Duel #1 Ford Finishing Results:
1st – Joey Logano
3rd – Ryan Blaney
4th – Chris Buescher
5th – Michael McDowell
6th – Kevin Harvick
8th – Zane Smith
9th – Harrison Burton
20th – Cody Ware
JOEY LOGANO, No. 22 Shell/Pennzoil Ford Mustang – VICTORY LANE INTERVIEW – “A little smarter from what I did last year, a lot of lessons learned. A total team effort. I said it out there on the start-finish line, it takes a total team effort to win out here on a superspeedway. You’ve got to execute the strategy correctly. You’ve got to execute everything on the racetrack. Coleman did an amazing job up there painting the picture of what was going on behind me, getting ready for the intense moment that was gonna happen on the last lap. You know it was gonna happen. It’s just staying calm and making the right blocks at the right time and not making the right blocks at the right time, and positioned ourselves to where I was gonna be in the front there at the end. Blaney helped me a lot there at the end, sticking with his Ford friend, instead of pushing that Toyota, so it worked out really well.”
WHAT DID YOU LEARN FOR SUNDAY? “It’s fast. We figured out that it’s fast. There’s always work to do. It’s never perfect, but not a bad race car. We’ll have something for the 500 obviously.”
WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO WIN AT DAYTONA? “Anytime you can win at Daytona, this is the coolest victory lane to pull into. Daytona. It doesn’t matter what race it is, if it’s a Duel, if it’s a tricycle race on the front straightaway, it doesn’t matter. Daytona is where you want to win. It’s special every time. It’s even more special Sunday, so this is a good start, for sure.”
KEVIN HARVICK No. 4 Busch Light Ford Mustang – “I thought we were gonna commit off of turn two and then he shot below me and that kind of hung me out there all by myself. From that point I was just treading water, but our Busch LIght Ford Mustang seemed to do all the things that I needed to do. The handling is fine. The Toyotas were able to do a couple things speed-wise that I really couldn’t do. I was more defensive than I was offensive, so I was kind of stuck with what I had there and then I got out by myself and I was really stuck. They did a good job. You never know how those races are gonna shake out at the end, but it was a good start.”
ZANE SMITH, No. 36 Wellcare Ford Mustang – “It’s such a weird feeling… this event is just so big. I wanted to walk out Sunday afternoon knowing I was going to start in the Daytona 500, and we accomplished that. That’s a huge shoutout to everyone. We all work together so well. Without my Ford teammates, I wouldn’t be here right now. I’m just so proud of everyone, and I’m excited for Sunday. The car has been great. We saw how fast all of us are together, and the big thing is on these superspeedways, how well we work together. That’s what I was mostly impressed by. I’m excited for what I can help out with on Sunday. I definitely want to help out my FRM teammates like Michael [McDowell] helped me out today. We’ll grind hard on Sunday.”
MICHAEL MCDOWELL, No. 34 Love’s Travel Stops Ford Mustang – “That was a good tune-up. Two objectives – improve our starting spot for the Daytona 500 and obviously help Zane Smith get his Wellcare Ford Mustang in was a big part of the goal for Sunday. I’m glad we were able to execute both. The Love’s Travel Stops Ford Mustang drove really good. We were able to catch the back of the pack and make some passes. Once I sort of knew that Zane was in a safe spot, I could kind of go after it a little bit, but I wanted to get to the white and not cause the caution that could potentially get him out. I’m proud of the night. Hopefully, Todd Gilliland will have a strong run and we’ll get all three ready to go.”
WHAT WAS IT LIKE AT THE END BALANCING AGGRESSION VS. KEEPING YOUR CAR SAFE? “You don’t want to tear up your Daytona 500 car. This is the best piece we have, so we don’t want to do that, but also with two to go I’m thinking, ‘Do I take the run?’ I’m just worried that if something happens you cause that caution and stack everybody up and the 36 doesn’t make it. It was good. We did what we needed to do.”
RYAN BLANEY, No. 12 Menards/Blue Def/Peak Ford Mustang – “It’s a weird spot to be in. You want to try to win and I thought we had a good shot when I pulled up around the 20 on the white. I got to the inside of the 4 and no one went with me. The 20 didn’t go with me. I thought he was gonna take the run and would have put us in a better spot to win. I made another run but just kind of got boxed in there and it didn’t work out. At least a Ford won and we got a good base point of what we need to work on for Sunday.”
CHRIS BUESCHER, No. 17 Fastenal Ford Mustang – “It was too calm to learn as much as we wanted, but the car is in one piece so we get to race this Fastenal Mustang that we unloaded first. I’m proud of everybody. That was really good single-car speed yesterday and ran really well in the draft tonight. We just didn’t get near as dicey as I was hoping and being able to move around or really chase some stuff. I wanted to learn more. I would have really loved to be in the same Duel as the boss man and be able to work with him, but it was still solid for us. It puts us in a good place to start the 500 and definitely have a little bit to work on with this thing, but we had a fast race car.”
HARRISON BURTON, No. 21 Motorcraft/DEX Imaging Ford Mustang – “We were playing the conservative game all day. We wanted to keep our 21 Motorcraft Ford Mustang in one piece. That was the biggest thing, really. The risk versus the reward for this race isn’t there unless you’re gonna win it. There’s no points or anything, so I tried to be smart and tried not to flip on the backstretch this year. I’m trying to learn from mistakes, but it was a decent day. We had a pretty ill-handling car just from qualifying. We tried to go for a fast qualifying lap and did that, but that kind of hurts you in this race. We’ll get the car driving better. I’ll be more aggressive on Sunday and be up front at the end of that thing.”
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