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Joey Logano Pilots Ford Fusion To 2015 Daytona 500 Win
robertlane posted a topic in Ford Performance
JOEY LOGANO PILOTS FUSION TO DAYTONA 500 WIN FORD SWEEPS DAYTONA SPEEDWEEKS WITH DAYTONA 500 VICTORY • Today’s win in the Daytona 500 was the 14th overall for Ford in “The Great American Race.” • Today’s Daytona 500 win is the first for Joey Logano. • This marks the first time Ford has swept all of NASCAR’s top three touring divisions in the same weekend since last August at Bristol Motor Speedway. • Ford remains undefeated at Daytona International Speedway in 2015, running its streak to four with today’s win. In addition to winning the NASCAR Camping World Truck and NASCAR XFINITY Series races this weekend, Ford also won the Rolex 24 Hours of Daytona last month. • In addition, this is the first time Ford has swept the NASCAR Camping World Truck, NASCAR XFINITY and NASCAR Sprint Cup Series races during Speedweeks. Ford Daytona 500 Race Winners (Owner): 1963 – Tiny Lund (Wood Brothers) 1965 – Fred Lorenzen (Holman-Moody) 1967 – Mario Andretti (Holman-Moody) 1969 – LeeRoy Yarbrough (Junior Johnson) 1978 – Bobby Allison (Bud Moore) 1985 – Bill Elliott (Harry Melling) 1987 – Bill Elliott (Harry Melling) 1992 – Davey Allison (Robert Yates) 1996 – Dale Jarrett (Robert Yates) 2000 – Dale Jarrett (Robert Yates) 2009 – Matt Kenseth (Jack Roush) 2011 – Trevor Bayne (Wood Brothers) 2012 – Matt Kenseth (Jack Roush) 2015 – Joey Logano (Roger Penske) Ford Finishing Order: 1st – Joey Logano 10th – Greg Biffle 11th – David Gilliland 12th – Sam Hornish Jr. 15th – Aric Almirola 17th – David Ragan 22nd – Cole Whitt 26th – Bobby Labonte 29th – Ricky Stenhouse Jr. 30th – Trevor Bayne 31st – Michael McDowell 39th – Ryan Blaney 41st – Brad Keselowski JOEY LOGANO – VICTORY LANE INTERVIEW “What an amazing moment. Wow. To win this race is just amazing. I have the best team on pit road for sure. These guys are awesome. My spotter did a great job giving me the information I need to get our front and stay out front before that last caution and be able to have a good restart there at the end. I knew I had the 15 behind me and Clint Bowyer was the best pusher I could find out there and was able to push me to the lead and I knew I wanted the outside to make sure he was behind me to work up there again.” WHAT ABOUT THE PASS FOR THE LEAD BEFORE THE LAST CAUTION AND THEN THE AGONY OF THE RED FLAG? “The agony is that you just – I keep looking at this trophy behind you and it is amazing. What a beauty. Now I lost my train of thought. I am sorry. I am so distracted right now. We got the push that got us out front and that was just Clint pushing hard. He wasn’t lifting before he got to my bumper, he was slamming into the back bumper and that is what we needed to get this Ford out front and here in victory lane.” COMING TO THE WHITE FLAG BEFORE THE CAUTION, YOU LOOK IN YOUR MIRROR, WHAT DO YOU SEE AND WHAT WAS THE PLAN TO STAY OUT FRONT? “You see cars, a lot of cars and I saw that we were single file the first three cars and I knew that was a good thing because it would be harder for them to form a run. Then I saw them crash in the mirror but I had a distance to go and I thought that was good because it was still going to be harder for them to catch up without as many cars in the pack. Then the caution came out anyway. That feeling of winning the Daytona 500, I can’t explain how cool this is. I said in an interview that this was our worst race track last year and we worked really hard to figure out how we could get better at it and all the hard work got us the win today.” AS A KID WHO DREAMED OF DOING THIS, HOW DOES THE REALITY FEEL? “It feels just like the way you dream it. This is better than Disney World in here!” BRAD KESELOWSKI – No. 2 Miller Lite Ford Fusion – ANY INDICATION YOU WERE HAVING A PROBLEM? “No. It just broke, but when it broke I knew it broke because it broke pretty big, which is a shame for the Miller Lite Ford. It is what it is. We had a good car. We were in position in the top five, top 10 and was just kind of counting down some laps and getting ready for a crazy finish, and just wanted to be there for it, but, unfortunately, that’s not gonna happen.” WHAT DOES IT FEEL LIKE WHEN SOMETHING LIKE THAT HAPPENS? “It scares the crap out of you to be honest. It’s a big explosion and you’re sitting right next to it, so it’s not fun. Once you get recovered from that, then all you can think about is you had a shot to win the race and that’s pretty cool.” RYAN BLANEY, No. 21 Motorcraft/Quick Lane Ford Fusion -- ANY HINT THE ENGINE WAS GOING TO GO? “Sometimes they’ll vibrate bad or lose a bunch of power a couple of laps before they go, but this one just went. ”THOUGHTS WHEN YOU HAD THE INCIDENT WITH THE WALL EARLY IN THE RACE. “I thought we were going to be OK. I couldn’t see how bad it was hurt. They said it was OK. It was a little