DODGE AT TEXAS MOTOR SPEEDWAY
· Dodge has three wins at TMS (Kurt Busch – 2009, Kasey Kahne – 2006 and Ryan Newman – 2003).
· Dodge earned three consecutive poles at TMS (Ryan Newman made it a sweep in 2005 and Kasey Kahne started from the pole in the spring race in 2006).
· Dodge has the only Sprint Cup win from the pole at the 1.5-mile track. Kasey Kahne led five times for 63 laps en route to victory in the 2006 spring race, his second win of the season in the No. 9 Dodge Dealers/UAW Dodge from Evernham Motorsports. Kahne finished the season with six wins, most in the series, and six poles.
DODGE NEWS AND NOTES
· The No. 7 SPEED Energy Dodge Charger from Robby Gordon Motorsports is not entered this weekend.
· Brad Keselowski’s made his first career start in the Sprint Cup Series at TMS in the 2008 fall event (before joining Penske Racing). He started 37th and finished 19th. His best finish of 14th came at the 2010 sprint event.
· A.J. Allmendinger earned a career-best Sprint Cup finish of second two weeks ago at Martinsville.
THE DODGE BOYS
· Dodge drivers have 213 wins in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series.
· Dodge teams have posted 53 victories since the manufacturer’s return to NASCAR’s premier series in 2001 after being out of the sport since 1977.
· Dodge has posted wins each season since its return in 2001 including seven wins twice (2002 and 2006).
DODGE HISTORICAL DATA
· First Dodge NASCAR Sprint Cup Series Win: Lee Petty, 2/1/53, West Palm Beach, Fla., 100 miles, .5-mile track.
· Last Dodge NASCAR Sprint Cup Series Win: Brad Keselowski, 03/18/2012, Food City 500, Bristol Motor Speedway, 93.037 mph avg. speed.
DID YOU KNOW?
· The Dodge Charger street car is the only rear-wheel-drive model in Sprint Cup Series competition that is available with a V-8 engine.
· SRT Motorsports includes all of Chrysler Group’s NASCAR racing efforts for Dodge and RAM.
· Dodge is an Official Passenger Car of NASCAR.
· SRT Motorsports is competing for championships in all three NASCAR touring series in 2012.
FROM THE ENGINEER – RACING AT TEXAS “As we go to Texas this week, something that’s on every body’s mind is that amazingly, the last 180 miles of the 2011 Samsung 500 ran without a caution. That’s an extremely long green-flag run on a very fast and punishing track. Most Sprint Cup engineers will have spent a good bit of the off week considering the possibility it could happen again. So besides worrying about all the chassis and engine components that take a pounding at this tough venue, engineers will have to be sure they have the new fuel injection system figured out for its first-ever trip to Texas. Miscalculating fuel economy on a 180-mile, green-flag run would prove to be disastrous for any team.” Howard Comstock, SRT Motorsports Engineering
INSIDE THE NUMBERS
· 2 – Brad Keselowski has started inside the top 10 in only two of the first six Sprint Cup races this season. He started fifth at Bristol (Win) and seventh at Martinsville (9th).
· 4 – A.J. Allmendinger started the season with four consecutive starts inside the top 15 including second at Bristol. The last two races, he’s started outside the top 20.
DODGE QUOTE OF THE WEEK “We’ve definitely had a lot of speed in our cars to start the season. That’s a testament to the hard work put in by everyone in the off-season. We’ve legitimately had top-five or top-10 cars at every track this year. Whether it’s me speeding on pit road or having fuel injection issues, we need to figure out how to finish where we deserve to finish. Once we do that, I think you’ll really see this team take off. We have more speed coming in our cars as we continue to make them better. I’m excited about what we can become.” Brad Keselowski, No. 2 Miller Lite Dodge Charger R/T on the start to his 2012 season
FROM THE CREW CHIEF “At Martinsville, we took what we were hearing from A.J. as for his description of how he felt his car was handling and headed in the direction we thought was appropriate. Essentially what we did was give him a more stable platform to work with. Looking at his background and listening to his comments, we went with a more rigid setup for the front end and it gave him the feel he wanted and the stability he needed. That was the direction we headed in at Martinsville and it was a solid day from the beginning all the way ‘till the end of the race. We’re hoping for a lot more solid races like that and are getting a really good grasp on what A.J. needs to take our Shell-Pennzoil Dodge Charger to the front.” Todd Gordon, crew chief, No. 22 Shell/Pennzoil Dodge Charger R/T
DODGE QUOTES “You know at Vegas we were really fast and I feel like at Texas we should be pretty good anyway. I hope that what we learned at Martinsville gives us what we need. That’s something that Todd and I have talked about in trying to learn each other. We’ve been trying to get going in the best direction with the front end.
“Honestly, the Penske cars are a little bit different from what I’d been used to. We kind of went back in the direction that I had been running the last few years and I think that really helped.” A.J. Allmendinger, No. 22 Shell/Pennzoil Dodge Charger R/T
“Texas really is a unique racetrack and a unique layout. From above, it looks like any normal 1.5-mile track, but the transitions into and off of the corners are quite a bit different than Charlotte, Las Vegas or any of the other mile-and-a-halfs. There is a lot of banking into the corners, which means you can carry a lot of speed in and to the center of the turns, but you lose that speed on exit as the track flattens out. It’s difficult because normally you can carry the same amount of grip and speed on both corner entry and corner exit. You have to adjust accordingly and sometimes that’s hard to do at 180 miles per hour. It’s easy to find yourself in trouble, especially off of Turn 2.” Brad Keselowski, No. 2 Miller Lite Dodge Charger R/T
