Stenhouse leads Ford drivers with a second at Richmond

MICHAEL ANNETT, No. 43 Pilot/Flying J Ford Mustang (Finished 5th) – “It was a good night. After practice I really thought tonight was going to be on the easier side actually. I thought we would run top-10 and get a top-five with ease because our car was so good in practice. The race started and we were completely the other way and I thought, ‘Oh no, what are we going to do?’ It took two or three pit stops to really get the car to where I could be aggressive and here you can’t finesse this track. You have to be aggressive and dive bomb the corner and have grip off and move guys out of the way. To do that you have to have real good grip and we didn’t have that until about the last 100 laps but when we got it we definitely used it up and brought home another top-five for this Pilot/Flying J team and we have a lot of good tracks coming up so hopefully we can keep getting top-fives and get a win before the year is out.”

Ricky Stenhouse Jr.

Photo by: Action Sports Photography

RICKY STENHOUSE JR., No. 6 Ford EcoBoost Ford Mustang (Finished 2nd) –

WHAT HAPPENED IN TURN THREE WITH SADLER EARLIER IN THE RACE? “It looks like we were just racing side by side for 10 laps or 5 laps or whatever it was and when you get up under there you get a little loose on the brakes and I guess it just got loose on him and he tried to save it from getting into us and I have to thank him for that. It was a fun night.”

TRAVIS PASTRANA, No. 60 Ford EcoBoost Ford Mustang (Finished 17th) – “That was an honor to be driving on the Roush team for tonight. We were quickest in practice and qualified fifth. It felt great. We just couldn’t really put it together for the race. It definitely felt good on the long runs and we were pretty good there but I was afraid to let the guys loosen it up as much as we needed to probably to make it better on the short runs. It was a good learning experience and we got all the laps in and there were some dicey battles there. I was hoping for more out of myself for sure.”

IS THE KEY FOR YOU RIGHT NOW GETTING THE SEAT TIME AND LEARNING AS MUCH AS YOU CAN? “I think the coolest part for me was starting fifth. After that long first run we were reeling in some guys like Denny Hamlin and guys where I was like, ‘Alright, we have a chance here.’ I need to look back at the tapes and talk to the crew and find out how I need to do better and how I can talk to the crew better next time. I am really excited to drive this car and I will work on my pit stops and we will get there.”

RICKY STENHOUSE JR. POST RACE PRESS CONFERENCE

TALK ABOUT YOUR RACE OUT THERE TONIGHT. “We weren’t as good as we thought we were going to be or thought we needed to be. We kept working on it all night and I felt like Mike and the guys did some good adjustments and got it better throughout the race but not enough to go contend for the win. I gave it all I had on the outside with Kevin there and that was a lot of fun racing him, last week and this week, we gave each other a lot of room and had a lot of fun doing it. Congratulations to them. I know they deserve this one as well as last week. It was a great night for us and we were just too loose in and too loose off and not exactly what we wanted. It is a good top-two finish though and that is three good races in a row. We just have to keep doing that.”

YOU GOT A SECOND PLACE FINISH YET TALK ABOUT STRUGGLES. DO YOU THINK IF PRACTICES WERE IN THE SAME TEMPERATURE RANGE AS THE RACE IT WOULD HAVE MATTERED AT ALL? “No, the 33 practiced the same time we did so we just didn’t have a good enough car. When you don’t win you have to look at what you were struggling with in order to get better. We worked on it as much as we could tonight and got it closer, we just didn’t get it good enough.”

THERE HAS BEEN SOME REALLY GOOD HARD RACING IN THE NATIONWIDE SERIES THE LAST FEW WEEKS. ARE YOU EXPECTING THAT TO CONTINUE AND HOW DO YOU APPROACH THE FACT THAT YOUR CHAMPIONSHIP HOPES MY REST ON SOMEBODY WHO IS LOOKING TO COMPLETELY BOOT YOU OUT OF THE WAY TO GET TO THE FRONT OF THE FIELD? “Yeah, the racing is great right now. There are a lot of people that can win and a lot of great competition, great equipment and great drivers. We race hard every week and try to give a little room at the beginning. Once you fill up with fuel and are good to go at the end, you race as hard as you can and try to keep every position you can. I think that will continue through the rest of the year and that is how racing should be. You should go ride around, you should race as hard as you can.”

CAN YOU TALK ABOUT WHAT HAPPENED BETWEEN YOU AND ELLIOTT SADLER? “Yeah, we were just racing hard there and he was trying to get by. Like I said, we filled up on fuel and were good to go to the end and I was trying to keep every position we could. I let him get to the inside and it seemed like every time I did that we could roll to the outside pretty well and we got rolling to the outside pretty good and I think he dove it down into turn three and got a little loose under us and caught us in the left rear and spun himself. It is just hard racing.”

Source: Ford Racing