tight, effecting the tow and aero and stuff. After they worked on it, it got better. I thought we were going to race good up there and we were until the engine blew up. They did a good job fixing it up after the 14 got into us. It’s just an unfortunate deal. I thought we were close enough to the front where that wouldn’t happen. He changed lanes and it got tight. It was tight in (turn) 4 all day. We weren’t running bad, especially after that incident with Tony. We just wanted to get to the last 25 laps and be in a good spot.” DID YOU CONSIDER THIS WAS POSSIBLE AFTER BRAD LOST HIS ENGINE? “For a second, I said to myself I hope no one else had a problem. And I hope no one else does after this.” OVERALL THOUGHTS ON FIRST DAYTONA 500 “We had a good showing. We started off great. Got some damage, worked our way back forward. It didn’t end like we wanted it to but we’ve got Vegas in a couple of weeks where I think we can really show what we can do.” SAM HORNISH JR. – No. 9 Twisted Tea Ford Fusion DID YOU THINK IT WAS GOING TO BE A LONG DAY WHEN YOU HAD A/C PROBLEMS EARLY? “Yeah, I did. I thought it was gonna be a long day regardless, but our Twisted Tea Ford Fusion was really good if we could just be in the right lane. We were able to work our way up there at the midway point or three-quarter point of the race and we had a restart with about 50 to go where I had a run and just decided better of it. That kind of hurt us for the whole rest of the race because we could never get to where we needed to be. Hats off to everybody at Richard Petty Motorsports for doing such a good job for me. I’m looking forward to keep going. I thank everybody at Roush Yates and Ford Performance. They gave us a car that had a lot of horsepower.” HOW ABOUT THE INTENSITY OF THE LAST 10 LAPS? “It was big-time, that’s for sure. I wanted to be up there a little bit further. I kept having to bide my time because even with 10 laps to go it’s really not time to go if you’re not in a position where you could win, so I thought it would be better to try to take care of the car and figured something was gonna happen, and I was really close to most all of it.” GREG BIFFLE – No. 16 Ortho Ford Fusion – “It’s a little disappointing because we want to win the Daytona 500. It just seemed like our car didn’t quite have the speed it needed. I really struggled to try and stay in line and handling was a huge issue. My car was so tight. I absolutely couldn’t stay in the gas around the corner, which I was completely shocked about that.” WERE YOU BOXED IN DOWN THE STRETCH? DID YOU HAVE ANYWHERE TO GO? “There was nothing I could do at the end because I was totally boxed in. We had a good run, but the 13 and the 15 split each other down there and we were dead.” DAVID GILLILAND No. 38 Love’s Travel Stops Ford Fusion – “I’m very proud of our effort with our Love’s Travel Stops Ford Fusion. Working with Donnie Wingo was a lot of fun today. I think we learned a lot throughout the race and he kept working on the car to where I felt like it needed to drive for us at the end of the race and we got it really good and were able to get up there and dice it out. I felt like it was really good. I’m really proud of the Front Row Motorsports team effort today. All three of our cars are in one piece, which I don’t think that’s ever happened. I’m proud of that and proud of our effort today.” CAN YOU DESCRIBE THE LAST 10 LAPS? “You can’t describe it from the seat. It’s just the most intense thing you’ve ever done or thought of doing times 10. Your teeth are gritted, you’re just hanging on to the wheel and it’s intense, but a lot of fun. I enjoy it and I thought it was great racing, a clean race. There weren’t a lot of accidents and everybody raced really hard, so I hope the fans enjoyed it.” DAVID RAGAN – No. 34 KFC Ford Fusion “We had a decent handling car and maybe lacked a little speed at times, but we were conservative at the beginning and just kind of rode around some. Maybe that hurt us a little right through the center part of the race, maybe I could have been a little more aggressive to try and stay in that top 15 or 20 because that’s where you’ve got to be. When everybody was three-by-three-by-three at the end of the race there just wasn’t any room to go, so I’m proud we were able to finish and not tear up anything with our KFC Ford. We had a lot of excitement down here during Speedweeks and unless you can win or run in the top five or six you want a car in one piece, so we’ll tune on it and get ready for Talladega. I’m proud of our Front Row Motorsports team. I had a lot of fun and we’ll just look at our strategy a little different for next time.” COLE WHITT, No. 35 Speed Stick GEAR Ford -- “Our Speed Stick GEAR Ford wasn’t perfect, but it was good enough to do what we needed to. Our car just seemed to stall out when we’d get 10th or 13th in line. Sometimes the handling was part of that, but I think we got the handling figured out towards the end. We just tried to be smooth and start the season off with some good points. That was our goal, and I think we came out pretty good for the day.” -
