Driver Ryan Blaney and crew chief Jeremy Bullins expect to get the Motorcraft/Quick Lane Ford Fusion up to speed in short order this weekend for Sunday’s Quicken Loans 400 at Michigan International Speedway, despite the rookie racer’s relative lack of experience at the two-mile oval in the Irish Hills.
Blaney has run only two NASCAR Camping World Truck Series races at Michigan, the first in 2013 resulted in a wreck and in the second, last season, he started from the pole and finished 21st. He also practiced and qualified the Wood Brothers’ famous No. 21 at last year’s August Michigan race subbing for Trevor Bayne.
“Michigan has been a very bad track for us in the truck series, but I had a good Cup experience there last year practicing and qualifying the 21 car,” Blaney said. “Hopefully my luck will change this year and we can have a good run.”
Bullins said, “I try not to put too much stock in prior experiences that Ryan may have had on teams I wasn’t with, as usually you don’t have all the information to work with,” Bullins said. “Instead, we will try to relate it to things we have worked on together, like Cup and XFINITY experience at Kansas and other tracks. I know it may take us a few more laps in practice to find our rhythm and get up to speed but I’m sure we will get there quickly.”
How is the team planning to attack MIS this weekend?
“I consider Michigan a faster intermediate track,” Bullins said. “The only common denominator with a restrictor-plate track is that drag could hurt you worse than some intermediates, but you still want down force. I think the biggest challenge is knowing what the balance needs to be during Saturday’s practices to be good in the race.”
Bullins, Blaney and the Wood Brothers are looking to bounce back from a disappointing finish in the Coca-Cola 600 when an engine problem forced an early end to the NASCAR season’s longest race for the Motorcraft/Quick Lane team.
“You can’t confuse the performance with the outcome,” Bullins explained. “I think if we had issues when we weren’t running well I’d be concerned, but we’ve been in the top 10 or 15 every time we’ve had an issue. When you consider that if we had gotten our lap back at Vegas that would have been a top 15 as well so we could have easily run top 15 in all our starts, which would have been respectable outcomes. Everyone on the team knows if we keep doing what we’ve done so far it will all come together.”
Blaney added, “Despite our misfortunes throughout this year, we’ve had some pretty good runs. That’s what I focus on. Our cars have been fast and that gives me a lot of confidence.”
The Wood Brothers’ history at MIS is as old as the track itself, winning the first race ever run at the 2-mile D-shaped oval with Cale Yarborough at the helm in June of 1969. In total, the Wood Brothers have started 90 races, captured 9 poles, led 1,075 laps and won 11 times at MIS.
Yarborough won in 1969 and 1970. David Pearson won there twice in 1972 and 1976, and in 1973, 1974, 1975 and 1978. Dale Jarrett won in 1991.
A bronze plaque mounted on the pit wall near the start-finish line commemorates the team’s 50th year in NASCAR. This year, the team is celebrating its 65th year of competition.
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