UNOFFICIAL FORD FINISHING RESULTS
2nd – Ryan Blaney
8th – Joey Logano
9th – Aric Almirola
11th – Kevin Harvick
12th – Austin Cindric
13th – Ryan Preece
17th – Chase Briscoe
21st – Chris Buescher
22nd – Michael McDowell
25th – Todd Gilliland
26th – Ryan Newman
28th – Brad Keselowski
33rd – JJ Yeley
36th – Harrison Burton
RYAN BLANEY, No. 12 Menards/Duracell Ford Mustang (Finished 2nd)
WAS THERE ANYTHING MORE YOU COULD DO AS YOU WERE TRYING TO CATCH CHRISTOPHER BELL? “We were trying. We just needed laps. The long run car was really good. I just couldn’t fire off for 10 laps or so. I think the track cooling off helped those guys. I think we were better in the hotter, slicker conditions when fire off speed didn’t matter as much and it fell off quicker. That played into our benefit. It got a little cooler at the end and we never really front the front end speed and they did. We ran out of laps a little bit. I am proud of the effort. It was a really good day, we just got beat a little bit there at the end.”
WALK US THROUGH THE INCIDENT ON PIT ROAD WITH LARSON. CAN YOU TELL US WHAT YOU SAY AND IF THE DAMAGE IMPACTED YOUR CAR? “I didn’t see anything. You guys watch it. All I know is I got hit in the bumper. I don’t think it hurt it at all. I didn’t even know what happened until I saw him in my mirror. I don’t look at that stuff.”
GOING TO MARTINSVILLE, HOW DO YOU FEEL ABOUT YOUR CHANCES? “I hope we can perform. We’ve had two good weeks in a row at Vegas and here. We have had solid weekends, so hopefully we can do it again next week. It is nice to come in here a decent chunk down and then go to Martinsville in the positive. We just have to perform. We have to run well.”
JUST TO CLARIFY, DID YOU HAVE ANY DAMAGE FROM THE BUMP FROM LARSON? “I have no idea. I really don’t know.”
CHRIS BUESCHER, No. 17 Fastenal Ford Mustang (Finished 21st)
A TOUGH DAY FOR YOU OUT THERE TODAY: “Yeah, that was a brutal day. We worked hard on this Fastenal Mustang and got it better. We started off the race really tight and went a lap down and didn’t have any opportunities to get that back. The cautions didn’t fall at the right time for us and about the time they would start the green flag cycles something would happen. We couldn’t quite catch the break we needed. We did find some good speed and I feel like on equal tires there at the end we would have been able to move up quite a bit. It just wasn’t the case. We had 10 laps or something on tires and had to finish out. We were still able to get to the last four or five cars that were on fresh tires, so I know we were a lot better than we had been and were making good progress, it was just too late. Too late in the day to make anything happen.”
YOU TALKED ABOUT BEING TIGHT IN PRACTICE, WAS IT SIMILAR FOR YOU TODAY? “Yeah, it was similar. We got a lot better for qualifying and then kind of know this place frees up once we get in the race and we were fully planning on it. It did free up on the tail end of the run, we just needed to get the front working earlier in the run to make some headway. We made some adjustments through the race and got the back underneath us for later. I was really able to run the top really well, by far the best I have run the top here, so I am really happy with that. We just didn’t have a chance to use it to actually make anything of it.”
WERE YOU SURPRISED WITH HOW MUCH YOU STRUGGLED? “Yeah, the first stage just got us. We got really way too tight to fire off and went a lap down early. We made good adjustments and got running in the right direction as far as speed goes. We were able to pace the leader once we got going and drive away and keep some track position in that sense but cautions just didn’t fall in the right place for us and we ended up not able to show anything all day. We finally got back on the lead lap with 30 to go but we had a fairly large tire deficit and we were still able to run up on the last few guys that had pitted for tires, so I knew we were improving, we just didn’t get to show it. We needed a caution with 20 to go and we would have been in a lot better shape.”
IT IS PRETTY OBVIOUS WHAT YOU NEED TO DO NEXT WEEK. HOW DO YOU FEEL ABOUT YOUR CHANCES AT MARTINSVILLE? “Yeah, it is a must-win. There is no other way around that one now. For us, I feel like we have brought really fast race cars to a lot of these tracks. We obviously needed some tweaks today and we did a good job during the race. Another short track and we have been good at them this year, so we need to go make that one trophy for us.”
ARIC ALMIROLA, No. 10 Smithfield Ford Mustang — (Finished 9th)
“We ended up with a solid top-10 today even after a mistake on pit road by me. We finally had something go our way with that caution that brought us back in the game. We found some speed in our Smithfield Ford Mustang today. We needed a top-10 as a team after the year we’ve had and to do it at Homestead is awesome. We never gave up today after coming back from 30th, to that penalty, and then back up again. We kept taking a swing at the balance all day and found something when it mattered. I love it here at Homestead and in my home state. Really excited to carry this momentum to Martinsville next weekend where we had a shot at a win and ran up front all day.”
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