Trevor Bayne's First NASCAR Nationwide Victory Gives Ford Manufacturer's Championship
JAMIE ALLISON, Director, Ford Racing -- "We're thrilled to win the NASCAR Nationwide Manufacturers' Championship. Not only is it our first since 2002, but, more importantly, it's the first championship for Mustang in NASCAR. Mustang - as it has for 47 years - continues to be a force in all forms of racing. This has been a great year for Ford and Roush Fenway in Nationwide, with Carl, Ricky and Trevor all providing some great moments and 13 victories. Now, it would be great to add the driver’s championship by Ricky to this special year for Mustang and Ford.”
BORN TO RACE – Mustang winning a championship in its first year of NASCAR competition won’t come as a surprise to Ford enthusiasts, who have known about the muscle car’s racing pedigree ever since it came off the assembly line for the first time in April of 1964. In fact, a little more than a month after its April 17 introduction, Mustang was on the race track as a pace car leading the 1964 Indianapolis 500. And before the year was out, it was a winner in competition, finishing first and second in class in the 1964 Tour de France international rally.
THE MOST SINCE – In addition to helping deliver a manufacturer’s championship, Mustang has been to victory lane more than any other model in 2011. Mustang has 13 wins so far this season, which represents the highest single-season win total in the NASCAR Nationwide Series for Ford Racing since 2002 when it won 16 races.
FEELS LIKE THE THIRD TIME – This marks the third time Ford has won the NASCAR Nationwide Series manufacturer’s title. The first time came in 1995 when Chad Little led the Ford contingent with six wins while Dale Jarrett and Mark Martin contributed three each. Kenny Wallace and Tim Fedewa also scored victories that year for Ford. The second title came courtesy of Greg Biffle, who won the driver’s championship and was a leader on the manufacturer side. Jeff Burton actually led the way with five wins that season while Biffle and Jason Keller registered four each, Scott Riggs two and Bobby Hamilton Jr. one.
Ford NASCAR Nationwide Manufacturer Championship Seasons: 1995, 2002, 2011
Ford NASCAR Nationwide Series Champions:
· Greg Biffle (2002)
· Carl Edwards (2007)
Ford Finishing Order:
1st – Trevor Bayne
3rd – Carl Edwards
6th – Ricky Stenhouse Jr.
29th – Joey Gase
33rd – Timmy Hill
35th – David Ragan
37th – Carl Long
38th – J.J. Yeley
40th – Tim Andrews
BAYNE WINS FIRST NASCAR NATIONWIDE SERIES RACE
· Trevor Bayne registered his first NASCAR Nationwide Series win with today’s victory at Texas.
· The victory is the 13th for Mustang in its inaugural season by three different drivers (Edwards, Bayne and Stenhouse Jr.) and is the most among all manufacturers.
· The win is also the 299th all-time win for Roush Fenway Racing in the NASCAR Sprint Cup and NASCAR Nationwide Series combined.
TREVOR BAYNE – No. 16 Ford. Drive One. Ford Mustang – VICTORY LANE INTERVIEW – “This is just as surreal as the 500. That’s hard to say, but this has been so long. We’ve worked so hard to get our first Nationwide win and I wasn’t sure if it was ever gonna happen. I was thinking maybe the next Cup win would come first, but these guys worked their butts off to get us here and God pulled us through. Man, this is crazy. It doesn’t seem real again, just like the 500. The fashion we were able to win that race, going up and racing against one of the best in motorsport in Carl Edwards, to pass him for the win and get Ford this manufacturer championship and put our effort into it is great. Everybody has won races and leading the points and we were ready to get our first win. I’m glad we could do it here.” YOU DIDN’T HAVE A WINNING CAR UNTIL THE END. “That was a last-minute save by Chad Norris. I didn’t think this car had it in it. I thought it might all week, but with about 14 to go I didn’t know if we’d be able to get up there and get the win, but he dialed it in and the pit crew did a great job getting me back out and this thing was a beast at the end.” THIS PLACE MUST BE ON YOUR FAVORITE LIST. “It is. It’s one of the toughest to drive and that’s why I’ve always wanted to get a win at a place like this. Daytona is great, but that’s restrictor plate racing. I hate to say it but a lot of people could be in victory lane there, but to win at a mile-and-a-half that has been one of my dreams and Texas is by far one of the toughest places to drive, so I’m really excited about this victory.”
