Friday, Oct. 14, 2011
Dodge Final Race Quotes
Dodge Motorsports PR
NASCAR Nationwide Series
Dollar General 300 Miles of Courage
Charlotte Motor Speedway
BRAD KESELOWSKI (No. 22 Discount Tire Dodge Challenger R/T) Finished Sixth “It wasn’t meant to be today. The Discount Dodge Challenger was fast. We had a shot at winning today and just ran over something while leading and cut down a right-rear tire. I was still able to get up to sixth on those last restarts from 13th which I guess was okay. Honestly, I felt like if I had a couple more cracks at it, I could have got back up to the lead. Just wrong place, wrong time. One of those days.”
DO YOU THINK IF YOU HAD ANOTHER RESTART OR TWO YOU COULD HAVE HAD A SHOT TO WIN THE RACE? “Absolutely. I definitely felt like we had a shot at it even if we could have got the cautions to fall our way there at the end. It just wasn’t meant to be.”
DID YOU FEEL SOMETHING A LITTLE DIFFERENT WITH THAT SET OF TIRES? “No, it just came all at once.”
YOUR THOUGHTS ON THE NIGHT? “We had an amazing Dodge Challenger again and the racing gods just didn’t smile on us for sure. Just one of those deals where we ran over something and cut down a right rear tire. We needed more laps. I think we could have recovered and still won the race, but when it happened there just wasn’t enough laps left. Each restart we kept moving forward and moving forward and still felt like we could have recovered from it, but it just wasn’t meant to be.”
TODD GORDON (Crew Chief, No. 22 Discount Tire Dodge Challenger R/T) AS WELL AS YOU RAN TONIGHT, ARE YOU MORE FRUSTRATED AT THE OUTCOME OR ARE YOUR MORE PROUD BECAUSE YOU KEEP BRINGING EXCELLENT CARS TO THE TRACK? “You know the racing gods are with you some days and they aren’t other days. As I said to a few of the guys, it’s why you don’t apologize for situations like ORP where we had a fourth-place car and won. I felt like we had the best car tonight and circumstances didn’t line up for the Discount Tire Dodge.”
DID YOU JUST RUN OVER SOMETHING ON THE TRACK? “Yeah, it was definitely a solid puncture in the center of the tread. I think we just ran over a piece of debris.”
CAN YOU TAKE SOME MOMENTUM FROM TONIGHT’S RACE? “Well, I think Texas drives a lot like this place does with similar banking and stuff like that. As we’ve been doing right along from Kentucky to Chicago to Kansas to here, we continue to build off the package and evolve it. We’ll take a lot of what we did tonight and apply it towards Texas and look for a good run there.”
YOU ARE NOT RACING FOR A CHAMPIONSHIP, BUT YOU STILL BRING STRONG CARS TO THE TRACK EVERY WEEK. YOU MUST BE PROUD OF THE OVERALL EFFORT. “It’s a statement of what Penske Racing is all about. I think that comes from Roger (Penske, Founder and Chairman, Penske Corporation) to start with. He’s an ultimate competitor and I think everybody here is. It’s all about winning the next race.”
SAM HORNISH JR. (No. 12 Alliance Truck Parts Dodge Challenger R/T) Finished 12th “That last restart, we went from 14th to sixth on the restart and then lost six spots in the next four laps. I don’t know what our deal was. The car wouldn’t turn and as soon as I would get back in the throttle, I couldn’t keep the backend under me. All-in-all, from the mid-point of the race, I guess we should be happy with the 12th. With the job I thought I did on restarts in getting us track position, it’s just disappointing that we couldn’t keep our spots. We’ve got to be better. We’ve got to run more weekends and not have so many off weekends where we get behind. This is the first time we’ve run a night race since July; that was on concrete. It’s just tough for us to get our notebook down where we need it to be, but all-in-all, we finished 12th with our Alliance Truck Parts Dodge. That’s probably a little better than where we should have been. You just have to make the most out of it some days.”
YOU WILL BE COMPETING IN THE FINAL THREE NATIONWIDE RACES THIS YEAR; IS THAT THE PLUS YOU FEEL THE ALLIANCE TRUCK PARTS TEAM NEEDS? “Yes, we get to run the last three races so hopefully that will mean good things for us, we’ll make good decisions and get our cars better. I’m looking forward to running a couple of weekends in a row and get some momentum going.”
CHAD WALTER (Crew Chief, No. 12 Alliance Truck Parts Dodge Challenger) “We just missed it tonight. The Alliance Truck Parts Dodge is not normally this far off; we usually have Sam in the ballgame right off. We were just losing too much time on track, tried to gamble a little bit and short pit. For whatever reason, I never seem to make that work out. It was a tough night. We spent the better part of 100 laps trying to get back on the lead lap after we pitted under green and the caution came out before the cycle ended. We caught our break and got back on the lead lap. Sam had a heck of a restart with five laps to go, but didn’t have the car to compete tonight. We have to go home and figure out what happened here.
LOOKING FORWARD TO RUNNING THE FINAL THREE RACES? “Absolutely. We feel really good about that. We hope to develop some kind of rhythm and communications and build momentum to open up with in 2012.”
