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Ford qualifying results:
1st—Ryan Preece
3rd—Aric Almirola
4th – Hunt Briscoe
7th—Kevin Harvick
10.—Chris Busher
13.—Todd Gilliland
15th—Joey Logano
20th—Michael McDowell
21st—Brad Keselowski
25th—Austin Cindric
31st—Ryan Blaney
32nd—Harrison Burton
33.—Zane Smith
36.—JJ Yeley
RYAN PREECE RECEIVES FIRST NASCAR CUP SERIES POLE
- Stewart-Haas Racing’s Ryan Preece clinched his maiden NASCAR Series pole today at Martinsville Speedway.
- That gives Ford a win of all three poles this weekend after Zane Smith won the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series pole and Cole Custer took the top spot in the NASCAR Xfinity Series yesterday.
- Overall, Ford will have five drivers starting in the top 10 as Aric Almirola (3rd), Chase Briscoe (4th), Kevin Harvick (7th) and Chris Buescher (10th) join Preece at the top.
RYAN PREECE, #41 HaasTooling.com Ford Mustang – “A lot of anticipation for tomorrow. As a racer you want to come here, you want to compete, you want to win races and I know my team is capable of that. I know I’m capable of this. I know my crew chief is capable of this. It really just tried to put everything together and get the finishes you think you deserve. It’s nice not to start at the back for a week. We have such a fast Ford Mustang from HaasTooling.com and I’m really looking forward to tomorrow.”
HOW DID THE CAR FEEL IN PRACTICE ON A LONG DRIVE? “Honestly, we’ve made adjustments since we started and since we got here. We weren’t really happy with it when we started training and every adjustment Chad and this team made just made it better and better. I’m pretty pumped and looking forward to 400 tomorrow.”
CHASE BRISCOE, No. 14 HighPoint.com Ford Mustang – “I thought I screwed up in the second round, honestly. I felt like I had a really good shot on the bar and I was just trying to get a little too much. It’s at my expense but overall a really good start to the weekend for the company as a whole to have all four cars in the top 10 is something we haven’t been able to say for a long time. We know we have to capitalize on the short circuits and I think it’s a great start to the weekend. Track position will be huge for us. I don’t know what our car will be like in the long run. In the short term I knew it was going to be pretty good but until we start racing tomorrow it’s going to be really hard to say what we have but so far I’m happy. I’m surprised how well my hand held up so I’m looking forward to tomorrow.”
RYAN PREECE POLE WINNING PRESS CONFERENCE
RYAN PREECE – #41 HaasTooling.com Ford Mustang – WALK US ON YOUR LAP? “On the first lap, when I got over the start/finish line and Andy said it was 20:12, I knew it wasn’t enough for pole. I struggled loosely on the first lap breaking in and riding, so I grabbed a fair amount of front bias at the start into one and it just helped that it stayed and did everything I wanted. When we crossed the line and did that .90, I thought I made good on my word to Chad that it would take a .90 to get the bar, although I don’t think it did.
ALL SHR WERE STRONG TODAY. WHAT DOES THAT MEAN? “I think you all see how important track position really is these days and when you have control of the race or track position you can’t give it up because it’s so difficult to overtake. From a company perspective this certainly makes us all very optimistic about tomorrow and we can be smart and we can all have good days but it certainly shows that our short track program is really good. I know our Superspeedway stuff was extremely good too, so we’ll just keep working on the speed zones and we’ll be fine.”
FEEL ANYTHING FROM THE CLASH TRACK HAS BEEN TRANSLATED HERE? “I’ve seen a lot of people comparing it, so maybe a little bit. Maybe you would try to overtake a car but there is a quarter mile bullring versus this half mile style race track if you really want to get into detail they are very, very different. How you need to do speed from a setup standpoint I have no idea. My background in Martinsville, I felt very comfortable coming here because I won my first pole here. I think I actually have a track record of being modified here. This is where I won my first modified race, so I’ve had a lot of success here and it’s certainly a place that suits my style.”
HARVICK SAID YOU NEED TO RUN THE 10TH AND THEN THE TOP 5, BUT CAN YOU PITCH ONTO THE WINNING TRACK? “Yes. Winning these races not only takes a great car, not only does it need to get everything right, but your pit crew also needs to get everything right. I never really realized how many things can go wrong to get you out of the competition. I feel like, yeah. I mean, we have a team that’s certainly capable of that, so I feel like tomorrow if we make some changes, little things can help us so that we have that speed in a race and do all the right things I think we can certainly give ourselves the opportunity I agree 100 percent with what Kevin says I’ve preached to people in the past that you have to be consistent gotta run with these guys to make them compete against you in a certain way and not just feel like you’re in the way, but this team of 41 certainly works hard to be up there week in and week out and be a candidate.
DO YOU HAVE A CHIP ON YOUR SHOULDER AFTER THE LAST WEEKS AND ARE YOU DRIVING BETTER? “I don’t know, it seems to be working at the moment I think. I don’t necessarily have a chip on my shoulder. There are certainly frustrations because as a driver I know I put in a lot of work and effort. I know my crew and my team, we’ve put a lot of effort in terms of team building and cars and it’s certainly frustrating at times when you don’t get the results you feel you’re working so hard for all of the time Day and then it doesn’t look phenomenal statistically, especially punctually. But you know what, it’s like I’ve been saying all year, after some of those days where you want to get negative or calm down, the clock resets at midnight. I mean we just got the bar and it’s like you gotta move on. You can’t keep thinking about the past week so I think we did well and now we have to work really hard tomorrow and hopefully I can talk to you tomorrow.”
IT’S A POLE, NOT A RACE, BUT HOW DOES IT FEEL TO SHOW YOUR TEAM’S POTENTIAL TODAY? “I think for the organization and for the short track things it was great to see all four of our cars on the last lap so obviously that was phenomenal. Certainly we did everything right today and it shows that when it comes down to it we can do everything right and give ourselves the opportunity to start up front and have a position on the track and finish top 10 or top 5 and to fight. I think that’s a big deal.”
YOU WON A TRUCK POLE AND WON THE RACE. YOU WON AN XFINITY POLE AND THE RACE. WHAT DOES IT TAKE TO DO TOMORROW AGAIN IN THE CUP? “Doing all the little things right, as Kevin says. Two things that struck me – first, as I just said, getting the little things right, but second, you can’t drive a slow car fast. Of course we have a fast race car and good preparation. I know I’ve worked really hard to make sure I’m as prepared for the races as I’ve ever been and that’s how I feel. I guess I have to do some work tonight to make sure I’m 100 percent ready when it comes to lap 200, 300 when the tracks seem to be taking that momentum, or even 100-300 just about to be up dating. A lot of these guys have a lot of rounds. They’ve been doing this for a long time, so they understand how the tracks change and how to stay one step ahead. Hopefully I can do a good job and keep those stats going.”
Ford Performance PR