Ford’s drivers strive to catch up
Greg Biffle spent some time at Ford headquarters on Thursday, taking each of the resilient automaker’s newest toys out for a spin.
The veteran NASCAR driver, while admittedly a little biased toward the company whose name is splashed across the grille of his No. 16 Roush Fenway Racing car, was impressed.
“They are building such great products while the other companies are trying to get back at it,” Biffle said. “I wish we could hold our end of the bargain up. We are carrying that banner out here.”
They’re just not carrying it to Victory Lane.
A Ford car hasn’t taken the checkered flag in a Cup race since Jamie McMurray won at Talladega last fall. It’ll take some doing to end the drought during today’s 400-miler at Brooklyn, Mich., where only one of the 12 Ford drivers to make the field qualified in the top 10 behind pole sitter Kurt Busch.
The mood in Detroit is considerably brighter than it was a year ago. The same can’t be said in the garages of Ford’s two top Cup teams, Roush Fenway and Richard Petty Motorsports.
Though RFR drivers Matt Kenseth (fourth), Carl Edwards (ninth) and Greg Biffle (10th) find themselves in the top 10 in points with 12 races remaining before the cutoff for the Chase, they’re not exactly optimistic about catching up with Joe Gibbs Racing’s Toyota’s or Hendrick Motorsports’ Chevrolet’s anytime soon.
“We seem to be a ways off more times than not,” Kenseth said. “You do want to pass all those guys, but right now I would be happy if we were the same and able to race them.”
Sometimes they do. Sometimes they don’t. A Ford car has led just 410 of a possible 2,413 laps this season, well behind each of the series’ other three manufacturers.
There’s hope that help is on the way with the arrival and maturation of the new FR9 engines. The motors, designed by Roush Yates Engines, have slowly been phased in over the last eight months and will be in all eight of the RFR and RPM cars today.
RFR owner Jack Roush says the new FR9 engine is “marginally better” than the previous spec engine Ford drivers have used, and the onus is on teams to start coming through.
“You say what is wrong with the Fords? The teams aren’t getting it done,” said Roush, who has won 11 times at Michigan’s two-mile oval, tied for most all time.
The drivers argue the issue with the Ford teams isn’t the engine but the handling. Edwards, one of the hottest drivers on the planet just two years ago, has been dealing with the same balance difficulties in the corners all season.
“The problem is how fast the car can go through the center of the corner and the balance,” he said. “The engine is a separate thing.”
Edwards uses words like “reliable” and “powerful” to describe the FR9. He doesn’t use “great.” Though he calls it “as good as or better than the old engine” he’s not ready to say it’s on par with what’s under the hood at Hendrick or JGR.
“It would be nice for us to have an engine that everybody else is trying to catch up to, instead of us trying to catch up to them,” he said. “We have to figure out how to be the guys everyone is trying to catch.
“It’s a lot easier when you’re in that position.”
Nationwide Series
Joey Logano became the first Nationwide Series driver to win three consecutive races at the same track when starting from the pole as he won the Meijer 300 at Kentucky Speedway in Sparta, Ky., on Saturday night.
Logano had to beat the rain, which was rapidly moving into the area, and Carl Edwards to pick up his first Nationwide victory of the season at the 1.5-mile tri-oval track.
Points leader Brad Keselowski, who started 25th, finished third, while Brendan Gaughan, whom Logano passed to take the lead for the final time, finished fourth.
Logano led 109 of the 200 laps, while fifth-place Reed Sorenson led 49.
NASCAR Truck Series
Aric Almirola’s enjoyed his first win in the NASCAR Truck Series at Dover last month, yet he freely admits it was decidedly lacking in style points.
He’ll have no such worries about his second.
Almirola gambled to take the lead with seven laps to go then held off Todd Bodine and Kyle Busch to win the race at Michigan International Speedway.
“This weekend we did it fair and square,” Busch said. “I raced my butt off with those guys.”
The victory pulled Almirola within 55 of Bodine in the points race, yet he wasn’t interested in talking about a championship. He was too busy savoring a win that featured plenty of three-wide racing at the two-mile oval.
Almirola celebrated with a well-deserved burnout after beating Bodine by about a truck length at the finish, a decidedly giddier celebration than the one he had at Dover.
Maybe it’s because Almirola doesn’t feel he won the race so much as other drivers lost it. Busch led 172 laps but ran out of gas and had to pit just before the finish.
Canadian Grand Prix
McLaren’s Lewis Hamilton won his third straight Canadian Grand Prix pole, snapping Red Bull’s season-opening streak at seven.
Hamilton, coming off a victory two weeks ago in Turkey, took the top spot on his final lap in the third round of qualifying at Montreal, edging Red Bull’s Mark Webber with a time of 1 minute, 15.105 seconds at 2.709-mile Circuit Gilles Villeneuve.
“I think it’s fantastic for the team,” said Hamilton, the 2007 winner in Montreal. “I’m really proud of my guys. I damaged the car a little bit in practice and they fixed it in no time – seriously professional.”
Webber, the Formula 1 season points leader and a four-time pole winner this year, was second – 0.268 seconds back. Red Bull teammate Sebastian Vettel qualified third.
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