Dodge Motorsports NSCS Race Advance
TUMS Fast Relief 500
Martinsville Speedway
Sunday, Oct. 24, 2010
www.media.chrysler.com
www.twitter.com/teamdodge
DODGE AT MARTINSVILLE SPEEDWAY
• Rusty Wallace posted the last Dodge win at Martinsville in the 2004 spring event, one of seven victories for Wallace at the .526-mile track.
• Kurt Busch (No. 2 Miller Lite Dodge) won at Martinsville in 2002 prior to joining the Dodge Motorsports family.
• Dodge has 10 wins at Martinsville including three sweeps (1953, 1956 and 1975).
• Busch is the only current Dodge driver to earn a pole at Martinsville Speedway (Oct. 2006).
THE DODGE BOYS
• Dodge has 207 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series victories.
• Dodge’s most recent win came at Charlotte Motor Speedway in May. Kurt Busch led 252 of 400 laps en route to victory in the Coca-Cola 600. It was his second win of the 2010 season.
• Dodge teams have posted 47 wins since the manufacturer’s return to NASCAR’s premier series in 2001 after being out of the sport since 1977.
• First Dodge NASCAR Sprint Cup Series Win at Martinsville Speedway: Lee Petty, 200-lap race on .500-mile dirt track, 5/17/53. Jim Paschal won the October event, giving Dodge its first season sweep at the track.
DODGE IN THE CHASE: MARTINSVILLE SPEEDWAY • 2004: Ryan Newman and Jeremy Mayfield represented Dodge in the Chase. Newman claimed the pole and led nine laps en route to a third-place finish. Mayfield qualified 11th and finished sixth.
• 2005: Dodge drivers making the elite 10 were Ryan Newman Jeremy Mayfield and Rusty Wallace. Newman finished 10th, Wallace 19th and Mayfield 28th.
• 2006: Kasey Kahne was the only Dodge driver to make the Chase. He started 32nd and finished seventh.
• 2007: Kurt Busch was the lone Dodge representative in the Chase. Busch started 11th and finished 31st.
• 2008: There were no Dodges in the 2008 Chase field.
• 2009: Kurt Busch, the lone Dodge entry in the Chase, started 37th and finished 17th.
FAST FACT
• Kurt Busch won the 2002 fall race from the 36th starting position, the furthest back a race winner has started at Martinsville. In 20 starts at the .526-mile track, Busch has a pole, one win, two top fives and four top 10s.
KURT BUSCH – INSIDE THE CHASE NUMBERS
• Busch is competing in the Chase for the Sprint Cup for the fifth time: 2004 – Champion, 2005 – 10th, 2007 – seventh and 2009 – fourth.
• Busch is ninth in the Chase standings after his 30th-place finish at Charlotte Motor Speedway last weekend, 237 points behind the leader.
• Busch was ranked sixth, 177 points behind the leader, after five races in the 2009 Chase.
• In 20 previous starts, Busch’s average finish at Martinsville is 21.6; his average start is 19.0.
• Finished 10th in the point standings after 26 races; ranked fifth after the reset for the 2010 Chase.
• Through five Chase races this year, Busch’s average finish is 14.2 • In 31 races this season, Busch has two wins along with nine top-five and 16 top-10 finishes.
• Has competed in 64 Chase races since 2004 (45 have been in a Dodge) with 16 top-five and 33 top-10 finishes.
• Busch’s career-best Chase finish at Martinsville was fifth in 2004. He started seventh and led 120 laps.
DID YOU KNOW?
Lee Petty earned Dodge its first NASCAR victory at Martinsville Speedway in 1953 without leading a single lap. Herb Thomas led the final 127 laps until a check of the scoring cards revealed that Petty had actually won the race. No change was issued on lap leaders.
DODGE MOTORSPORTS ENGINEERING QUOTE OF THE WEEK – HOWARD COMSTOCK “Seven of the last nine races in the Chase are all on high-speed, high-banked tracks. Exactly in the middle of all of that is Martinsville. Neither high-speed nor high-banked, Martinsville remains one of the biggest engineering challenges in Sprint Cup competition. At .533 miles in length with almost no appreciable banking in the corners, the great question is how can you accelerate, stop, and turn a 3,450-pound car 1000 times over 500 laps without failing any components. This is when all of that stress testing done over the years to all of those critical drive-line components is going to pay dividends.”
DODGE DRIVER QUOTES
“We’re coming back into Martinsville with a lot of confidence and a really positive attitude about racing there this weekend. We’ve run very well there through the years, but you wouldn’t know that by just looking at the statistics. The biggest thing is that it’s been seldom that we’ve been able to put together a whole race at Martinsville. We’d start out strong and not be able to get the good finishes we needed. Many times we’ve been strong enough to win a 400-lap race there, but the problem is that Martinsville races are 500-lappers, not 400.”
Kurt Busch, No. 2 Operation Home Front/ Miller Lite Dodge Charger
“At Martinsville, you just have to stay out of trouble, try to keep your nose clean and keep the brakes on the car as much as you can. It’s definitely a tough track, but I feel like I am learning more and more of what I need to do each time we go there. I’ve been to all the tracks enough now that there have been good points that we’ve had during a race. I try to tell myself that if I run well like I have before, and don’t do some of the things that didn’t work out, we’re going to run inside the top 10, if not better.”
Sam Hornish Jr. No. 77 Mobil 1 Dodge Charger
“The No. 12 team had a very successful race at Martinsville in the spring. That was my Cup debut and even though I had a few Truck Series starts there, it was really like going there for the first time. We ran solidly in the top-15 for most of the day and we were able to bring our car home in pretty good shape. I was really proud of the effort that everyone put in. Hopefully, we can ratchet that up a notch or two and get a top-10 effort out of it this weekend.”
Brad Keselowski, No 12 Penske Dodge Charger
