Loudon Post-Race Quotes

AJ ALLMENDINGER – No. 43 Berlin City Auto Group Ford Fusion
Finished 10th
“It seems like most of the time the 39, when he just wants to run into you he will, but that’s how tight this racing is because there’s 20 to go and it’s basically near a green-white-checkered so everybody is gonna get after it. I roughed some guys up to, so you can’t really complain that much about it. It’s just one of those racing deals. It’s what everybody gets excited about. If you would have told me at the beginning of the day we were gonna finish 10th, I would have said, ‘Perfect.’ When you kind of run top five or top six all day and you finish 10th, it doesn’t feel quite as good. I’m just proud of everybody on this 43 race team. Thank you to Ford, and we had Berlin City Auto Groups on the car today – the car looked good – Insignia, Best Buy and Valvoline, PVA – we’ve got them on the car next week – so everybody that supports this race team, thank you. It was another solid day, another top 10. We’ll take it. We always know it could be a little bit better, but I’d rather be complaining about 10th than complaining about 30th, so we’ll move on. It’s another good points day. I think that probably got us closer to the chase because a couple guys ahead of us fell out, so we’ll just keep working on it and getting this race team better.”

WHAT DOES THIS SAY FOR THE TEAM AS YOU TRY TO MAKE THE CHASE? “I look at the Chase as one of those things that would just be a bonus. I look at it if we can be top 15 or top 16 in points, being a first-year team together and our first year with Ford. Ford Racing has pumped this organization up so much, so the Chase is still the goal, but we just have to keep running inside that top 10. Today was a big day. This is probably one of my worst race tracks, so I felt like a real race car driver out there today and that’s always a good thing. To run as well as we did and still get a top 10 out of it, I’m excited to move forward. We’ve got a fast car in Daytona this year. We’re going back with the same car, so I don’t see why we can’t win that thing.”

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ELLIOTT SADLER - No. 19 Stanley Ford Fusion
Finished 19th
“This Stanley crew never gives up and I'm really proud of them. Our Ford Fusion wasn't exactly where it needed to be to start the race and Wally and the guys worked on it all day. By the end, it was pretty good on the long runs and I think if we could have made that lap back up that we lost early on at some point during the race, we would have had a pretty good finish. We're not where we need to be just yet, but every week we get closer and closer to it.”

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PAUL MENARD - No. 98 Energizer/Menards Ford Fusion
Finished 28th
“Our Menards Ford Fusion was good on long runs, but it really took a while to get going on new tires. I'm not sure why and that's something that we'll have to figure out. We certainly hoped for a better finish than that, but getting caught on pit road when the caution flag flew was hard to overcome. We did have a good car throughout the event though, so we'll go to work to figure some things out and I think we'll have a chance at a much better outcome when we get back here in the fall.”

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KASEY KAHNE – No. 9 Budweiser Ford Fusion
Finished 36th
“We had a fast Budweiser Ford. It was nice to drive, but we just had another mechanical failure. It’s tough. We’ve been doing pretty good points-wise and that hurts again, but we can keep going for it.”

IS IT SOMETHING YOU WOULD EXPECT WITH THE NEW ENGINE? “No. It’s been out for a while as far as preparing it and being prepared and ready. When you put it on the track, they’re not supposed to break. I don’t care. That engine could have broke. One of the old engines could have broke. It’s probably just something small inside that happened, but when we brought it here we had no idea that it would break. It’s ready. It’s prepared. It’s ready to go on the track.”

ARE YOU GOING TO TALK TO MENARD AND KENSETH ABOUT THE WAY THEY RACED YOU BY TRYING TO STAY ON THE LEAD LAP? “Yeah, I understand what they’re doing. I don’t care what Kenseth’s doing. He’s racing hard and trying to stay on the lead lap. That’s fine. Menard raced me super-hard and then Kyle Busch gets to him and he lets him go in the first corner that he gets to him. One corner and he lets Kyle go, so that’s what made me mad. What Matt was doing, Matt’s just trying to stay on the lead lap. That’s racing. That’s what we do. Paul just needs to do the same with each guy and not just with me for some reason. That’s all I said.”

Credit - Ford Racing