RICKY STENHOUSE JR. – No. 6 Sam’s Club/Cargill Ford Mustang – “That was good. It’s awesome to see Trevor win. I think that wraps up the manufacturer’s championship for Ford Racing, so that was one goal that we wanted this year and we finally got that done. Our Sam’s Club Members Mark Angus Beef Mustang was really good at first and then it kind of backed up a little bit. We lost some track position and got a great restart there at the end. I thought we were gonna get home with a top five, but we’ll definitely take where we finished.” WHAT ABOUT THE LAST FEW LAPS? “That was fun. We were just a little bit too tight to keep in front of the 22 and run a couple more down, but it was awesome to see Trevor get a win this year in the Nationwide Series. This wraps up a Ford championship for manufacturers, so that’s awesome. It was a good day for the Sam’s Club Members Mark Angus Beef Ford.” YOU ARE 17 POINTS AHEAD OF ELLIOTT NOW. “That’s good. That’s better than where we were when we came in and that’s really all we can ask for.”
CARL EDWARDS – No. 60 Fastenal Ford Mustang – “He earned that one. He drove really well. That restart he did a really good job. I wasn’t worried about giving him the bottom because I thought I could hang on his door and beat him, but our Fastenal Mustang was really good for the majority of the day. At the end, once those guys got by they were able to drive away. That’s better than finishing right on their bumper because it’s tough to lead that much and not win the thing, but Trevor is a great guy and he deserves to win. I’m happy for him and for Ford.”
DAVID RAGAN – No. 08 Texas Tech Ford Mustang – “We were making a lot of progress. The car was driving as good as it had been all day, but my inexperience with these cars and a start-up team, we just didn’t start where we needed to. I’m proud of the guys. They were making some big adjustments and the car responded, but it just seemed it lost a cylinder going into one and it was something internally in the engine. We’ll chalk it up as a learning experience. It was fun until she blew.”
CARL EDWARDS PRESS CONFERENCE – “The restart I was really happy Trevor was behind me and then he wasn’t behind me anymore after that and I was really happy that he was able to hold off the 18. Our Fastenal Mustang was good all day. Towards the end we didn’t adjust our car as well, I don’t think, which is just as much my fault as anyone’s. We had such a dominant run all day. We were maybe a little lax on our last adjustment and Trevor got in there behind me. He pushed me out in front of the 18 and I wasn’t really worried about him going to the bottom because I thought if he went to the bottom I could hold him off and run on his door and make it hard on him, but I was wrong. He drove right by and then Denny drove by and they just drove away from us, which made me feel a little bit better that they drove away and I didn’t just give it up 100 percent on that pass. I’m just really glad he was able to hold off Denny. We did close one point on those guys in the owner’s championship, which is important to us right now, so I think it’s a two-point race there.”
WHAT WAS YOUR REACTION TO NASCAR PARKING KYLE BUSCH THE REST OF THIS WEEKEND? “I didn’t hear anything that Mike Helton said, so I don’t know the exact reason or anything like that. I’ll just let Denny talk about that.”
WILL YOU THINK TWICE ABOUT DUMPING SOMEONE IN THE FUTURE? “Like I said, I haven’t heard what Mike said yet and I haven’t had a chance to talk to him, so I don’t know yet.”
HOW BIG DO YOU THINK THIS IS FOR TREVOR TO WIN? “I think it’s huge for Trevor. I’m happy to see him have success, as happy as I can be as a competitor of his. I think that Trevor has been through a lot this year. I think he’s been through a lot that anybody in his position would consider that a big journey that he’s been on and to be as young as he is and to have so many changes in his life right now, and for him to handle everything as gracefully as he has, I think, says a lot about him. So it’s neat to see someone like that have some success. If it becomes a regular thing, I don’t know if I would be as happy for him, but I am happy for him today.”
WHAT DID YOU LEARN TODAY FOR TOMORROW? “I think the track was a little different than it was in practice with the Cup cars and as the race went on I learned where some of the grip was and where it wasn’t. I was fortunate enough to be able to start first a couple times and try the inside and outside. That was pretty interesting and overall the way that the track changed throughout the day. Even though the timing is a little different for tomorrow’s race, I still think I learned a little bit about the way the track is gonna change.”
HOW WILL IT BE NOT HAVING KYLE IN THE RACE TOMORROW? “How many points back is he (57). I thought he was closer than that, but, like I said, I’d like to talk to Helton about it and understand exactly what the reasoning was and I haven’t talked to Kyle personally or anything, so I still don’t know enough about the situation, but, from a competitive standpoint, that’s one less guy out there that’s chasing you down for the championship. From a pure competition standpoint, that is simpler for us now.”
