Ford Performance NASCAR: Post-Race Ford Daytona 500 Quotes

CLINT BOWYER, No. 14 Rush Truck Centers/Mobil 1 Ford Mustang -- “Hey, it is the Daytona 500, I had to go for it. I was a little bit frustrated with the lineup. I know I was ahead of the 22 when the caution came out but I guess it went back to the last scoring loop or something. It seemed like the lineup had trouble all night long. This just sucks, man. We had such a good Rush Truck Centers, Mobil 1 Ford Mustang. This is my best foot forward I have ever had here. We had a shot at it and I took it. I had a big run on the 34 and knew that I had to make quick work of him because in the mirror they were going three-wide and losing their minds so you knew that was going to come down on ya. So I decided to lose my mind too.”

JOEY LOGANO, No. 22 Shell/Pennzoil Ford Mustang -- “We had a really good Shell/Pennzoil Ford.  I actually felt like we had the car to beat and just couldn’t get there.  It’s so hard to get to the front.  Once I got to the front I felt like we had a really good car, but I had a good push from behind with the 47, which is pretty cool.  We’re both from Connecticut and we race quarter-midgets against each other, so I thought it was really neat to be working together in the Daytona 500.  How neat is that?  So it shows you that dreams can come true for little kids, so that was pretty cool.”

WALK US THROUGH THE LAST FEW LAPS?  “It was intense, as you would expect with the Daytona 500 on the line and I had a great push by the 47 of Ryan Preece, and I thought that was cool.  We grew up racing quarter-midgets against each other in Connecticut and it just shows that dreams can really come true.  I’m proud to be racing with him in the Daytona 500.  I think that’s super-cool.  I just didn’t get the push I needed at the right time.  I was able to get to second, but then just kind of got used up there at the end.”


YOU SPOKE WITH MICHAEL MCDOWELL.  WHAT WAS THAT CONVERSATION ABOUT?  “I was just kind of surprised by a decision, that’s all.”

YOU SAID YOU GOT HUNG OUT.  WERE YOU THINKING HE WOULD STICK WITH YOU?  “Yeah, I was just surprised by the situation and what happened.  Yeah, I thought that was gonna be the plan.  It’s part of it.  He’s racing too, I guess, and we can’t win these things alone.  We’ve proven that quite often, but we did what we could do.  It’s good momentum.  We carried the momentum from where we ended last year, so it’s good.”

DID HE HAVE AN EXPLANATION OF WHY HE HUNG YOU OUT?  “I didn’t really give him a chance to talk (laughing).”

MICHAEL MCDOWELL, No. 34 Love’s Travel Stops Ford Mustang -- ANYTHING DIFFERENT YOU COULD DO ON THE FINAL LAP?  “Yeah, there’s always things you could do differently.  We just didn’t have the speed to break the plain of 18 or the 11.  We were trying like heck, but so was everybody else.  When the 18 shot to the outside there he had a big run, a lot of momentum and I tried to go with him to hope that the 18 and the 11 would get together and maybe I’d sneak a win out of it.  It just didn’t work out.  I’m really proud of everybody with the Love’s Travel Stop Ford Mustang  It was fast.  We would have loved to pull into Victory Lane, but a top five is great.”


HOW DOES A P5 FOR THIS SMALL TEAM HELP YOU GUYS?  “I think for a small team it’s awesome.  There’s no doubt about it, but I’d be lying to you all if I told you I was over the moon excited.  I’ve been in the Cup Series over 10 years now.  I have one goal and one goal only and that’s to get a win.  I was close to getting there tonight or at least had a shot at it and wasn’t able to get it done at the end.  I’m happy with the finish.  I’m proud of the team, but that wasn’t the goal.”

HOW DO YOU CARRY THIS MOMENTUM TO ATLANTA?  “Atlanta is brand new for everybody.  It’s a new rule package.  Who knows?  It could be like Daytona and Talladega.  If it is, I’ll do really well because these are my best tracks, but Atlanta will be a fresh start for everybody and we’ll see who has the speed and how the cars race and move on from there.”


CAN YOU EXPLAIN GOING WITH KYLE AS OPPOSED TO JOEY?  JOEY FELT THE FORDS WOULD STICK TOGETHER.  “I would have loved to work with Joey, but he was moving left to right.  The 18 had a big run, a lot of momentum and Joey had a lot of damage.  The back of his car was completely smashed, no rear bumper, a parachute hanging out of it.  Joey wasn’t gonna win the race.  I wanted to put myself in the best spot to win the race and the Fords weren’t that friendly to me this weekend.”

