Richmond Post-Race Quotes

AJ ALLMENDINGER - No. 43 Valvoline/Best Buy Ford Fusion
Finished 15th
"It was tough. I am proud of the pit crew they fought hard. I am proud of Mike and everybody on the No. 43 team. At a point I thought we had it really good and then another point the track got loose and we were just a little bit off. We fought really hard though. I was hoping to get a little better finish out of that, but all in all, for as much as I was complaining and as much as I was hanging on 17th is respectable.

ARE YOU SURPRISED AT ALL WITH HOW CRAZY THINGS GOT AT THE END CONSIDERING HOW CLEAN THE RACE WAS MOST OF THE NIGHT? "No, that is the nature of this race. I was more surprised that it was the guys behind us that were wrecking. I was hoping it would be the guys in front of us. We were just a little bit off. When we got the car right we were good in the long runs, but we were barely hanging on in the short runs. We will move on from here."

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MIKE SHIPLETT - Crew Chief, No. 43 Valvoline/Best Buy Ford Fusion
"The biggest thing was we were fighting a really inconsistent car and it was reacting more than it should have to our adjustments. We missed the set-up a little bit I think. We just weren't good enough in the beginning of a run tonight. We were fine in the long run, just not good at the beginning. We need to work on that.

A LOT OF CARS COMPLAINED OF BEING LOOSE TONIGHT, DID YOU HAVE THE SAME TROUBLE? "Yeah, we were really loose. We would go from pretty good to really loose and that is what we were fighting all day. We kept trying to tighten it up and not effect the center at all."

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KASEY KAHNE - No. 9 Budweiser Ford Fusion
Finished 21st
"We had about a 15th place car tonight. We battled, but that is about where we should have been. We just didn't play a strategy and six cars behind us did, so we finished up 21st. That is what happened out there tonight.

YOU WERE BUMPING PRETTY GOOD WITH THE NO. 20 "Yeah, we were fighting for the lucky dog. At that point, no cautions came out, so all he did was slow us both down by holding me down. Jeff Gordon put a straight away on us in like five laps, and he wasn't that much faster than us at that point. I don't really know what Logano was thinking out there."

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PAUL MENARD - No. 98 Schrock/Menards Ford Fusion
Finished 27th
“Our Schrock/Menards Ford was really fast in the middle stages of the race and I think if things had gone our way a little better with the pit sequence thing, we could have easily finished in the top 15. But sometimes things work for you and sometimes things work against you and tonight wasn’t our night in that respect. This RPM pit crew continued to do a great job every time we were in the pits and while we’re disappointed in that finish, there are certainly things to build off of here.”

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ELLIOTT SADLER - No. 19 Reynolds Ford Fusion
Finished 38th
“Obviously that wasn't the way we wanted to finish this race. We were hoping for a much better re-sult and we’re disappointed, but I’m so proud of the way the crew responded all day. The pit stops were good all day and they were determined to get the Reynolds Ford back out before the race ended. It may not seem like it based on the result, but I felt like we made progress today. There were times when our Reynolds Ford Fusion was really pretty good and Wally and I communicated well the en-tire race.”

Credit - Ford Racing & Richard Petty Motorsports PR