Ford Performance NSCS Notes and Quotes
Toyota SaveMart 350 Advance – Sonoma Raceway
Friday, June 26, 2015
Sam Hornish Jr., driver of the No. 9 Jacob Fusion, will be making his fourth NASCAR Sprint Cup Series start at Sonoma Raceway this weekend and his first since 2010. In addition, this will be his sixth race with crew chief Kevin Manion, who joined the team last month. Both men spoke to Ford Performance this morning to talk about their hopes for the weekend with a Fusion that Marcos Ambrose finished eighth with last season.
SAM HORNISH JR. – No. 9 Jacob Ford Fusion – DO YOU FEEL LIKE YOUR TEAM IS MAKING PROGRESS SINCE KEVIN CAME ON BOARD? “Yeah. Our first weekend actually started out pretty well at Kansas. We didn’t qualify that well, but our race run was good. We probably had close to a top-10 car and didn’t quite get that much out of it, and then through the All-Star weekend and a couple of races since then we’ve had some decent speed, but we’re not getting all of the right things to happen for us. We need that extra half-tenth to be able to make up for when something goes wrong as opposed to having to then take a chance to be able to get back on the lead lap or do something different because when it doesn’t pan out, then you end up losing another lap and you keep fighting that same battle. I felt like at the 600 we had a pretty good car and just could never get out of it what we should have because we didn’t qualify as well as we needed to. We got behind right off the bat and speed takes care of that. I feel good about the things that are going on, and we’ll just keep working away at it.”
THIS WILL BE YOUR FOURTH START AT SONOMA IN THE CUP SERIES AND FIRST SINCE 2010. HOW ARE YOU LOOKING AT THIS WEEKEND? “I’ve had speed here each time I’ve been here, but it seems like I’ve always been in the wrong place at the wrong time. Now that was also four years ago and it was with a different team and a lot of things overall were different, but I feel pretty good about it. I want to get through practice and see how that all goes, and then I’ll have a much better idea of where we really stack up. I’ve had a lot of speed on the road courses the last few years. The last Cup start I had on a road course we finished fifth, so I’m pretty happy with the fact of how I’ve run lately on the road courses in stock cars. A lot of it has been XFINITY, but I still feel like you do the right things you can get the job done.”
IS THIS A BETTER OPPORTUNITY FOR YOU TO WIN BEING A ROAD COURSE? “I feel like it’s a great opportunity for us to do that, but I don’t really feel like it stacks up that much better than if we just hit everything right. I feel like we almost have to have the same amount of things go right here for it to be able to happen because we can get there and lead a bunch of laps, but if somebody slips a little bit in the braking zone and bumps into you, you go from winning the race to finishing 16th. A lot of things can happen here. You usually get restarts towards the end of the race and it’s more like Martinsville than it is like Watkins Glen, so I feel like it does present us a good opportunity, but at the same time I feel like 90 percent of the places that we go if we hit the same amount of things right there that we do here, we have just as good of a chance to get a top-five finish and maybe a win.”
SAM HORNISH JR. CONTINUED — MARCOS HAS FINISHED IN THE TOP 10 THE LAST FOUR YEARS HERE AND YOU HAVE THE SAME CAR HE HAD A YEAR AGO. YOU HAVEN’T BEEN ABLE TO TEST WITH IT SO DO YOU EVEN KNOW WHAT YOU HAVE AND WHAT TO EXPECT? “The last couple of years they’ve been able to come out here and test and to be able to do that gave them a great opportunity to win. Marcos is obviously a great road course racer. They had pretty similar setups between him and Carl last year and Carl ended up winning the race. The cars are a lot different this year with the way that the horsepower is, so that’s the one thing to me. If we had everything the same as what it was last year, you’d obviously be super-confident, but the fact that there are some differences it does make you ask, ‘Are we gonna get everything translated the way that we need to?’ Right now, it’s all just speculation until we get out there and run. I’m a little bit nervous about it because I know how well that they’ve run over the last couple years and they’ve looked at these tracks as being the ones where we really have an opportunity to win races. At the same time, I feel whether I was in a Penske car or a Gibbs car that for quite a few years I had a lot of speed on road courses. I’ve yet to drive an RPM car on a road course, so we’ll go out there and see what we can do and see if we can get it to where we need to be.”
KEVIN ‘BONO’ MANION, Crew Chief – No. 9 Jacob Ford Fusion – THIS WILL BE YOUR SIXTH POINTS RACE WITH SAM. HOW DO YOU FEEL THINGS ARE COMING TOGETHER? “Sam is kind of a quiet guy, which is perfectly fine because I’m fairly quiet myself. His thoughts are collected and he takes his time. He’s methodical about how he talks about the car. He doesn’t just shout out stuff coming into the garage area. He sits for a minute and thinks about his lap and then talks about the car and changes that we need to make. All in all, it’s been fun and an exciting new challenge. We’re obviously off on speed just a little bit, but I think we’ve taken positives out of every race and had some good feelings about the way the car is running. We may not have collected the finishes that we wanted, but every week we’ve been making the cars better here at the track and at the shop and that’s what has been encouraging.”
IS IT HARDER WITHOUT REGULAR TRACK TESTING TO TRY AND GET TO KNOW EACH OTHER FROM A COMMUNICATION STANDPOINT? “Yeah, the testing definitely hurts a little bit, especially being here in Sonoma this week, where every team every year always tests before a road course race just because there are so many different variables. We haven’t gone to a solid two-day test yet. We’ve got one coming up at Chicago, which will be helpful, but it’s not like the old-school days where you could test as many times as you wanted. It’s tough on a race weekend when you have an hour and 20 minutes to get ready to qualify. Some of the tests we have coming up we’re gonna look at some qualifying stuff and also some race stuff, so we’re looking forward to that.”
KEVIN MANION CONTINUED — FOR THE LAST FOUR YEARS MARCOS AMBROSE HAS DRIVEN THE NO. 9 FUSION AND FINISHED IN THE TOP 10 HERE FOR RPM. WHAT IS IT LIKE FOR YOU TO INHERIT THAT ROAD COURSE CAR AND HAVE A NEW DRIVER IN IT FROM LAST YEAR? “This is the same car that Marcos ran here last year, so that’s good to know. We’re going with a very similar setup to what Carl won the race last year with and it’s very close to what Marcos ran as well, so the challenge we face would just be the little bit different horsepower and aero package from last year. We’ll tune on it and do our best, but the competition here is extremely tough. Our goal this weekend is we would love to win, and I think in the right situation we can win, but so could about 40 other teams. We don’t want to beat ourselves this weekend. We need to get some good finishes and get solidified in the top 25 in points. Obviously, at this stage of the game we’re gonna need a win to make the Chase, so as far as calling a more aggressive race with pit strategy is something we can look at doing, but we also don’t want to throw away a good, solid finish out of being too aggressive so it is kind of a fine line. We’re going to call the race aggressively and hope for the best.”
IS THERE A FEELING AROUND THE TEAM THAT THIS WEEK IS AN OPPORTUNITY TO WIN? “Absolutetly. It’s definitely been circled on the calendar as a better opportunity to strike and have that opportunity to make the Chase. There are so many good road racers in this garage now. It used to be that we would call in hired guns to put in the car, but that’s not the case anymore. There is a solid group of road racers and these drivers have taken it to the next level with simulation tools that drivers can use. The cars have become so much better and the brakes and the gearing so that the amount of DNF’s now due to mechanical issues has been minimal, so it just puts everyone in that hat to draw out of a win and it could be just about anyone. We feel like Sam excels at these road courses and we’re looking forward at having a chance to win.”
