Photo Credit: Noel Lanier
Ford Performance NASCAR Notes and Quotes
Coke Zero 400 – Daytona International Speedway
Friday, July 1, 2016
Aric Almirola, driver of the No. 43 Smithfield Ford Fusion, looks to return to victory lane at Daytona International Speedway, where he piloted the iconic Richard Petty Motorsports Fusion to victory in 2014. Almirola spoke with media members after the only practice session for Cup cars Friday afternoon.
ARIC ALMIROLA, No. 43 Smithfield Ford Fusion – TALK ABOUT HOW SPECIAL DAYTONA IS TO YOU, BEING A PLACE YOU HAVE WON AND YOUR HOME TRACK. “Daytona has always been a special place for me, long before I won my first Cup race here. When I was a kid, I grew up in Tampa, Florida, just two hours away. Coming here as a kid and watching races from the grandstands and we came over just about every summer. That was our vacation for the year. We would come over and spend a couple of days at Disney World across I-4 and then keep going on I-4 and come to Daytona and spend a couple days here and then return back to Tampa. That was our vacation for as many years as I could remember in the summer time when we were out of school. I have a lot of good memories of coming here and racing here and racing go karts at Memorial Stadium over off LPGA Boulevard. I have always spent a lot of time around the Daytona area and when I first started racing stock cars I raced down the road and New Smyrna Beach quite a bit. I have a lot of childhood memories of racing around this area and always dreamed about racing one time at Daytona and I have gotten to do way more than that and won my first Sprint Cup race here. It is a really special place.”
HOW IMPORTANT WOULD IT BE TO WIN HERE AGAIN THIS YEAR? “It would be huge with the year we are having. It has not been a typical year for us at Richard Petty Motorsports. We obviously have struggled this year to get our cars to drive good and to get speed in them and be competitive. From that standpoint it would be fantastic to turn our season around here at Daytona like we did in 2014. Even though in 2014 we were running a lot better. I think that would be a huge shot in the arm for our race team and our sponsors and everybody that puts so much work into our race cars. We just haven’t had the results to show for any of it. To come here this weekend and hope that we can hide out in the draft and not get caught up in the big one and make something happen at the end to try to win this race would be huge.”
WHAT IN THE FEBRUARY RACE HERE GIVES YOU ENCOURAGEMENT? “In February I had probably one of the best race cars I have ever had at Daytona or restrictor plate racing period. My car drafted well, handled well and for the most part of the race we ran in the top-seven. Then we had a penalty late in the race on pit road with an uncontrolled tire where we had to go to the back and lost all our track position. Still we drove from the back up to 12th in the last 15 laps of the race. I was really happy with the car we had down here in February all speedweeks long and I feel like that gives me a lot of encouragement going into this weekend’s race.”
WHAT WAS YOUR TAKEAWAY FROM THE DRIVERS MEETING THIS MORNING? “Just that our sport is in a really good spot. They have got a lot of entitlement sponsors looking at the sport very heavily and things are on the up. That was the basis of the meeting from my standpoint. We talked a lot about safety and different things, all very positive. I thought it was encouraging to sit in and listen to Brian (France) talk and Steve O’Donnell and Steve Phelps talk about the current state of our sport and give us insight to where things are at and where things are headed. It gets me excited about the future of our sport.”
DOES IT FEEL LIKE YOU HAVE TAKEN A STEP BACK THIS YEAR? “Absolutely. I think it would be naive to say anything different. It has been a struggle this year for us. Coming off a season where we did make the Chase in 2014 and then 2015 running very strong, very consistent and just barely missing the Chase but finishing as the first car out of the Chase in points, 17th. It was something we could hang our hat on and feel proud about and this year we haven’t found anything to be proud about. The first couple races this season were pretty good for us but then after that we just have not executed, we have not had good race cars, we have not done things right on pit road. Everything that could go wrong has gone wrong. We have had engine failures, part failures, track bar motors breaking and winding themselves up. You name it, we have had it happen to us this year. It has just been one of those years. Hopefully at any moment here we are going to turn this thing around.”
WHAT KIND OF CHALLENGES DO TEAMS IN GENERAL FACE IN THIS RACE AS OPPOSED TO THE 500? “I think the obvious challenge is that it is a lot hotter this time of year than it is in February. That poses a challenge on its own. The cars typically don’t handle as good when we come down here in July. When they don’t handle as good you have to play with the throttle a little more inside the race car and when that happens it is a lot harder to keep up in the draft. Handling, we don’t talk about handling typically at restrictor plate races but the July race in Daytona is the one that we typically talk about it the most. That is just because of the conditions, the weather conditions, and that is probably the biggest challenge. Being 100 miles shorter I don’t think really matters. It could be 300 miles shorter and get the same results at the end. We will be three-wide running into each other trying to figure out how to win the race.”
DO YOU FEEL LIKE THREE DAYS DOWN HERE IS TOO MUCH? DO YOU FEEL YOU COULD PRACTICE AND QUALIFY ONE DAY AND RACE THE NEXT AND BE FINE? “Yeah, we are going to see that today. We practiced this morning at 9:45 and we are going to qualify this afternoon and race tomorrow night. I think it is possible. It would give the guys a little more time at home with their families and things like that. I am up for that but it isn’t my decision. Nobody asked me. You are asking me, so yeah. If you are asking me to vote, I would vote for another day at home for sure.”
HOW DO YOU THINK THE FANS MIGHT FEEL ABOUT THAT SINCE THEY TYPICALLY COME AND SPEND A THREE-DAY WEEKEND? “I don’t know how the fans feel about it because I didn’t ask the fans. But, how many of them were here yesterday? I don’t know. That would be a track discussion and a NASCAR discussion. Chris asked me what my thoughts were and my thoughts are I would love to have another day at home. We do this 38 weeks a year and spend four days out of a week typically on the road, so yeah, if I can steal one more day at home with my family I will take it.”
COULD THEY HAVE CANCELED PRACTICE COMPLETELY TODAY OR DID YOU LEARN SOMETHING? “I don’t know that we learned anything other than we didn’t have any oil leaks and everything worked properly and my car drove similar to how it drove in February and I was happy with it. I think we learned that. I think it is important to get some laps on the race track. We need to make sure – the last thing you want to do is not have practice and go start the race and three or four laps in you burn up a gear or have a part failure or something like that that you could have identified in practice. That being said, I think it is important to get some laps on the track. Is it absolutely necessary? No, but I do like the fact that we do get some practice.”
