KEVIN HARVICK, No. 4 Mobil 1 Ford Mustang — Finished 1st
IN ALL HONESTY, DID YOU SEE BACK-TO-BACK WINS COMING FROM THIS 4 TEAM? I KNOW YOU SAID LAST WEEK IF YOU DOUBT US YOU DON’T KNOW US, BUT DID YOU SEE BACK-TO-BACK WINS BEFORE THE REGULAR SEASON ENDED? “You know, I didn’t know. It’s like I said last week, the cars have been running good week in and week out, and you see that we have a lot better understanding of what’s going on with how we adjusted on the car after the first run and were able to get our car handling a lot better.I think as it got dark, the racetrack really came to our Mobil 1 Ford Mustang. Just got to thank Mobil, Busch Light, GearWrench, Hunt Brothers, Rheem, Ford, Xfinity, Morton Buildings, E-Z-Go, everybody who helps Stewart Haas on this 4 car.”
DID YOU SEE CHRISTOPHER BELL COMING, AND WERE YOU GETTING A LITTLE BIT WORRIED THERE? “Well, I knew he was coming, but I forgot to shift down the front straightaway the last time. I was not paying attention and he got closer than he should have. I made a mistake there a couple laps doing the same thing. I wasn’t shifting on the back and I was shifting in the front. There was a lot going on, and made a couple mistakes, let him get too close.”
WITH THIS LEVEL OF MOMENTUM FOR YOU AND THE 4 TEAM, HOW DANGEROUS CAN THIS TEAM BE IN THE PLAYOFFS? “We’re just going to keep doing the things that we’re doing. I think we just have to keep an open mind about things and keep progressing and keep understanding the car, understanding what we could have done better today, understanding what we could have done better in qualifying yesterday and do the same thing over and over. I want to say hi to Piper and Keelan, Delana and everybody at home.”
CHRIS BUESCHER, No. 17 Fastenal Ford Mustang — Finished 3rd
HOW CLOSE WERE YOU? “Really close. Everyone on our Fastenal Mustang did such a tremendous job overnight because we didn’t know we were in this position yesterday. I didn’t qualify real well, and everyone worked hard and had a fantastic race car today. I think it’s a little easy with this format to feel like third place doesn’t matter, but it’s nice to be close and to keep progressing and getting better as we’ve gotten through the summer. Really neat to finish here. Really proud of everybody. Just burned the rear tires up. Ultimately that’s on me. Lap traffic didn’t do us any favors, either, but ultimately just got to keep the rears under us a little bit better so we can have a little bit better shot there to get after him for the win.”
WHAT HAVE YOU BEEN SEEING LATELY IN TERMS OF THE ORGANIZATION? “You know, it’s not really fair to just look at results because at the beginning of the year we didn’t fire off as good as we thought. We didn’t have the improvement. It took us a few months, but we’ve had three or maybe four months now of really solid runs, really good speed, ever since Dover really, that we’ve been really close. We’ve had some bad luck, had some mistakes that I’ve got to clean up. We’ve made progress through all of it. The results don’t always show it. We were running really well at the 600 and we ended up upside down. There’s no doubt in my mind we could have competed for a win at the Indy Road Course and we were on fire. We’re making highlight reels for all the wrong reasons. We’ve been fast in those processes, though. We just have to put it all together to show those results like we did here today.
ROAD COURSE AT WATKINS GLEN AND THEN DAYTONA COMING UP. WHAT DO YOU THINK? “I’m excited. I’m ready for the win.”
JOEY LOGANO, No. 22 Shell Pennzoil Ford Mustang — Finished 6th
YOU LED 222 LAPS TODAY AND THEN IS STARTED TO GO AWAY IN THAT LAST RUN. WHAT HAPPENED? “Yeah, I think just as the sun went down and the track cooled off and lost some turn on our car. Kevin (Harvick) and some others got a lot better the last couple of runs in the race. When it was hot and slick that was probably our strength with the Shell Pennzoil Mustang. We had good turn and then once it cooled off we lost the turn but still weren’t real good on the exits. Then you start playing defenst and running too hard. It was a downhill slope from there. I was hoping for a late race caution, that was our only prayer at the end there. Overall we got a stage win and playoff points and that is something to be proud of. It stinks when you say we led 222 laps but not the right one.”
YOU GUYS HAVE GOTTEN GREAT RESULTS LATELY WITHOUT THE SPEED. TODAY YOU HAD SPEED. HOW MUCH ENCOURAGEMENT DOES THAT GIVE YOU AS WE HEAD TOWARDS THE PLAYOFFS? “It means we are executing really well throughout the race and able to get something out of a race when we don’t have a fast enough car. When you have days like today when you have a fast enough car you want to capitalize. We did as far as playoff points and a stage win but not enough at the end of the race. We need these ones to be race wins instead of just stage wins but I feel like we are starting to come into our own here and getting a little more solid and situated more in the top five than we have been. I am proud of that. We just have to keep that going.”
ARIC ALMIROLA, No. 10 Smithfield Ford Mustang — Finished 8th
“When the clouds came and the track cooled we kind of lost it. The first couple runs of the race we were so fast. We drove from 32nd up to the top-five. Our Smithfield Ford Mustang was really good on the long run. We took care of the tires really well and it did everything I needed it to do. As the pace picked up and the track cooled off I just couldn’t get the car to rotate like I needed it to and just couldn’t quite carry the speed those other cars could. It was a good day. We have had a rough month, so to come here and rebound and have a good run — we need a win, but to have a good run is a confidence booster.”
Campbell Marketing & Communications for Ford Performance
