Sunday, March 6, 2011
Las Vegas Motor Speedway
Kobalt Tools 400
Post Race Quotes NASCAR Sprint Cup Series
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KURT BUSCH (No. 22 Pennzoil Ultra Dodge Charger R/T) Finished Ninth “We gave it all we had. Steve (Addington, crew chief) made a great call to put us up front early and we were running , just biding our time. On a restart, I got too racy. I wanted the lead and get the bonus point and you can’t do that. You have to race your race, let the race come to you. I was a little loose, had some rear brake in it, (Juan Pablo) Montoya was close and I spun it around. The Pennzoil Ultra Dodge Charger had a great run today. I appreciate my crew for giving me a great car. We’re right up were we need to be in points (currently tied for first) and really excited about today’s finish.
“We wanted to win this thing for sure. I came up just a little bit short in my hometown. I think I may have pushed a bit too hard early driving the car as hard as I did. After I got loose in Turn 3 and spun the car, I just settled into the race and tried to start picking off as many spots as I could. I’m not sure we had the winning car, but we were good enough to be top 10 and get as many points as I could. Man, once you get stuck back in the pack here, everybody is running the same speed and it’s just really hard to gain spots. The only way that you can do so is on pit road and have the confidence that your guys are going to do their job (in the pits) This place is just fast and you’re on the edge every lap of the race.”
STEVE ADDINGTON (crew chief, No. 22 Pennzoil Ultra Dodge Charger) “I’m really proud of this race team considering how we started the weekend. We made big changes from the time that we unloaded up to the race. We really didn’t have to make big changes during the race, maybe change the track bar a little bit and some wedge, which was about it. I just want to thank everyone’s effort here at the race track. They busted their tails to give us a great race car and it showed this afternoon.”
TALK ABOUT THE CALL TO STAY OUT AND LEAD A LAP LATE IN THE RACE? “I told Kurt that I thought we were off a bit yesterday and reminded him that we just need to have a solid day today and get as much as we can out of the race. I think our race car was better than ninth-place, but we’ll take it. We’ll keep fighting.”
BRAD KESELOWSKI (No. 2 Miller Lite Dodge Charger R/T) Finished 26th “We missed something all day. I’m not sure what. Kurt (Busch) was a little bit better, but neither of our Dodges were where we wanted them to be. We’ll go back to the drawing board. These rough race tracks seem to be our Achilles Heel last year and so far this year, it’s the same. We tried a lot of different things and just never hit on anything.”
ROBBY GORDON (No. 7 SPEED Energy Dodge Charger R/T) Finished 31st “We were supposed to be good to go to the finish (on fuel), but ran out and turned a 27th-place finish into a 31st. The 27th would have been a decent day as bad as our race car was. We just don’t have a handle on it. We haven’t caught on to what it takes with the new nose. When you run with the leaders, you can almost run their speed; when you run with the guys in the back, you run their speed. It’s all relevant to the cars you have around you.”