DID YOU TALK WITH JOEY?  “I just told him that my team doesn’t pay me to push Joey Logano to a win.  That’s not what I get paid to do.  At 200 miles an hour I made a split-second decision on what was the fastest car and who had the best shot of winning the race and that’s where I went.”

BRAD KESELOWSKI, No. 2 Discount Tire Ford Mustang -- “A lot of wrecks.  We got a flat tire.  We got in a good spot with about 20 or so to go and I guess the 20 car ran out of fuel or something and the line failed and went all the way to the back.  And then we got caught up in two wrecks not of our making and just never can get anything to go our way on these deals.  I’m confident when they do we can win them.  We don’t have to have good luck, but we can’t have all the bad luck we’ve been having.”

ARIC ALMIROLA, No. 19 Smithfield Ford Mustang -- “Last year, taking the white flag with the lead with emotions high and feeling like you have a great shot to win was worse. Tonight we were about 10th or 12th and with 10 laps to go, a lot can play out, a lot can happen. It didn’t feel like we were as close right there. Still disappointing. You never wanna come down here and wreck out of the Daytona 500. You want a shot in the final closing laps. Unfortunately, we weren’t in the right position tonight.”

“The racing was actually pretty calm. We saw a lot of teamwork, a lot of people working together. The Gibbs cars were doing a good job together and all the Fords were doing a good job. Our Mustangs were fast but we just couldn’t get it going. We didn’t have quite what we had a Talladega but all in all, our cars were fast.”

RYAN BLANEY, No. 17 Menards/Peak Ford Mustang -- “We were racing the heck out of each other tonight. There wasn’t one bit of single-file racing. I thought it was a good race. It was exciting and it was a lot more intense to drive in tonight than what it has all of speedweeks. That is good. That is what everyone wanted to see. I thought our Mustang was really fast. We had a good run down the back and I think a couple guys were trying to push and got squirely and next thing I know I am in it. That stinks for Menards and Peak. I thought we had a good shot when we won that stage. We will just go on to Atlanta.”

“You get down to 30 or 25 laps to go and it becomes go time. You can’t make it from the back of 15th to the front in 5 laps. it takes time and momentum and things like that. Everyone just was wanting to go and you can’t blame ‘em. Everyone wants to win this race. That stuff just happens.”

PAUL MENARD, No. 21 Motorcraft Ford Mustang -- “I am not really sure what happened. I hooked the 95. I was trying to get to his outside and he was kind of in the middle and he went to the outside and was going back and forth. The 12 had a big run so I jumped up in front of him and hooked the 95. I am not sure what really happened there. I will take the blame for that one I guess. We had really fast Fords. I sped on pit road and got us behind. We had to play catch-up. We had a shot there at the end though.”

“It was time to go. It is frustrating that we have to put ourselves in that position to race this way. I had a big run with the 12 pushing and barely nicked the 95 and he got sideways. I tried backing off, but wrecked a lot of cars.”

MATT TIFFT, No. 36 Speedco Ford Mustang -- “It was definitely getting crazy on that restart. Everyone knew it was time to go with 10 to go. So you knew it was going to be crazy. We were stuck in the middle, three-wide. I don't know. I thought I saw the 95 or someone get turned up front and I just couldn’t see after that. I tried to get on the brakes but I couldn’t see anything and we were right in the middle of it. That is about it.”

DAVID RAGAN, No. 38 Select Blinds Ford Mustang -- “I just saw someone get turned in front of me a couple of rows. That is a product of speedway racing, pushing and being that aggressive at the end of a race. You have guys blocking and you have guys coming fast. That is just the way it is. Unfortunate that we were in the wrong place at the right time but we were up in the top-10, where we needed to be to try to win the race and sometimes things just don't fall your way.”

DANIEL SUAREZ, No. 41 Haas Automation Ford Mustang -- The car was fast.  We were running in the top 10 pretty much the whole day and challenged for the lead.  We gained some stage points.  Everything was going very well.  I mentioned on the radio many times that one big wreck was going to happen and I wanted to make sure I was going to stay out of it.  With 10 laps to go it’s not like you can just hang out and wait for it.  It’s time to go and unfortunately, we just got caught up in someone else’s mistake.”

 

Ron Fleshman

RIS NASCAR Editor.  Has been with RIS since the middle 90's. Writes on each of the three main series of NASCAR.

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Volume 2019, Issue 2, Posted 10:32 PM, 02.17.2019