JOEY LOGANO CONTINUES FUSION ROLL BY WINNING ATLANTA SPRINT CUP POLE Ford Qualifying Results: 1st – Joey Logano 8th – Sam Hornish Jr. 12th – Brad Keselowski 19th – Greg Biffle 20th – Ricky Stenhouse Jr. 23rd – Aric Almirola 24th – Michael McDowell 26th – David Gilliland 28th – Joe Nemechek 29th – Trevor Bayne Blue Oval Forums – POLE-WINNING PRESS CONFERENCE – “Hopefully, we’ll finish where we start. It’s been an amazing few weeks if you think about the Daytona 500 and everything that comes along with that, and then coming down here to Atlanta and starting first is special, especially for me here at this race track. I remember sitting in the corner and watching drivers up here talking about their qualifying run and racing Legends cars out front here for years, so there are a lot of memories here. You guys see the picture over there when you walk in with David and Reed when were young and racing here. Obviously, anything to be in victory lane here is a very special place for me. I don’t know what’s going on lately. Everything is going well and we’re just trying to keep the old train rolling here. It’s going great and we’ll see what happens on Sunday.” HOW CONFIDENT WERE YOU IN THAT FINAL ROUND OF QUALIFYING? “I felt like we definitely left some out in the second round. The first round we went out and the car was money. It felt perfect. I told Todd, ‘It’s good. I don’t know what to tell you.’ That’s special because you don’t get those cars very often, so we didn’t touch it and we got a little bit too loose. I had to lift off of two on the second run, so we gave up some speed there and were still second. I said, ‘OK, as long as we tighten this thing up and I run it just as hard, hopefully we can win the pole.’ I felt confident that my car could do it, I just had to hit the line just right. You’re going so fast around here that if you hit the bump just the wrong way it will jerk your car up a lane and it’s over, it will make your car looser. If you overcorrect just a little bit, you lose the yaw in your car and you’re up the race track. It’s a fast, technical race track, which is a big challenge because I remember the first time I came here I qualified 42nd, and was completely confused on what to do. I actually told Todd, ‘This isn’t a place that we qualify very well,’ and we haven’t in the past before. Once again, this is one of those tracks we focused the whole time in practice on qualifying trim today. We never came out of qualifying trim and focused on trying to make speed with our race car and it paid off once again. As long as we keep working hard, we’re seeing results.” WERE YOU SURPRISED TO RUN THAT KIND OF LAP ON THOSE TIRES ON A TRACK THAT IS SO ABRASSIVE? “Yes and no. Our first run today in practice we went faster on our second run on scuffs, so I knew there was grip that stays in the tires for at least two runs. I didn’t know about the third run, but apparently a third run also, and the track temperature obviously came down. It’s really cold out there, so I think with the track temp coming down and tires, for some reason, they hold some decent speed in them still. It’s probably right at the limit, though. Probably the next run after this we probably would take a pretty big jump down on lap times. I’m a little bit surprised, but maybe not that much.” YOU WERE ONE OF THE LAST ONES TO GET THROUGH INSPECTION. WERE YOU NERVOUS? “We drew 47th on the draw, which is where you go through tech for qualifying and obviously where you line up on pit road. So we only went through it once. That was our original time, so without that 20-minute delay we would have been late getting out there, and if we didn’t make it through the first round in tech, we wouldn’t have qualified. We would have been in the same boat as everybody else. I think you’ve got to be able to have the opportunity to go through there twice. I’m sure we’ve learned from the experience and we’re gonna change something. Obviously, this is not acceptable. I’m sure we’ll make the right decisions moving forward to make sure it doesn’t happen again, but it is scary. A lot of times when you roll through the laser platform, and especially looking at it now and saying, if you didn’t make it through, you wouldn’t have even qualified. That’s scary, especially for the go or go-home cars. Imagine you’ve got to go and you don’t even get to go. That’s a tough situation. I’m sure we’ll make the right decisions to fix that and we’ll move on.” DOES THIS NEW PACKAGE PLAY INTO YOUR DRIVING STYLE A BIT BETTER THAN BEFORE? “Maybe, I don’t know. It seems like it. It is more towards an XFINITY car. You’ve got less horsepower and less downforce. We’re going towards that direction, so it does drive similar to that after being in the XFINITY car today