Ford Performance NASCAR: Almirola and Stenhouse Talladega Media Availabilities

Ford Performance Notes and Quotes
Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series (MENCS)
Friday, October 11, 2019

EVENT: 1000Bulbs.com 500, Talladega Superspeedway

ARIC ALMIROLA, No. 10 Smithfield Racin’ for Bacon Ford Mustang – YOU HAD SOME NEWS WITH SMITHFIELD EARLIER THIS WEEK. “We announced our continuation of our partnership with Smithfield, so I’m excited about that. They’ve been a great partner of mine for eight years, going on nine years now, so I’m really proud of that relationship that we’ve built together and it’s been a lot of fun. I feel like I’m certainly part of the Smithfield family and they’ve been a fantastic partner. I’m excited to continue that relationship and continue to provide success on and off the race track for them.”

DO YOU FEEL YOU’VE GOTTEN EVERYTHING OUT OF THIS OPPORTUNITY AT SHR? “As a competitor you always strive for more. That’s just the nature of the beast. I think probably with your job you still want to accomplish and do more. Nobody is just satisfied with status quo, so I think that’s across the board for race car driver to journalist to anybody else. You always want to achieve and accomplish more. If not, then go find something else to do. But for me, I’ve been excited and happy with the results that we have achieved. Last year was a great year for us for it to be my first year with the company, have the success that we did, and to finish fifth in the point standings. That was really, really good and something that we were very excited about. And then obviously take that and we set the bar a little bit higher and then this year we haven’t achieved those similar results and we haven’t had the year that we had last year and that’s just part of this sport. You look at a seven-time champion that you would automatically say he’s gonna make the Playoffs and he didn’t. You look at Joey Logano a couple of years ago he missed the Playoffs and then turns around the next year and wins the championship, so there are a lot of ups and downs in this sport. Last year was a good year for us and then this year has been an OK year, but certainly not the year that we had hoped or wanted. But we’re looking forward. We’re gonna continue to strive for more success. That’s what we do as competitors and as just human beings. You want to continue to move the needle.”

ARE YOU SURPRISED YOU HAVEN’T WON MORE THAN ONCE? “I think it comes with time. I think it’s just part of it. It’s hard. If it was easy, everybody would do it. I think it’s not easy. There’s nothing given to you. You have to earn it, so I think for us as an organization, as a race team last year we were in position to win several races and we capitalized on one. This year, we quite honestly haven’t been in position to win as many races.”

BEFORE SMITHFIELD RENEWED WERE YOU WORRIED ABOUT KEEPING YOUR RIDE AND NOW THAT THEY HAVE DOES IT ADD MORE STABILITY? “Yeah, having a sponsor in this day and age is pretty critical, so, yeah, I think it’s extremely important to have the support and the backing. But I felt confident about my relationship with Tony and Gene and Brett and everybody at Stewart-Haas Racing. I never really felt concerned. I felt like they wanted me to be there. I wanted to be there, so it was just a matter of dotting all the I’s and crossing all the t’s, so we were able to get that done, which was nice. I think, for me personally, I have really enjoyed my time at Stewart-Haas Racing. They’ve been great to me and I’ve enjoyed getting in fast race cars and running up front and competing and making the Playoffs two years in a row and being one of those teams that’s consistent in a Playoff-contending team week in and week out.”

IS THERE A GAME PLAN FROM FORD OR SHR COMING INTO THIS RACE? WILL TEAM ALLIANCES BE A KEY FACTOR IN THIS RACE? “I think when the race comes you’ll see it before the race. You’ll see it in practice. It’s just the way that this type of racing has gone. There’s strength in numbers in the draft. You watch practice and you watch one car go out there by itself and it’s gonna go a lot slower than two cars together, and two cars is gonna go slower than four cars and four cars is gonna go slower than eight cars. It’s just the way the draft works, so there’s strength in numbers and getting everybody aligned and organized and willing and wanting to work together is the challenge. I think Ford in the past has done a great job at that. I can’t remember the exact number. You guys probably have all the stats and the data, but Ford for the last little while has dominated restrictor plate racing, and we’ve done that through collaboration and fast race cars, so we finally gave a couple up, but I still think that we have extremely fast superspeedway cars and if we do everything right and put ourselves in position and work together that we can take a Blue Oval to Victory Lane.”

