Joey Logano
June 28, 2014 – JOEY LOGANO – No. 22 Shell/Pennzoil Ford Fusion – PRESS CONFERENCE
“It’s gonna take quite a bit, that’s for sure. It’s such a tricky track and the way you get over the bumps and the way you hit the bumps, if you miss you line by a foot, you hit the bump the wrong way and the next thing you know you’re car is pointed the wrong direction, you’re loose or you’re tight. You may think you’ve got the thing pointed and you’re good to go off the corner and you hit a bump and the next thing you know you’re pointed the wrong way. I think it’s fun. My first few laps out here today in practice I was like, ‘This place is a lot of fun.’ We’re sliding around all over the place and working hard inside the race car, so that’s a lot of fun for us drivers. It’s a definite big challenge for the team. Is it raining now? It figures it would rain now. We won the first two sessions and I’m like, ‘Man, isn’t it gonna rain?’ And, of course, it doesn’t rain and we come in second. But we’ve got a good Shell/Pennzoil Ford. Obviously, Team Penske we’ve qualified well and made the final session at every race track besides Talladega, so we’re still proud that we’ve been able to do that at a lot of different types of race tracks. We’ve been close to getting a pole, but obviously we got one of them but we keep winning the wrong sessions. I kind of wish it was one session like it used to be because I would be in better shape right now.”
IS IT GETTING TO BE OLD HAT FOR YOU GUYS IN QUALIFYING?
“It’s really hard. It’s not easy, but the guys have been building us fast race cars. Our qualifying setups have obviously been pretty fast and I think we’ve been just as good in the race. We’ve run up front at a lot of different race tracks and I feel like recently we got off the path a little bit of what we’ve been doing. We’re trying to get better and trying to learn things for the Chase. I didn’t feel like it was the right direction and I feel like Todd was feeling the same way and we’ve come back to kind of what we’ve been doing since Kansas. We kind of came back there and we’ve had some speed here in practice and felt like we were a top five car in practice and I feel like we’ll be better than that in the race, and then obviously in qualifying we weren’t dominant in qualifying practice, but in qualifying here today we had a good car. Brad found some magic there the last run and found a couple tenths on me, but that was a really good lap we ran for sure.”
ARE YOU SURPRISED 17 QUALIYFING SESSIONS IN THAT MORE PEOPLE HAVEN’T GOTTEN BETTER? IT SEEMS THE PEOPLE THAT HAVE BEEN GOOD ARE STILL GOOD AND THE ONES STRUGGLING ARE STILL STRUGGLING.
Aric Almirola
“Obviously everyone’s cars are getting better and I think everyone is getting closer and the field is getting closer. I feel like we’ve just done a good job when it comes to strategy that goes into qualifying and what we’ve got to do and then our adjustments throughout qualifying. I feel like we’ve done a good job there and I feel like the 2 car gets faster every single session and they do that consistently. For the 22 car we’re faster to get going and then we don’t pick up as much and we always feel like we can get better as a team. We lean on each other a lot and when your teammate is doing a really good job qualifying and racing, it’s easier to lean on him and see what they’re doing and learn from each other.”
“I wouldn’t say we’re destroying them, I think a lot of it is in the cars to be honest with you. I feel like our cars have just been fast. Like I said, we keep trying different things and getting faster and doing different things. Like I said, the field is getting closer, but I do feel like in qualifying we’ve done good and I feel like at this race track with the bumps is just kind of where we need to be with it.”
ARIC ALMIROLA – No. 43 Eckrich Ford Fusion
“We haven’t had the speed we need. We can change the balance of the car – loose and tight – we just can’t go any faster. We’re frustrated, but it’s not from a lack of effort. All the guys on this Eckrich team will continue to work hard and we’ll try and get our Ford Fusion faster for tomorrow night.”
BRAD KESELOWSKI – No. 2 Miller Lite Ford Fusion – PRESS CONFERENCE –
Brad Keselowski
“We’re right where we want to be, starting first is a great start but it’s just that it’s just a start. You still have to execute a race and by no means a guarantee of a win, so we’ll want to go out there and earn that Saturday and even tonight. But we’re right where we want to be in that sense, so we’ll keep pushing forward and I’m just taking a second to reflect on the efforts of our team and how proud I am of that and without them we couldn’t be here. So I think it’s good. I’m really, really pleased and very, very excited for both races tonight and tomorrow.”
DO YOU PINCH YOURSELF WHEN IT COMES TO QUALIFYING WITH HOW DOMINANT YOU’VE BEEN?
“The last few years we’ve been awful in qualifying, so it’s the ying-yang, it’s bouncing back out and I’m proud of that. I’m really happy with the relationship Paul and I have. Qualifying well certainly boosts that, which is so important as you go throughout the season. It’s a huge morale booster for us and we’ve just got to make it count on race day. Qualifying is great, but at the end of the week or the start of the next week on Monday nobody talks about who qualified on the pole, they talk about who won the race so we want to be that guy and that’s the most important thing. In the meantime, we’re gonna enjoy the qualifying effort.”
DID YOU HAVE ANY ANTICIPATION OF HOW FAST YOU COULD RUN IN THE FINAL SEGMENT?
“I thought we were all gonna be a lot slower, so I was a little bit surprised by the speeds that we ran, but like I said Paul did a good job working on and adjusting the car and getting it to where I wanted it and they hit what I wanted.”
Ford Qualifying Results:
1st – Brad Keselowski
2nd – Joey Logano
21st – Ricky Stenhouse Jr.
22nd – Aric Almirola
23rd – Carl Edwards
24th – Greg Biffle
27th – Marcos Ambrose
36th – David Ragan
41st – David Gilliland
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