Ford teams Michigan race quotes

Matt Kenseth, Roush Fenway Racing Ford

Photo by: Action Sports Photography

GREG BIFFLE, No. 16 3M Ford Fusion (Finished 20th)

“I don’t know what happened. I am not sure. I have a feeling we kinda got a bum set of tires and then we got off on our adjustments. It was really really tight and we adjusted on it and then I think I was too loose the rest of the day but I really don’t know what happened to be honest with you. I really don’t know right now.”

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MATT KENSETH, No. 17 Kroger Ford Fusion (Finished 10th)

“The last restart I didn’t think we would restart good because we weren’t running very good at the time and then we stayed out on the tires and there was only one row of cars behind me so I knew we were in trouble there. We ran okay. Most of the day we had really good track position but we didn’t have the balance or the grip that we had here in June and we weren’t a threat to win which is disappointing. Overall we stayed up front most of the day, except the last lap.”

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CARL EDWARDS, No. 99 Aflac Ford Fusion (Finished 36th)

“It was a very tough race. I thought we would have a Ford in victory lane. I thought one wa”y or another we would win this thing. I don’t know what was wrong with it. It was running on seven cylinders, it felt like it was running on seven cylinders. We changed a bunch of stuff and then it was fixed. It wasn’t something mechanical, it was probably something with some electrical connection or a coil or something. My Aflac guys did a good job. We were prepared for this race to go bad. We were going all out to win this thing and we were prepared for something but we weren’t expecting that. We weren’t expecting a failure like that.”

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DAVID RAGAN, No. 6 UPS Ford Fusion (Finished 12th)

“Our car was really hot and cold it seemed like. I think the cloud cover really affected it and the amount of traffic really affected it. Drew and those guys were really changing a lot. I was proud at the end because our car was as good as it had been all day. We had about a tenth place car and taking two tires at the end I think was the right call. We just ran out of laps. We didn’t need that last caution. Compared to the last two weeks it was an okay run. Not a win that we want every week but we will move on to Bristol back in the top-20 in points, so that is good.”

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TREVOR BAYNE, No. 21 JDRF Motorcraft/Quicklane Ford Fusion (Finished 24th)

“We ran right there in mid-pack all day. We started making ground on the car at about the third run. I thought ‘Man, we’re gonna be pretty good,’ because we started passing people and coming up through the field a little bit, then, at the end of every run it’d kind of fade on me. Like, 10, 20 laps before the end of the run, well, about halfway through, so about 15 laps. Then, at the end, the track kept changing every time the clouds came over and it would just really change a lot. It was kind of hit or miss. I felt like we kind of went backwards on our adjustments, and then kind of went backwards again as the race went on, in positions. The last restart I thought we were gonna be OK. We started 19th, I thought we’d get by a couple cars and get us to the top 15 or something, and on the restart I just spun the tires a little bit and Allmendinger got us four-wide there and we ended up finishing 24th. The car looked good. That was about the highlight of our day, though, unfortunately. We didn’t do anything spectacular, so we’ll have to work on it.”

“Katie (Hahn, 7, of Omaha, Neb.) was awesome. She and her whole family. I think they really enjoyed being here with the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation. The car looks awesome. She has a bright future ahead of her in design work hopefully.”

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MARCOS AMBROSE, No. 9 Stanley Ford Fusion (Finished 27th)

“That was frustrating. We had a good car and we were top-10 a lot of the day. We just kept getting tighter and tighter. We had a hole in the grill. That really hurt us and we ended up turned around in the pit there at the end, so that hurt us too. It was just a very frustrating day.”

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TRAVIS KVAPIL, No. 38 Long John Silver’s Ford Fusion (Finished 28th)

“It was kind of an okay day, definitely better than the car we had here last time. It was just off a little bit. We were on the tail end of the lead lap cars all day and never could get it just right. We kept bouncing back and forth from loose to tight. I guess it was just an average day for us.”

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DAVID GILLILAND, No. 34 Front Row Motorsports Ford Fusion (Finished 32nd)

“Our car was really loose all day. It was tough to keep it out of the wall. Peter and the guys made a lot of changes throughout the race to help it, but I could never really drive it the way I needed to. Michigan is a tough place to have a tough-handling car because of the long green-flag runs. You find yourself falling back in a hurry. I'm looking forward to going to Bristol for the night race next week, though. We were fast there in the spring so we're excited to get back there."