HAVE YOU HAD A STRATEGY MEETING OR ANTICIPATE DOING THAT? “I anticipate we will. We typically do.”

WHAT DID YOU SEE FROM THE 2021 CAR FROM PICTURES YOU’VE SEEN OR THINGS YOU’VE HEARD? “I knew they were doing the test, but I haven’t heard any of the feedback, and I haven’t seen any of the pictures. I honestly can’t comment on it. I haven’t paid attention to any of that. I’ve just been focused on what we have going on and trying to close out the year strong. Surprisingly, I don’t spend a lot of time reading the news. Sorry, guys.”

IS THERE ANYTHING YOU WANT THAT CAR TO FEATURE? “I think the biggest thing as a race car driver is when you step into a race car you want to know that if you’re race car is faster than the car in front of you that you have the ability to drive up and pass it. From the time I was a kid racing go-karts through racing stock cars as a teenager that’s what makes racing exciting is when you have a faster car that you can go up there and pass the guy or girl that you were faster than. So I think that has been a little bit of a challenge and so I hope that car in 2021 will be better in that direction to where when you have a faster car and you’re running the person in front of you down by two-tenths or three-tenths a lap that when you get within a few car lengths of them that you can still maneuver your car and drive around them.”

CAN YOU DESCRIBE HOW THIS TRACK CHANGED IN THE SPRING FROM PREVIOUS TALLADEGA RACES? “It is important to have a good handling car at the restrictor plate races, but you have to have a fast car first. You can have a good handling car and it be slow and you just can’t make the moves and be as aggressive, but, at the same time, on the flip side of that, you can have a really fast car that’s really trimmed out that doesn’t drive very well, and when you have your hands full with the handling, you can’t put yourself in as vulnerable positions because your car just moves around a lot more and takes up more race track, so there is certainly a fine line and a balance between having your car trimmed out for speed and making sure that you get the car driving good because in order to be successful at these race tracks, you have to be aggressive, you have to make bold moves, you have to put your car in positions that are uncomfortable and if you’re gonna put yourself in an uncomfortable spot, you want your car to be driving good.”

DID YOU NOTICE HANDLING CAME INTO PLAY MORE LAST TIME THAN THE PAST? “I honestly don’t remember. I don’t think so. I didn’t think so. I thought that it drove pretty easy, to be honest. I thought handling wasn’t much of an issue at Talladega, which is typical for what we see. Daytona, handling is certainly a little bit more of a factor, and then the night races usually when it cools down it’s not as big of a deal. It just depends. It’s very dependent on the tire that Goodyear brings. If it starts laying a lot of rubber down and you struggle to run on top of the rubber, cars start moving around, and then just how hot it is. If it’s 60 degrees, it’s a big difference from if it’s 85 degrees. That plays a key factor as well.”

GOING TO KANSAS FOR THE SECOND TIME WITH THIS PACKAGE. HOW HAS IT CHANGED? “I think as you see we started going back to these race tracks and I personally feel like the field and the gap continues to narrow. The teams get smarter going back to these race tracks for a second time and you start to see the competition continue to get closer and closer because everybody starts to hone in on what they need to be successful at that track. When we went there the first time with the brand new rules package there was a lot of guessing going on and now teams are starting to develop a notebook and some ideas on what they need to do at that specific race track to be successful, so I just feel like the competition continues to get closer and closer as we go back to these race tracks a second time.”

SO YOUR DEAL MATCHES YOUR DEAL THROUGH 2020? “I’ve talked to Brett and Tony and all of them and they just asked me not to talk about the terms of our contract. They said we typically don’t do that.”

