIFYING RUN BE TOWARD YOU HAVING A GOOD FINISH? “It won’t have anything to do with how the car races. It takes something different to make a race car go fast in qualifying than it does in race trim. It won’t really come into play much. We made some adjustments that we learned in practice the last run that we learned about but what we did in qualifying won’t come into play for the race.”