also. So directionally it could be a good thing for me. Obviously, this is the first time we’ve been on the race track with this new package. Not only is there less downforce, but the aero shift towards the front percentage-wise is a big change for everyone to get used to and understand what they need setup-wise and chassis-wise to fix that and overcome the percentage change to the front. I think we need to see what happens in the race, but it does take a little bit of a different style, but I think as the tires wear and the track temp comes up a little bit I think you’ll get closer and closer back to the old car. I think there’s more change now because the track temps at 40 degrees out there and we’ve got less horsepower, so the speeds in the corners are way up. I think as temperatures come up and tires wear out, I think it will get more close to what we’re used to. And we’re also used to being here when it’s 90 degrees out. There is just a lot of change being here right now.” WHAT DO YOU THINK OF DAVID RAGAN’S OPPORTUNITY WITH THE 18 CAR AND DO YOU SEE SOME SIMILARITIES IN HIS AND YOUR PATH IN NASCAR? “Yeah, for sure. David and I grew up racing together, so when I heard that he was in the 18 car I was pretty excited about it. I sent him a text and congratulated him because that’s an amazing opportunity. That’s a second chance right there, and to see him in practice today. He was third on the board for a while and I was like, ‘Wow.’ He was in front of me for a little bit and I was like, ‘Holy cow,’ because all he apparently needed was a car. You can’t expect him to just jump in this thing and go. You’ve got to get used to the team. There’s a lot of learning curve ahead of him with a new team like that, but it was cool to see him up there running fast in that car. I’m rooting him on. I don’t want him to beat me, but I’m rooting him on out there because we’re obviously friends and grew up together and it’s kind of cool to see him get a shot like that again.” WHAT HAPPENED ON LETTERMAN WITH THE ‘TON’ THING? “You’re a jerk (laughing). I thought it was like a figure of speech, like a ton. Like, ‘Oh, it weighs a ton,’ but whatever. I get it. I know. OK (laughing).” YOU’VE HEARD A LOT ABOUT IT? “Oh yeah, you’re not the first one (laughing). I get it from everyone, believe me. I’ll never let that one go. Of course, it was the biggest thing we did the whole time, so beautiful (laughing).” SAM HORNISH JR. – No. 9 Medallion Bank Ford Fusion – “This is a great way to start this portion of the season where we have a little bit more of an opportunity. I said at Daytona that we just missed a little bit and got going a little bit too early. This week, we just kind of let it come to us for what we had in practice this morning. We felt like our Ford Fusion was really good yesterday over the long run, but trying to do short run stuff we didn’t have the speed. I felt like it was gonna be much better today and then the car wouldn’t turn this morning. For everybody to regroup and go to work on the car and to find some changes that allowed us to get to the last group and qualify eighth, it’s not a pole but it’s pretty good. I feel like we’ve got a lot to do, but a Ford got the pole so that’s good. I’m really happy with the Medallion Bank Ford Fusion and everybody at Richard Petty Motorsports.” GREG BIFFLE – No. 16 Ortho Ford Fusion – “These cars seem really sensitive, so I’m guessing if you have it just perfect you can get one good lap out of it. That’s sort of the way it feels to me so far, but Atlanta is always a difficult place to judge off of. I think I’ll have a better idea after next week and Phoenix to judge where we’re at overall. This is a difficult race track and it’s always been a little difficult for us the last few years, but we’ll keep working on it.” MICHAEL MCDOWELL – No. 95 Thrivent Financial Ford Fusion – “I guess that was the race today was to get through inspection. Everybody at Leavine Family Racing, we do a really good job preparing and we were able to race through the tech line. It’s unfortunate for a lot of people, I realize that, but it was a good qualifying session for us. We learned a lot. We had a little less pressure because of the situation, so we could be a little more aggressive and try a few things. We were able to make it to round two and worked on it a little bit more and it’s good that we did because it will help us the next time we come back here.”
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Ford, Longano, Penske win 2015 Daytona 500
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If you have seen it before, mods please feel free to kill this thread. I am not exactly up on current news. Turns out Brent Dewar loves his Fusion. Turns out it is the COO anyway.Oops. Can a nice mod fix my thread title, please? -
Rumors abound that today Dodge will announce they are not returning to NASCAR at the end of this season. Stay tuned....