WE’VE SEEN WRECKS AT THE FRONT OF THE FIELD NOW. WHY? “I think it comes from the runs coming faster than they used to come. We’re used to being able to block the runs because the runs didn’t come as fast. They were slower so you could anticipate the run and move to block it. Now, the runs come a lot faster and so if you are not very, very quick with your move, you end up slightly behind and then you get hooked in the bumper and the flip side of that is track position is so important in trying to stay up front and keep your track position and put yourself in position to win the race, you know that you need to be in the top four to six when it gets down to the end of the race, so you try to do everything you can to stay up front and by doing that you have to take risks, you have to try to defend your track position and by defending your track position sometimes you throw a late block and you cause a big wreck, and I think we’ve seen that.”

WHAT DOES YOUR PAST SUCCESS AT TALLADEGA MEAN FOR YOUR PREPARATION THIS WEEK? “I think it means that Smithfield might give away a million slices of bacon this week. I don’t know. Last year, that was a lot of fun. We have run really well at Daytona and Talladega. Last year was a lot of fun. We won and gave somebody, I think his name was Joe, and his family in Oklahoma free bacon for the rest of their life. So Smithfield has come back this year and upped the ante and they’re gonna give a million slices of bacon away to 10 lucky winners at Racing for Bacon Giveaway.com. That was a sponsor plug, by the way. Talladega has just been a good place for us and for me in particular. Even when I drove the 43 car Daytona and Talladega have been good to me, so I don’t know what it is. I don’t know why. I can’t put my finger on it, but something about it. I enjoy it. I know a lot of drivers come to these races and dread it, and I actually come here and I enjoy it. I like it. I think it’s fun to be an inch apart from 39 other drivers and going 200 miles an hour and it’s crazy and wild and I embrace it.”

DOES THIS PLACE RACE DIFFERENTLY IN THE PLAYOFFS? “I don’t know. I think it changes the dynamic for maybe a couple of drivers. I think a couple of drivers that feel like they have a decent points cushion they’re probably more likely to be conservative and maybe ride around at the back and try not to get in a wreck and try not to put themselves in position to have a 30th-place finish or a 38th-place finish by getting involved in a wreck, so probably changes for those guys. But I would say guys who are close to the cutoff line or out, or guys that already have won and locked in that don’t really have anything to lose, or guys that are not currently in the Playoffs, I don’t think it races any different for them. It’s really the same. You have to be aggressive and it’s gonna be crazy like it always is and you’re gonna have to do everything you can to have a fast race car that drives good and try and keep some track position all day.”

RICKY STENHOUSE JR., No. 17 Sunny D Ford Mustang – WHAT HAS BEEN THE INTEREST IN OTHER TEAMS IN YOU THE LAST COUPLE OF WEEKS AND COULD THIS WEEKEND PLAY A BIG ROLE IN YOUR FUTURE? “I don’t know if you can say my whole future depends on a race here at Talladega. You can easily win one. You can easily lose one, but us and my team right now are putting a lot of emphasis on this. I just want to get another win for a group of guys that I’ve worked with for a long time, and I know we’ve got a good shot at it. Brian and the guys always bring a really good car here. Jimmy has been working tirelessly on this and Doug always gives us great horsepower here to get the job done, so for us and the 17 team that’s what we’ve been focused on, that’s what I’ve been focused on. I let my team off the track, not at Roush, but agent-wise, kind of handle everything beyond that and what we’re gonna do for next year and the options and just try and figure that out. It’s not a quick process by any means. We’ve talked to different teams and just trying to wait and kind of see what direction we go, but, for me, obviously since the week of Charlotte it’s just trying to put solid weekends together. I thought we did a good job at the Roval for that being not a great track for us. Dover last weekend, we showed that we had decent speed at times. I felt like we kind of performed as well as we could, and so that was really kind of our main objective with how everything played out. We did the best we could I felt like. Here at Talladega I feel like I’m gonna give it all I’ve got and try to get another win for my guys. It’s the last shot that I get to put Sunny D in Victory Lane and I’ve got a great relationship with them obviously on the track, off the track. I hang out with them a lot, so it would be cool to get them a victory here this weekend.”

