Unofficial Ford Performance Results:
2nd – Brad Keselowski
12th – Cody Ware
17th – Chris Buescher
18th – Corey LaJoie
23rd – Todd Gilliland
25th – Noah Gragson
30th – Chase Briscoe
32nd – Austin Cindric
33rd – Joey Logano
34th – Harrison Burton
35th – Ryan Preece
36th – Josh Berry
37th – Michael McDowell
39th – Ryan Blaney
AUSTIN CINDRIC, No. 2 Discount Tire Ford Mustang Dark Horse – IT LOOKED LIKE THE GUYS BEHIND YOU HAD A BIG RUN. ANYTHING AS THE LEAD CAR YOU CAN DO BESIDES JUST BRACE AND HOLD ON? “In that position the best thing you can do is be as predictable as possible, keep your car as straight as possible. The front of the pack got shuffled up from the 38 basically splitting the whole field, which definitely caused some congestion with guys getting out of lanes and obviously an off-center push from the 6 and that’s it for our race. We had an exceptionally fast race car. It was A-plus execution by everyone on the 2 car, so I’m proud of the effort but definitely a bummer to be that close to punching our ticket.”
WHAT HAPPENED? “I just got turned at the front of the field. Unfortunately, that’s how Daytona ended for us and I think what that says is we’ve got really fast race cars and great execution. As the leader, I was trying to be as predictable as possible as far as taking pushes and it’s just a real shame. I don’t really feel like doing a whole lot of complaining about what happened or whose fault it is, it doesn’t really matter. It puts us in a must-win situation for the Charlotte Road Course. We’ve brought some exceptionally fast race cars every single race of the playoffs and I cannot understate how proud I am of my race team and we’ll have to bring another one next week.”
ANY INDICATION IT WOULD GET THAT HECTIC AT THE END? “It usually does.”
BRAD KESELOWSKI, No. 6 BuildSubmarines.com Ford Mustang Dark Horse – WHAT MORE DID YOU NEED DOWN THE STRETCH? “He (Larson) gave me a good push down the frontstrech, but the 24 was able to really stick with the 47 there and just needed a tiny bit. It’s a good finish for us. We’ve been knocking on the door of these plate tracks. I hate that we didn’t bust through with a win, but I’m happy to be right there in contention.”
DID YOU THINK ABOUT GOING TO THE TOP WHEN YOU CLEARED THE 47 OFF TURN FOUR? “No, I knew they were gonna have a really big run and that the 24 was really tight to him and I was just gonna get split, so I felt like I made the right move, but there’s only so much you can do when you’re outnumbered.”
WHAT HAPPENED ON THE BACKSTRETCH ACCIDENT? “It was just an interesting sequence of events. The 38 car came. He was a slow car for whatever reason, I don’t know, and he stayed on the bottom and we had the Ford train pulling the bottom and when he did that it broke us all up and when we rubberbanded back together it just snapped. It’s a tough deal. I was getting pushed from behind and I ran into the 2 car and he spun out. It just wasn’t a good sequence of events for all of us.”
WHAT ABOUT THE FINAL RESTART? “I just needed a half a foot, I guess. I got a really good push from the 5 down the frontstretch, but just wasn’t quite enough.”
CHASE BRISCOE, No. 14 Rush Truck Centers Ford Mustang Dark Horse – “It’s not the day we wanted, just with the way everything went. I don’t know what the points are, but I’m sure it’s not good. This is one of those races where if you didn’t run top five or whatever, you’re probably gonna be in a must-win either way, so that probably makes it a little more clear now and puts it where it’s not on that bubble of, ‘well, should we go for points or should we just try to win the race.’ At least now I feel it’s pretty obvious, so a frustrating day. It felt like there at the end we were in position and then I don’t know what happened. We had all the Fords in line and thought we were gonna be really good and then the wreck happened.”
YOU WERE FIFTH IN THAT FORD TRAIN. WHAT HAPPENED TO CAUSE THE WRECK? “I don’t know. I was just shoving the 21 and I knew we were in the middle of the back straightaway and then it felt like everybody stopped. Surprisingly, we didn’t hit each other super hard and it felt like everybody was gonna be fine and we were gonna keep going straight and then all of a sudden they all started wrecking from each way. I haven’t seen it, but we’ll just go on to the next one.”
JOEY LOGANO, No. 22 Shell/Pennzoil Ford Mustang Dark Horse – YOU WERE GETTING PUSHED. HOW TOUGH IS IT TO GAUGE THE STRENGTH AND INTENSITY OF A RUN LIKE THAT AT THE END OF THESE RACES? “Everyone was just shoving each other. It’s what you expect coming down to the end of the race. It kind of felt like we were in such a good spot though with the 6, the 2, myself, the 21. I was not in the position to win the race where I was, but I felt like I was in a good enough spot to where I could get a top-five and if they started crossing each other up coming to the checkered I was on the bottom and things were gonna work fairly well for us. I actually thought the bottom was the safest place to be, but the 2 got sideways and there I was.”
