Ford Notes and Quotes
Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series (MENCS)
Coke Zero Sugar 400 (Daytona International Speedway; Daytona Beach, FL)
Saturday, July 7, 2018
Ford Finishing Results:
7th – Matt DiBenedetto
15th – David Ragan
17th – Ricky Stenhouse Jr.
19th – Kevin Harvick
20th – Trevor Bayne
22nd – Clint Bowyer
26th – Michael McDowell
27th – Aric Almirola
28th – Paul Menard
36th – Brad Keselowski
37th – Kurt Busch
39th – Joey Logano
40th – Ryan Blaney
KURT BUSCH, No. 41 Monster Energy/Haas Automation Ford Fusion –
Finishing Position: Involved in accident on Lap 54, Finished 37th
“I was running in the high lane and I just have to giggle, there’s no safe spot. I thought being in the top two or three is pretty safe, but we just got clipped from behind. Usually, there’s that danger zone that everybody knows about from third to 12th and we didn’t get strung out enough to get away from some of the action. It’s a bummer night for Monster Energy Ford. It was fast. We put her on the bottom at the end of stage one to gain some points, but now we’ve got nothing. We were just in the wrong place at the wrong time, but I do have to giggle. There’s no safe spot out there.”
BRAD KESELOWSKI, No. 2 Miller Lite Ford Fusion –
Finishing Position: Involved in accident on Lap 54, Finished 36th
“Ricky was doing the best he could to give me a good push and had a great run to take the lead and the car in front of me just threw a late, bad block. I made the mistake of lifting instead of just driving through him and that’s my fault. I know better than that. I’ve got to wreck more people and then they’ll stop blocking me late and behind like that. That’s my fault. I’ll take the credit for my team and we’ll go to Talladega and we’ll wreck everybody that throws a bad block like that.”
JOEY LOGANO, No. 22 Shell/Pennzoil Ford Fusion –
Finishing Position: Involved in accident on Lap 54, Finished 39th
“It looks like they crashed a lot of cars. I was in the middle of it and I got hit from every corner really quick and it just seemed like they kept coming. I was like, ‘Stop, everyone.’ It was just so hard to stop when you’re going so fast out there, but it’s part of the game here. Sometimes you’re in the half of the field that finishes and sometimes you’re in half of the field that doesn’t finish it and we were in the bad 50 percent this time. That’s part of the game and we’ll come back to Talladega at the next superspeedway and hopefully do what we did there in the spring and get our Shell/Pennzoil Ford in Victory Lane.”
RYAN BLANEY, No. 12 BODYARMOR Ford Fusion
Finishing Position: Involved in accident on Lap 54, Finished 40th
“I don’t know what happened. By the time I looked up and started checking up I was already in it. I haven’t seen the replay, so I can’t really talk about it. It’s just one of those deals. When you come here everyone is really close and racing hard and sometimes you’re the bug as opposed to the windshield.”
“That’s just the way it goes sometimes. You hate it, but that’s just the way sometimes this race goes. I thought our car was really fast. We just had to kind of work our way back up through there, but we don’t get the chance now. I hate it for BODYARMOR. It’s their first primary race and we really wanted to show something for them and we’ll never get the chance to do that.”
Ford Notes and Quotes
Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series (MENCS)
Coke Zero Sugar 400 (Daytona International Speedway; Daytona Beach, FL)
Saturday, July 7, 2018
Page 2
RICKY STENHOUSE JR., No. 17 Fifth Third Bank Ford Fusion –
Finishing Position: 17th
“I was really bummed. The first one, the 24 blocked the 2 and from where I was sitting I thought we were gonna get to the inside of him, so I wasn’t really expecting him to check up that quick. The second one with the 18, I was just too aggressive trying to get to his left-rear, trying to get back to the lead and back out front where our Fifth Third Ford was really dominant. We definitely brought, I feel like, the best car here in the field. Winning two stages was nice, but obviously we wanted to win at the end and it’s a bummer we basically crashed all of our teammates out of it. It was kind of tough after that and it all came back to get me with the damage from the 42, which was probably a wreck I caused, cut a tire down in front of us. A bummer of a night. Congrats to Erik on his first win. That’s pretty cool, but I felt like there for most of the race we had the best shot at it.”
