Sunday, August 21, 2011
Dodge Motorsports PR
Michigan International Speedway
Pure Michigan 400
NASCAR Sprint Cup Series
Sprint Cup Post-Race Quotes
BRAD KESELOWSKI (No. 2 Miller Lite Dodge Charger R/T) Finished 3rd
“We were decent today, about a fifth to 10th-place car. Paul (Wolfe, crew chief) and the guys did a great job making the right pit calls and executing. We probably finished better than what we had in the car. It was a solid day. I’m proud of my team and the whole Miller Lite Dodge Charger effort here. It was a pretty good race, I hope everyone enjoyed it.
“It was a good run for the Miller Lite Dodge. The guys did a great job working on the car today. We executed well all day. Paul made some great call on the pit box and we were able to bring home a third-place finish. It’s a great run for us here in Michigan, a solid day. I’m proud of my team. We gained some points and had another solid run.”
“HAS THE MILLER LITE DODGE TEAM PEAKED AT THE RIGHT TIME? “I think so. Right before the Chase is always the right time to peak, you just hope you can carry that momentum in the Chase. I feel pretty good about the next three; we’ll just have to see what we get there. It’s been a good ride the last three weeks.”
(IN THE MEDIA CENTER)
TALK ABOUT YOUR THIRD-PLACE FINISH TODAY. “We were decent today. Probably not as good as we needed to be to run with the 48, the 24, 18, those guys but probably a fifth to 10th-place car. Just executed really well. Had some good restarts. Had some good moves in traffic. Good pit stops, good strategy. Found our way up into the top five there with 75 to go. Just a really solid effort. We need just a little bit more speed. Seem to be executing fairly well with our team. I’m proud of that.
“Wish I had something more for the 48 and 18 there at the end, but it was just really kind of watching and hoping someone would make a mistake. I couldn’t do anything on my own merit. Still a fun race, proud of the effort. The last few weeks are more than I could ever ask for.”
IS THIS A CONFIDENCE BOOST THAT YOU’RE GETTING FROM RUNNING WEEK IN AND WEEK OUT AT THE FRONT OR ARE THE BREAKS FINALLY GOING YOUR WAY AFTER A BAD START? “I don’t know, but I wish I could bottle it up and save a little bit of it (smiling). I don’t see where I’m doing anything a lot differently, I really don’t. I don’t see where my team is doing anything a lot differently. I think we have good speed. I think Jimmie or anyone else in the garage would tell you that speed is the foundation of a good team. I think that good speed is what you need.
“If we’d have had great speed, maybe we could have won today. We’ve had good speed over the last few weeks. From there, you have to execute as a team. We’ve done that. As to why now and not before, I couldn’t tell you. I look at some of the races where I felt we were really, really good at. The 600, where I felt like we ran top five, top 10 all day, at the very end we’re in position to run second or third, someone runs out of gas in front of you. Kind of weird things have happened to us the first third of the year. Sometimes people forget about you when you have those things happen.
“For our team, probably the biggest thing I could say is there’s certainly some confidence and snowballing going on. One good run breeds another good run. I’m not sure how to quantify that, how or why. I think I’m probably a little too close to the fire to truly understand it. But it’s been amazing. It’s been more than I could ever ask for and exactly what we were looking for out of our team here at Penske Racing and everyone that supports us.”
WHAT HAS HAPPENED IN THE LAST TWO MONTHS THAT NOW WE’RE TALKING THREE TOP THREES IN A ROW? “Well, I mean, obviously there’s been some growth within the company at Penske Racing. I kind of walk a line there with how I say that because we’ve made a step forward, which is great to do and has created the results we’ve seen over the last few weeks. But I think we need to make another step forward. That’s a big, big goal, a lofty goal.
“To be a championship contender, we need to make that next step. We’ve made a step forward, kind of the specifics of which I’d probably rather not go into details of. I think that you can see it with our team, obviously. You can see that Penske Racing has what I feel is two equally competitive teams. I’m not sure exactly what happened to Kurt today. I know he ran real strong the early, middle section of the race. It has gone down to a matter of getting everything to click. Hate to get into any specifics of the other reasons. (Jimmy Johnson offers “please do”) I’d have to kick my dog, and I like my dogs (smiling). I’m not going to go into those parts. But pretty happy with the growth.”
HOW IS THE ANKLE? WAS THERE A LOT OF FAMILY IN THE CROWD WATCHING YOU RACE? “Yeah, it was a great showing, by far the best run I’ve ever had here, which is something that I’m going to personally reflect on tonight over a beer or two. It’s been a lot of fun. I feel good. Not as good as I’d like to feel, but good enough to not sit here and whine about it. It’s been a great day for our team. It’s been a good weekend. I wish the truck race would have gone better, otherwise, it would be an awesome weekend. Pretty happy all-in-all with the efforts.
“It’s always good to run well in front of your home family, your hometown. I’m sure Jimmie could elaborate on that, what it’s like to win at California for him. It’s been great. This is gonna be a weekend I’ll never forget, that’s for sure. But now you just got to come back and run better again and win. Sounds really easy, but just really happy with the performance in general, though.”
HOW IS THE BACK? WAS IT GIVING YOU MORE TROUBLE PERHAPS THAN THE ANKLE? “Year, it was. I made pretty good progress this week with some different rehab stuff that we did. Been feeling pretty good. I’m not going to get back to a hundred percent probably ‘till Daytona of next year. Good progress so far. We’ll just take it one step at a time. But, you know, I definitely felt the best I have. As far as during the week, I ran the whole race without a brace. Maybe regret that just a little bit. Making progress, and that’s good. I need to. We’ll just have to see how it goes week by week. Pretty happy. Didn’t feel like it affected me in the car today.”
