Saturday, August 13, 2011
Dodge Motorsports PR
Watkins Glen International
Zippo 200
NASCAR Nationwide Series Post-Race Quotes
KURT BUSCH (No. 22 Ruby Tuesday/Discount Tire Dodge Challenger R/T) Race Winner CAN YOU TAKE US THROUGH THE RACE AND WHAT IT FELT LIKE TO BE IN THE NATIONWIDE SERIES CAR AGAIN? “This was a lot of fun to come out here and fill in for (Brad) Keselowski and have Todd Gordon here running the show. To have a championship-caliber car available and to jump into it, it’s an opportunity. I’m glad that today turned out the way that it did and to reach its full potential and that’s to sit on the pole, lead some laps and be in position to win and bring the victory on home. Penske Racing puts a lot of effort into their Cup cars and now I know why they continue this Nationwide program. It provides a great stage for a guy like Todd Gordon and those crew guys to develop and work their way up to the Cup Series. I’m just really proud of the team and the effort put forth today to bring it home to victory lane and to run up front with my little brother and Carl Edwards. Those two guys are the winningest guys in Nationwide, along with Mark Martin. To race with those guys, I can see why they are tough to beat. For us to come out on top with our one shot at it, we needed to take all the advantage that we could with it and I did. It was a great day.”
WAS YOUR PLAN AT THE END OF THE RACE TO RUN KYLE HARD TO RUN HIM OUT OF FUEL? “We were running hard together. It wasn’t to force him to run out fuel, I wanted to race him as fair and square as I could. They had a problem in the pits and we knew that they were short. I had the confidence in Todd (Gordon) that we were good on fuel, so we were going to apply pressure and it wasn’t that we were hanging on and waiting. It seemed like I could catch him in traffic and I could get to his back bumper, but I couldn’t do anything (pass him). That was still with 10 laps to go. With five to go. I was really going to pour it on, but those guys didn’t have enough fuel.”
DOES THIS WIN MAKE YOU TEMPTED TO RACE ON SATURDAY MORE OFTEN? “What it did to me after being gone for four years was that it shows the level of commitment that the guys that run both series have to give. With time away from the Cup car, the focus of balancing two setups and running all the laps, yesterday I was in the car from noon to six o’clock. It makes for a longer day and eats up your time where I felt that I was off just a little bit on the Cup side. Tonight will be an opportunity to go back over those notes and be as focused as we can on Sunday.”
IT CAME DOWN TO A GREEN-WHITE CHECKERED FLAG; TAKE US THROUGH THE RESTART? “I knew that it was going to be a good finish. On the restart at the end, all heck could have broken loose. I actually drove it in a little too deep; that right-front tire was cold. I just have to thank this crew for allowing me to step in, they were starting to call me “Buschlowski” because I was wearing Brad’s fire suit. Todd Gordon (crew chief) did an excellent job. This was a fast Dodge Challenger. I’m proud to drive it. Thanks to Ruby Tuesday, Discount Tire and Shell and Pennzoil for allowing me to come over here and have fun. It’s really neat to come over here and sit on the pole and win.”
TODD GORDON (crew chief, No. 22 Ruby Tuesday/Discount Tire Dodge Challenger R/T) “A great win for the Ruby Tuesday/Discount Tire Dodge Challenger. Kurt ran a great race. It got a little hairy with fuel mileage those last few laps. I thought that we were good for at least one green-white-checkered flag. The car was fast. We didn’t have to make too many changes. Once we saw the No. 18 car pit for fuel, I thought that we were in good shape.”
WHEN DID YOU KNOW THAT YOU WERE GOING TO BE PAIRED UP WITH KURT? “It was Wednesday morning when I got the call that Kurt was going to be in the car because Brad was really holding on to see how he would feel. Obviously it’s a pleasure to get somebody of this caliber.
“The race car was decent. I felt like we were better on the back-half of the run and the race played out how we looked at it. We pitted on lap 24 and waited to see where that went from there.
“We could go (lap) 24 to 54 and a caution there in the middle put us to (lap) 55 and that gave us a lap on the rest of them. I can’t say that I wasn’t a little stressed on fuel mileage. With the contours here and the down hills we needed to make sure that the fuel cell picked up. We knew that we had enough to make it, we just wanted to make sure that we picked it all up.”
YOU’VE WORKED WITH A FEW DRIVERS THIS YEAR. WHAT CHALLENGES HAS THAT PRESENTED FOR YOU? “Probably the biggest challenge that I had with the driver allotment that we’ve had this year was getting to work with Jacques Villeneuve because he’s not part of our Penske group. There’s a lot of communication. I’d say that’s one of the things that we do very well. The crew chiefs and engineers within Penske, no matter what series we’re in, we’re all kind of together. We know what’s going on. We have race notes from each other. We look through them every weekend and see where we are. I had looked and seen what Steve’s (Addington) setup was for Kurt’s Cup car. We were pretty close. I kind of had a direction with rear springs because there was something different there. From Sam Hornish Jr. to Parker Kligerman to Kurt, they’re there. They’re in the shop. I’ve seen them. I’ve talked to them. My road engineer at the beginning of the year is now one of his road engineers on the Cup program. I went to him (Jonathon Hasler) and asked what’s he like, what he wants? And we got some ideas to start with. It’s been very fluent and it speaks to the level of what we have at Penske Racing.”
BRAD KESELOWSKI (No. 22 Ruby Tuesday/Discount Tire Dodge Challenger R/T) “This is great. This deal with Kurt didn’t come together until Tuesday. We left our driver debrief and talked about the Cup weekend at Pocono, I walked up to Kurt and said, ‘Hey Kurt, I think it would be cool if you drove my car this weekend. I just don’t think that I can pull it off.’ He was like a kid in a candy store. His face lit up and I knew that he wanted to drive this car. I knew how bad he wanted to win and I’m glad to see his hard work and passion for the team pay off with a victory.”
HOW BIG OF A WIN IS THIS FOR YOUR TEAM GUYS? “It’s great for them. We’ve had four championship drivers in that car over a four week span with Sam Hornish Jr., Jacques Villeneuve, Kurt, and myself. It’s going to be really cool to watch Jacques next week in Montreal.”
