AAA Texas 500 (Texas Motor Speedway)
NSCS Post Race Quotes
Sunday, November 3, 2013BRAD KESELOWSKI, No. 2 Miller Lite Ford Fusion (Finished 6th) – “We had an okay day. I thought we had decent speed at times and then we were leading at one point and the yellow flag came and we pitted and came out ninth which ended our shot of being able to derail Jimmie if there even was one. His car was so much faster than the field. It was pretty embarrassing to be quite honest. That is the way it goes and we will work to get better.”
WERE YOU TENTATIVE AT ALL KNOWING THERE WERE TIRE ISSUES FOR SOME TEAMS? “No, I didn’t see any with my team. I thought Goodyear brought a good tire.”
GREG BIFFLE, No. 16 3M Ford Fusion (Finished 12th) – “That was a tough one. The car wasn’t very good in traffic and it seemed like we missed maybe the front gaps a little bit on the start. We didn’t get it until it seemed like about 20 to go or 30 or 50 or whatever that last stop was. I don’t know. We just weren’t where we wanted to be. It was a tough day.”
ARIC ALMIROLA, No. 43 Farmland Ford Fusion (Finished 27th) – “It was just a tough day. We struggled with it and got it better and then we had a tire come apart there at the end which really ruined our day there. We have to regroup. I am really proud of my guys on the Farmland Fusion. They worked hard all day and I know they will have us ready to go again for Phoenix next week.”
CARL EDWARDS, No. 99 Aflac Ford Fusion – WHAT HAPPENED WITH THE ENGINE? “I think a valve spring broke and now they can’t get the spark plug out or anything so it beat up that cylinder pretty bad. We don’t usually have a lot of engine trouble. Doug Yates and the guys at Roush Yates Engines build great engines. I feel bad for everyone at Aflac. We had such a great weekend going. The car, during the middle part of the race we were struggling but we were starting to get it worked out. Aflac has coverage for just about everything but I don’t think they cover sick engines which is too bad. We will just go on to Phoenix and hopefully get another win there and go to Homestead. We gotta get in the top-10 so we can go to Vegas one way or another.”
DAVID RAGAN, No. 34 SaferCar.gov Ford – WHAT HAPPENED? “We ended up in the garage, which isn’t where wanted to be. Looks like another engine failure for the SaferCar.gov Ford. Our race car was really fast. We had passed a lot of cars and already led a lap, but it’s no good when you have engine trouble. Our engine department’s done a great job all year, but this is two weeks in a row and we can’t afford to have issues like that happen. Thanks to the Department of Transportation and SaferCar.gov and all the safe drivers out there. We appreciate it and we’ll go get ‘em next week.”
JOEY LOGANO POST RACE PRESS CONFERENCE
JOEY LOGANO, No. 22 AAA Ford Fusion (Finished 3rd) – “The guys on the AAA Fusion did a great job overnight looking at what Brad’s car had and what we went through in practice. There were times in practice I thought we were one of the fastest cars here and some time in practice I thought we were a 10-15th place car. We went through our notes and made sure we understood all the changes and put together a fast race car today. From the start of the race we started moving our way forward and I thought I was a second or third place car all night. I don’t know what number I came in to pit but a couple laps before that Dale got in front of me and I tried my heart out trying to pass him and we short filled the car and got a little too tight and couldn’t get to his outside or cross him up good underneath him. Overall we can’t be disappointed with a third place finish but the 48 car was just ridiculously fast.”
DID THE WIND AFFECT YOU TOWARD THE END OF THE RACE? THE FLAGS WERE STRAIGHT OUT AND IT REALLY GOT BLOWING. “If we start looking at the flags we are going to wreck a lot of stuff. I didn’t think this whole weekend was windy as it typically is here. You usually get those big gusts and have those ‘oh crap’ moments because it comes out of nowhere. I didn’t see this as being any more than normal. It was a pretty constant wind so you know what you are dealing with.”