WILL YOU HAVE TO SMOOTH THINGS OVER WITH ANYBODY? “No, it’s aggressive speedway racing. We needed to win to get in the Playoffs, so it is what it is.”
WAS THAT FUN OR FRUSTRATING? “It was fun for a while. I was frustrated with myself causing crashes like that. You don’t ever really want to do that. For us, my car was a lot of fun to drive. Everybody else had a lot of handling issues and my car drove really good and had really good speed, so hat’s off to Jimmy Fennig and those guys and Doug Yates. We just didn’t finish it off.”
KESELOWSKI FELT BYRON BLOCKED HIM. “Yeah, I thought he blocked him, but I did that here in February and threw an aggressive block down the back straightaway that in turn caused a big crash like that too. I can see it from Byron’s side and from my side I was a little frustrated he threw the block, but then again I can’t be too mad because I felt like I did that in February.”
WHY SO MANY WRECKS IN THE FRONT TONIGHT AND IN FEBRUARY? “You try to be so aggressive to stay up front. It’s hard to get your track position and keep the lead and to win these races you really need to be the leader to win the stages and really kind of control the field and I felt like when I was in the front I could kind of control the field and make them do what I wanted them to do. That’s why everybody was so aggressive trying to get to the front.”
KEVIN HARVICK, No. 4 Jimmy John’s Kickin’ Ranch Ford Fusion –
Finishing Position: Involved in an accident in Overtime, Finished 19th
“The night was crazy. The restart was really poorly executed and then teammates wound up side-by-side again trying to get everything situated and we crashed into each other. I just hate it for all my Jimmy John’s guys. I don’t really know what I could have done any different on the last restart.”
WAS IT ANY CRAZIER THAN NORMAL? “No, these restrictor plate races when you get to this time of year they turn into a mess every time.”
Ford Notes and Quotes
Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series (MENCS)
Coke Zero Sugar 400 (Daytona International Speedway; Daytona Beach, FL)
Saturday, July 7, 2018
Page 3
MATT DIBENEDETTO, No. 32 Zynga Poker Ford Fusion –
Finishing Position: 7th
“I guess that was probably one of the craziest races I’ve ever taken part in. I’m glad we survived and we seem to always position ourselves in a spot to be up front and competing for the win at the end of these speedway races at Daytona quite often. We’ve got that down pat and I’m really, really glad we got a good run for Zynga Poker. They’re a huge part of our team. They’ve stepped up and helped us a ton this year, so I’m pretty proud of that.”
WHAT WAS YOUR PLAN ON THE LAST RESTART? “I got a good restart and I shoved the heck out of the 95 in front of me and pushed the bottom lane big-time, so they could get a good run and we could get going. And then after that I shoved the heck out of them I kind of stalled out a little bit just because every corner on the race car has some sort of damage. We weren’t the most aerodynamic piece in the world, but we positioned ourselves right and on the superspeedways it’s kind of a time for me to be able to shine a little bit and run better than others, so I did all I could – position myself right, so we could have a good run. This helps with our sponsor situation, but the last restart was interesting.”
WHAT CLICKS FOR YOU HERE AT RESTRICTOR PLATE TRACKS? “It’s just an opportunity where it evens everybody out a little bit, so we can position ourselves right and then be there at the end and the big pack evens out a lot of things, so we can have a good run here.”
MICHAEL MCDOWELL, No. 34 K-LOVE Ford Fusion –
Finishing Position: Involved in accident on lap 156; Finished 26th
“It’s just plate racing. We lost a little bit of track position and that just put us in the back there and everybody is fighting hard for the same real estate at the end. But I’m really proud of everyone at Front Row Motorsports because we had a really fast car. I was able to push Ricky to both the first stage and second stage wins and finished second in the second stage. We overcame a lot and got within a few laps of being in position and just didn’t execute.”
DAVID RAGAN, No. 38 Shriner’s Hospital For Children Ford Fusion –
Finishing Position: 15th
“I felt like we were involved in about all the wrecks out there. It was a long night, but I can’t say enough about our pit crew. They just never gave up and kept fighting and to come out of here with a top 15 is really like a win. We very well could have been in the garage with a 35th-place finish, but they kept working on the car and patching it up. We dodged the other wrecks, so I’m grateful for them and the Shriners for coming out and having some fun.”