ABOUT A MONTH AGO, PEOPLE WERE WONDERING IF YOU WERE GOING TO MAKE THE TOP 20. YOU’RE 12TH IN POINTS. A MONTH AGO, DID YOU THINK YOU HAD A SHOT AT THE TOP 10? “Well, I think after Loudon I was really, really nervous. We popped the tire there at Loudon, knocked the wall down, and just had a miserable day, fell back to like 23rd in points. We were definitely a top 15 car. Certainly weren’t as competitive as we wanted to be. Seemed like we kept taking one step forward, one step back, a good run, a bad run, a good run, a bad run. You can’t do that with this new points system. After Loudon it was a big step backwards. I’d be lying if I didn’t say I was nervous after that race. Like I say, we’re clicking now. That’s all that really matters. Just glad to see it.”
IF YOU GET TWO WINS, YOU MAKE THE TOP 10? “The seeding obviously is a huge advantage. Those points are great. But I don’t think we’ve seen a year yet where those points have made the difference over who wins or who doesn’t. It seems like we all talk about it at this point in the year. But when the Chase comes, who’s going to win it is going to win it whether they have the extra points or not. Who knows, maybe one year it won’t turn out that way, and this could be the year. That would be about my luck, wouldn’t it (smiling)?
“I would like to make the top 10 on our own merits if for no other reason than to push away all the naysayers of the wild card system, not to have to hear that. It’s going to be good either way. I’m a big fan of the wild card. It’s going to be something that’s going to reward me. I think it’s a great way of showing a commitment to our fans to rewarding those who can win races. It serves the sport well accordingly. I’d be proud either way to be in the Chase. It would mean even more to get in through the top 10 system.”
THIS IS THE LAST RACE BEFORE THE REPAVE. WHAT ARE YOUR HOPES FOR THE REPAVE – APPREHENSIVE OR OPTIMISTIC? “It’s going to be awesome (laughter). I think it’s going to be cool. I know I’ve spent some time talking with Roger Curtis, the track president, about it. There are a lot of drivers that discouraged the repave. He assured us it has to be done in order to make sure we don’t have a Daytona situation. We can’t have that. Our sport, it’s important we get it right when we get here and have fans in the stands. I respect his commitment to doing that.”
IN THE CHAMPIONSHIP, HOW DO YOU BEAT JIMMIE JOHNSON? HOW DO YOU KEEP HIM FROM JUST INTIMIDATING PEOPLE WHEN HE GETS THERE? HE HAS ALREADY STARTED ON YOU ABOUT HEARING VOICES. “I don’t think I’ll be hearing any voices. The voices that I heard early in my career were, ‘You’re never going to make it.’ Everything from here on out, you know, is peaches. It’s good.
“I think with Jimmie, the biggest thing I can say about Jimmie is that, you know, I’m sure a lot of people in the garage would say his last championship was the most impressive. I think the key, again, goes down to speed is the foundation of our sport. Up until maybe last year, I think a lot of people would tell you that Jimmie had the fastest car. I don’t think that was the case last year and he was still able to get it done. When you look at it in that way or that manner, it’s usually a good indicator if you have the fastest car through the Chase that you have the highest odds, the best opportunity to win the championship.
“I mean, I think that’s probably the baseline right there, you need to work with your team and have speed. From there, you know, you just got to execute. You can’t make any dumb moves. I was going to say something there I probably shouldn’t say. You got to make things happen without compromising your situations and so forth.
“To beat Jimmie, I mean, the foundation starts within your own team. I think that’s what’s so encouraging to me about the progress we’ve made with the 2 car here over the last few weeks and this season. We’ll just have to see how it plays out, whether or not we can start the Chase with cars that have good speed. That will be key for us to have an opportunity, as far as I’m concerned. Then from there, it’s going to come down to pit crew and myself executing it.
“I think the foundation has been speed. I hate to wear that out on y’all, but that’s the truth. From there, you have to execute it. You can’t run into walls, get penalties, anything of those things. To beat Jimmie, you’re going to have a fast race car and out execute him. I think he’s proven just having a fast racecar isn’t going to beat him, but if you’re going to win the Chase, you are going to have to have cars like what Kyle had through the race.”
PAUL WOLFE (Crew Chief, No. 2 Miller Lite Dodge Charger R/T)
“We battled with it (the car) today. We made a lot of changes to try to be smart about what we were doing, trying to understand what was working and what wasn’t. At the last stop, we were having issues with the car being tight in, loose off. We weren’t able to fix both of them, so we decided to focus on what would make us the best. We tried to help the exit aittle bit. We thought that would be where we could make some gains. So, we did. It was a great effort. Brad did an awesome job. I think we’ll continue to get better and better each week.
“I think we’ve been doing a pretty good job these past three weeks. I’m proud of all the effort. We’ve been working hard and the guys have made a lot of changes to our race cars back at the shop. We continue to make changes and we’ve got more to come. That’s the encouraging part. We’re definitely not at full capacity yet. We’ve just got to keep working hard.”
KURT BUSCH (No. 22 Shell/Pennzoil Dodge Charger R/T) Finished 34th “We blew a right front tire with three to go running just outside the top 10. It ruptured the radiator, so that was it for us.
“It’s just so typical of how a lot of our races on this type of track have gone lately. We’re good for about the first 15 laps in a run and then the handling goes away. We started really tight, adjusted on it and it went too loose, so loose that I got into the wall about a third of the way into the race. We were luck not to cut down a right-front tire before it happened.
“We thought if we went with rights only on one stop that it would give us track position and tighten up the car. We got up to third before the handling started going away. There were just way too many mood swings with our Shell/Pennzoil Dodge out there today.”