DANICA FINISHED 11TH TODAY. DO YOU NOTICE THAT SHE’S LEARNING AND GETTING BETTER? “I came around and only lapped her, I think, one time and it took me a long time to get by her and, finally, when I did get up right to the outside of her coming off the corner I thought she did a great job of giving me just the right amount of room. She’s definitely come a long way in my book. Of course, I knew that when I bumped her out of the way at Montreal, she went in the next corner and bumped me right back out of the way, so she’s a good racer.”
TREVOR BAYNE PRESS CONFERENCE – YOU LED THE FEWEST LAPS FOR A WINNER AT TMS (6). “Normally, you don’t want a record for leading the least laps, but it’s okay when you have a win at the end of it, so I’ll take that. I think Chad will, too, and Jack and everybody else. We’re really excited with this win and the fashion we were able to do it there at the end, to race against Carl Edwards and Denny Hamlin – two of the best drivers and two of the best cars in the series – and be able to get them there. Carl drove me really, really clean there at the end. I was expecting a bit more from him actually, but he did all he could to hold us off, I guess, and still was clean. That was really fun at the end. I can’t describe how this feels to get a win in the Nationwide Series finally and to do it with these guys at a track like Texas, it means a lot to me and it’s my brother’s birthday. I forgot to talk about that earlier, so happy birthday to my little eight-year-old brother.”
JACK ROUSH, Owner – “I couldn’t be prouder. Texas has been real good to us. We won with Jeff Burton here in the inaugural race back in the nineties. That was a wonderful event. The thought that I had when I watched the checkered flag fall and Trevor I said, ‘It’s great to be there for his first win,’ but then I remembered his dad said he had taken him racing since he was five years old and he’d run thousands of races and I bet you obviously remember your two wins from this year with NASCAR, but I bet you don’t know how many times you’ve won in your life, have you?”
TREVOR BAYNE CONTINUED – “I don’t know. It’s somewhere over 400 or so with local events and all that, but I can promise you that these two are the most memorable.”
JACK ROUSH CONTINUED – “That’s great. I’m really proud of Trevor and proud of Chad and proud of the job that Mike Beam and all the guys did to get the cars to have all that speed in them. Doug Yates and the guys did a great job with the engine and, of course, I’m especially happy to be here with Ford Motor Company to win, I think, the first manufacturer’s title in 10 years or so – since 2002.”
CHAD NORRIS, Crew Chief – “We kind of struggled a little bit being tight in the center all day and we worked on the front end there a little bit and I knew it was gonna be a 20 or 30-lap run there, and our car was really good on about 20 laps. The caution that came out there with about seven to go really played in our hands. We tightened the thing up just a little bit, just so we could get going, and the thing really took off and he did a really nice job at the end of the race and just raced his butt off. I can’t be more proud for him and Jack and Ford Motor Company.”
TREVOR BAYNE CONTINUED – CAN YOU TALK ABOUT YOUR YEAR AND WHAT DOES THIS DO FOR YOU AFTER A ROUGH WEEK LIKE YOU HAD AT TALLADEGA? “I don’t know if you could script a story like the year I’ve had. It’s crazy to think only one year ago I was making my first Cup start and to come back here to Texas and get our first Nationwide win, this is a place I’m gonna love from now on. But this year has been a lot of ups and a lot of downs, but I think the people around me and myself, we’ve tried to stay right here the whole time. We’ve tried not to ride it to the top or ride it to the bottom and that’s been important for us – to be able to come back after bad things happen, just like after Talladega with all the negative things that were going on, that was fuel to our fire to be positive and to come out here and show everybody that we’re here to stay and that we can do this and that’s what Chad’s mindset was, that’s what my mindset was, Jack, and everybody around me. We try not to feed off the negative things and we know that we’re gonna be back to a positive day, so, with that said, when we do have good days we do ride that a little bit more. I’m pretty happy to be here and to be in the media center finally for a Nationwide win. It’s a dream come true.”
JACK ROUSH CONTINUED – DO YOU STILL USE THE AUDI WIND TUNNEL IN GERMANY? “We’ve got a moving-ground plane wind tunnel in Concord and we haven’t been to the Audi wind tunnel in two or three years. It helped us a lot until we got the resource close by, but it’s certainly something we look forward to going back and establishing a baseline if we lose our way.”