HOW DOES THE MANUFACTURER COOPERATION WORK AND CAN WE EXPECT MORE OF THAT THIS WEEKEND? “I think us at Ford have done a great job at that. I think we won seven, eight, nine in a row – whatever it was – and it was all working together. It was having some meetings together and just understand what the whole objective is for the day and that’s really the big thing – what’s the objective and what’s the best way to accomplish that? So I feel like us and the Ford teams were really on the front side of that and really working together and showing that it can pay off and then at times since then I feel like other manufacturers have done a good job. It makes it tough now trying to guess when to pit, when is the right time to pit, getting a draft from the cars that stayed out, what’s the fastest route to pit under green and get back out there. So that’s something they’ve continued to look at – teams, manufacturers, all together. It’s created a different dynamic a little bit. You can’t just get yourself in the outside lane and start leading the race and then all of a sudden need to get down to the bottom lane to pit, so there’s a lot of strategy that goes into it.”

WHAT’S IT LIKE INTERACTING WITH YOUR TEAM AND TEAMMATES WHEN YOU’RE MOVING ON NEXT YEAR? “Charlotte, I decided I was not gonna go. It probably wasn’t a good week for me to go to my competition meetings. Since then, I call and give them feedback and let them know how my race was going, and then also we have meetings on the weekend, so like last week at Dover I went to them and just still trying to gather all the information that I can to make our team better for that weekend, and then again turn around and doing it the next week. There’s definitely meetings I’m not allowed to be in anymore?”

WHAT KIND? “The way it worked at Roush is we have competition meetings, individual team meetings, and then we’d have a big competition meeting with the Front Row guys and everybody, and then after that it would be kind of an engineering-based meeting of what we’re working on, what’s coming down the pipeline, and that’s just things to keep us drivers engaged and focused on what we were working on, so those are the ones I can’t be in.”

DOES IT FEEL WEIRD NOT GOING? “No, I’ve got a lot more free time on Mondays.”

WHAT ABOUT KANSAS NEXT WEEK? “I think we’re definitely looking forward to going back to Kansas. We’ve always ran well there I felt like my rookie year we had a chance to win. We led 50 or 60 laps the first time we went, so it’s been a good race for us in the past. Earlier this year, being able to battle with the 9 and 88, take the lead there, it gives us some confidence that the package that we had was good, but it was still fresh in the season. So I feel like the package, team to team, has evolved a lot and what you need in your race car to be fast at Kansas will be different than what we had there in the spring. Brian feels good about what we’re taking to the race track. It will be different than what we had there in the spring and we’re gonna see if we can’t do a little bit better of a job. We didn’t really manage the end of that race very well and gave up definitely a top-five finish, but, all in all, we’re excited to get back there for sure.”

IS THIS THE MOST LIMITED YOU HAVE BEEN IN TERMS OF ABILITY TO DRIVE AND PASS CARS ON THE TRACK? “Restarts are definitely key at Dover. Dover has been a tough track to pass on in general for a little while, I feel like. This package, I would say, has made it a little more difficult. I did not get tight last week behind people. I was really loose, so my car got looser. I felt like if we could tighten it up, we would be able to run the top a little bit better. I felt like the 88 team did a really good job of getting their car set up to maneuver around the track and make passes other than just running the bottom, so I feel like they showed it could be done if you get everything right. I feel like every time a package is new when it continues to evolve and everybody gets their cars faster it always makes things a little bit more difficult to get the job done. I wouldn’t say every race track is harder to pass on. It’s definitely situation limited.”

The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of SpeedwayMedia.com

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