WHAT WAS THE DAMAGE ON YOUR CAR? “There was plenty of damage there. I hit the inside wall pretty hard.”
WAS THAT JUST A PUSH GONE WRONG? “Yeah. I mean, I guess. Everyone just gets more aggressive at the end of the races. The 2 got out there a little bit more than what he had been and the 21 gave me a shove and transferred that to the 6. You can’t see what’s in front of you from there and he got to the 2 with a fair amount of steam there. It’s nobody’s fault. It’s not Brad’s fault. It’s not anybody’s fault. It’s just the product of the racing that we’ve got. Everyone is getting more and more aggressive as the laps wind down and it happens. It happens a lot.”
IT’S FUN UNTIL IT’S NOT? “I didn’t even have fun today. You can’t even do anything here. You just get stuck. You’re running four-wide and it looks cool, but you’re running half-throttle and then when you want to go and it’s time to go, everyone is just stuck two-wide, so there’s just not many moves you can make. You just keep trying to re-learn how to run on these superspeedways as it evolves, but the car’s got so much drag on it that you can’t make moves and make runs happen and cross people up. You’re committed to where you are in that line.”
RYAN BLANEY, No. 12 Menards/Pennzoil Ford Mustang Dark Horse – WAS IT JUST A SIMPLE MATTER OF A BAD PUSH AT THE WRONG TIME? “Yeah. I don’t know if he ever lifted and just drilled me from like three car lengths back. The worst possible spot you could do it, so it’s pretty dumb on his part and it figures that he gets away scot free per usual. That’s the end of the day.”
HOW DO YOU VIEW THE ROVAL NOW? “We’ll just see where we are at the end of the race on points and go from there.”
WHAT HAPPENED? “I thought Austin and I worked well together. I had a feeling that the 8 would pull out and help Chevy. He wasn’t gonna help me, obviously, so we got in the middle. I didn’t think it was terrible. We were probably still gonna run fifth or sixth, and then the 48 just drove straight through me in the tri-oval. He just wrecked the #$*W out of me. I don’t know what he’s thinking.”
YOU HAD A 28-POINT CUSHION. DO YOU THINK THAT WILL BE ENOUGH TO HAVE SOME LEEWAY AT THE ROVAL? “I have no idea. I don’t have good hope right now, to be honest with you. We didn’t get very good stage points and obviously we’re last, so we’ll just see where it is at the end of it.”
COULD YOU SEE THE 48 BEHIND YOU? WERE YOU THINKING HE WAS GOING TO HAVE SLOW DOWN BEFORE HE GOT TO YOU? “Yeah. I thought he would have more sense than that, but obviously he didn’t. Yeah, I see him coming and I see him hauling ass towards me and you kind of have to lift a little bit. You can’t just run wide-open through somebody in the tri-oval, but he did.”
DID YOU FEEL ANYTHING DIFFERENT IN THE CAR WITH THIS PACKAGE? “I don’t know. It still hurt when I wrecked.”
MICHAEL MCDOWELL, No. 34 Love’s Travel Stops Ford Mustang Dark Horse – WHERE WERE YOU IN ALL OF THAT? “I was just driving into it blind a little bit. I think we were sitting probably 12th or 13th, something like that, when it went down, so by the time I got there the road was already blocked. There wasn’t a lot of lanes available. It’s just unfortunate. We had a really fast Love’s Travel Stop Ford Mustang. We led a lot of laps and definitely had the speed in the car, it’s just that last pit cycle didn’t work out for us. You need to come out in that top five to protect yourself from this. I’m not sure where the wreck started, but you want to be somewhere near the top five to avoid it and we just weren’t. We were running right in the middle of the hornet’s nest when it happened.”
RYAN PREECE, No. 41 Wonder Bread Ford Mustang Dark Horse – “I think we knew something was gonna happen when we were catching the 38 and him staying on the bottom that it was gonna shuffle things up and it certainly did. It’s frustrating because I think all of us that were in the top 10 or so were in great position for the end of that race and giving Wonder Bread and everybody at Stewart-Haas Racing a great finish and ultimately it wasn’t our day, but certainly still frustrating.”
JOSH BERRY, No. 4 SunnyD Ford Mustang Dark Horse – WERE YOU TRYING TO LINK UP WITH THE FORD TRAIN? “Yeah, I thought we all worked together really well today. We pitted early there in that stage and it just didn’t work out. All of our teammates, I think we worked really well together today. Unfortunately, none of us made it through that wreck.”
Campbell Marketing and Communications PR