TREVOR BAYNE CONTINUED – WERE YOU THINKING ABOUT THIS WAS WHERE YOU GOT SICK LAST TIME OR MADE YOUR FIRST CUP START? “Honestly, I didn’t really think about anything except coming here off the momentum we had at Charlotte. We’ve learned so much about our mile-and-a-halfs and the Roush Fenway cars have been so strong, and our Wood Brothers car has been the same way at the mile-and-a-halfs lately, so I was kind of feeding off that coming here, trying to do the same thing that Chad has been working on me to do. He’s had me watching different films and things to work on my driving style a little bit. That’s been important and it’s been applicable to a bunch of mile-and-a-halfs and been able to gain advantages and really work that, so it’s been important to learn at Charlotte and bring that here. Obviously, the sickness does come to mind a little bit when you think about Texas and my first Cup start comes to mind, but I would say more the first Cup start than anything.”
JACK ROUSH CONTINUED – HAVE YOU HAD TIME TO HEAR ABOUT THE PENALTIES TO KYLE BUSCH? “I wasn’t at the truck race last night. I had an engagement that held me away from the race track, so I didn’t see it first-hand. I became aware of it this morning and the buzz in the garage after I had done one interview already. I really wouldn’t care to comment on what NASCAR has done. I think that anybody that wrecks one of these cars or creates a problem after a caution or after a checkered flag really does so at their own peril, and I’m sure NASCAR will do something that’s reasonable in the broad scheme of things.”
TREVOR BAYNE CONTINUED – IS THIS THE FIRST TIME YOU’VE EVER WORN A COWBOY HAT? “I’ve actually worn them before, probably like Halloween when I was five, and I wore one in this morning and they were making fun of it, so I think now I can actually wear it. I didn’t think it would ever look good with a race suit, but I think this one looks okay.”
JACK ROUSH CONTINUED – “Actually, I heard when they presented him with his hat in the winner’s circle that he had planned to buy one if he could, if they were available, but this way he saved that investment.”
TREVOR BAYNE CONTINUED – CAN YOU TAKE US THROUGH THE FINAL RESTART? “Going into the last restart, like Chad said, I knew that our car was gonna be really strong for a short run. We were able to gain three or four spots every single restart all day, and I knew at the end there with us being in fourth position, that was about the number of cars we could pass and we were just able to get a great restart, kind of like the one at Charlotte, where we were able to push Carl out front. And once he got out front, we actually cleared the 18. Had I not cleared the 18, I don’t know that we could have won the race, but, fortunately, we had enough power to get by him and was able to get to the bottom and get on Carl’s left-rear a little bit and get by him. But these kind of restart races, these are the kind of wins you’ve always wanted. As a driver, I remember at Myrtle Beach Speedway when I was probably 15 years old in the Hooters Pro Cup Series, there was a green-white-checker and I started fourth and ended up winning the race, kind of the same way, and that’s one that’s always stood out in my head, so that’s the driver I want everyone to know I can be – is a guy that can go get it done at the end. I’m glad that we were finally able to do that and I know that these guys have been pulling for me all along and it’s cool to finally see that pay off for them.”
JACK ROUSH CONTINUED – ANYMORE CLARITY ON WHAT RICKY AND TREVOR WILL BE DOING NEXT YEAR? “Our programs are not firmed up. We’re working with sponsors to try to make the best offering that we can or the best package that we can, but I really don’t have anything to announce on that. It was another win for the NextGen oil, Valvoline’s new oil, and we’re real excited about that, too. They’ve got an added package for the oil that’s real attractive for us with the NextGen, but Goodyear had a great tire. We had a great engine. The engineering support from Ford was good and without having all those things behind us, we couldn’t have realized the success that we had today.”
TREVOR BAYNE CONTINUED – DO YOU HAVE ANYTHING TO SAY TO YOUR FANS FROM A SOCIAL MEDIA STANDPOINT? “Well, after Talladega I’m a little scared of Twitter. I got on there and saw what everybody was saying and kind of hurt my feeling a little bit, so I’ve been staying off a little bit. But I’m really excited to have the following that we do have. After Daytona it obviously skyrocketed from 6,000 to around 64,000 now on Facebook and everything, so I really do appreciate the true fans standing behind me all the time. They’re always there to lift me up and encourage me and just keep me going, so it’s great to have any fans and the social media ones are just as important as the people that are here, so it’s been cool to see that grow all year long through the ups and downs and seeing the support that unconditional. That means a lot to me.”
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