JOEY HAND, No. 15 Ford Pro Ford Mustang – IS THERE ANY EXTRA PRESSURE HAVING FORD PRO ON THE HOOD THIS WEEKEND? “I never thought about it until you said it. I think, for me, it’s pretty cool to have Ford on the car for me especially with all the history with Ford and getting to know the Ford family – Bill and Edsel and Henry – and I enjoy it. I think it’s a great-looking car. They’ve done me right on all the liveries. We’ve had some pretty cool ones this year so far, so it doesn’t really change anything for me. I know what the plan is. The plan is always to go forward and be at the front, so no problem for me there. It’s nice to have Ford Pro. I’ve been lucky to have the Ford Pass VISA on there and Ford For the Builders a couple weeks ago and now Ford Pro, so we’ve had some cool initiatives from Ford and we’ll see what I get next time.”
WHAT DO YOU EXPECT OUT OF ROAD AMERICA THIS WEEKEND? “First of all, this is my favorite racetrack in all the world. I’ve been fortunate to race around the world in different cars and different tracks and this is number one for me. People ask me all the time, what’s your favorite track? Road America. Easy. It’s the best lap in racing. If you do any sim stuff, even on a sim lap it’s fun – a practice lap or race lap – everything is fun at Road America as far as doing laps. I think the track races really well, so I think compared to the tracks we’ve seen so far – COTA and Sonoma – COTA you had some passing zones, but you had these big messes on the start up in turn one and turn 11 where you’d go five to seven-wide and it just created this massive funnel. It tore a lot of stuff up throughout the race, including me, and then you get to Sonoma and you can’t pass hardly at all. It’s super low grip. It’s my home track and all, but it was a tough one. I mean, when you got in line at the end of the race they were like, ‘You were as fast as the leader. You had top five times,’ but we were trying to get from 30th to 20th and you just couldn’t pick people off really fast. I think Road America, on the other hand, there’s at least four passing zones per lap – at least – like clean versions, let’s put it that way. There are probably two other dirty ones to make six for the whole lap, but I just think it’s gonna produce good racing. I mean, you get 90 degree corners leading onto long straightaways. You get big brake zones where you can out-brake somebody and I think you’re just gonna see a lot of passing, personally. As far as the Next Gen car versus the Gen 6 car last year, the brakes are bigger. They stay a little cooler, I think. I think they’re gonna be optimum. We’re all gonna find out. It’s gonna be hard on brakes, this race, but I think it will be optimum for most of the race. You’ll be able to be pretty hard on them and I think the kind of the late braker is gonna show up right here in this one. What I’ve learned the first two races is these cars are very strong, actually. Side-to-side contact and a little bit of rubbing is not really a problem at all. You can get in there and get down inside somebody and they can try and stop you from doing it, but there’s not a lot you can do about it. Also a nice thing about learning about NASCAR racing is it’s good and bad, depending on who you are and what the situation is, but you can run two-wide a lot and sometimes a lot of times you run three-wide, but at this track I think two-wide is gonna be the number as far as what’s the possibility. You’re not gonna have these big three-wide situations where you’re the guy in the middle getting crunched up or something like that, but I think two-wide is gonna happen. The reason I say that is because in sports cars let’s just say when I go down to turn five in the brake zone and I do a pass and I’m inside somebody, pretty much the guy on…
Read More: Joey Hand and Michael McDowell Taking to the Road at Road America This Weekend