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[/media-credit]Saturday, May 12, 2012
Dodge PR
Darlington Raceway
NASCAR Sprint Cup Series
Bojangles’ Southern 500
Post-Race Quotes
Brad Keselowski (No. 2 Miller Lite Dodge Charger R/T) Finished 15th HOW DID YOU MAKE UP TWO LAPS AND FINISH IN 15TH-PLACE? “I don’t know yet (laughs). I’m going to go watch a tape of that. I think we had a top 15 Dodge; I just tore it up early in the run. I got loose and hit the wall pretty good. Felt pretty lucky to get 15th out of the day. We kept working on it and had great strategy and between the two got a great run out of it. This is what great teams do, they rally from adversity and we were able to do it tonight.”
HOW IMPORTANT WILL THIS RACE BE IN THE BIG PICTURE AS YOU LOOK TO MAKE THE CHASE FOR THE NASCAR SPRINT CUP? “You’ve got to have top 15s and that’s what we did today.”
A.J. Allmendinger (No. 22 Shell/Pennzoil Dodge Charger R/T) Finished 33rd “We just struggled all night going from one extreme to the other, from so tight to just wicked loose and could never find a happy medium. The car was just a handful all night but I thought we’d be able to hang on for a top 15. We had a caution fall when we needed it after taking the wave around to get back on the lead lap, but got together with the 1 (Jamie McMurray) after that and ended up in the garage. The guys worked as hard and as fast as they could to get us back out there but there just weren’t enough laps left at that point. Todd (Gordon, crew chief) and I, along with the team, are going to have to try and figure out what we need to do to stop going back and forth to these extremes during these races and bring home the finishes we all want for the Shell Pennzoil Dodge.”
Paul Wolfe (Crew Chief, No. 2 Miller Lite Dodge Charger R/T) “It was obviously a great recovery. All the guys worked their butts off and it was frustrating when we were 2-3 laps down and just riding and there wasn’t enough cautions. It was frustrating. But we kept fighting and there was an opportunity for a wave around. We tried that the first time and it didn’t fall our way and we had another opportunity and we took it and then we got a few caution after that that kind of went our way. To get to the end of these races it’s typical for the cautions to fly and we were able to get back on the lead lap. The guys did a great job fixing all the damage and we were able salvage a decent night out of it. Everybody makes mistakes. Brad just got in there hard racing hard early in the race and got the damage but overall I feel like we had a good Miller Lite Dodge. I think fixing the damage and being able to come home 15th shows the strength of the team for sure.
HOW EXTENSIVE WAS THE DAMAGE? “It’s mainly quite a bit of body damage aero-wise. We won’t really know chassis-wise until we get back to the shop and check some of that out but the biggest thing was it just knocked all the aero and it got out of balance. It’s hard ‘cause you’re trying to adjust on the car but you know some of it is damage. We kept working on it, kept trying things, and got ourselves to get some points back there at the end.”
WERE YOU PLAYING THE ODDS A LITTLE BIT BY TAKING THE WAVE AROUND LATE IN THE RACE? HOW BIG OF A GAMBLE WAS IT WITH TIRE WEAR HERE AT DARLINGTON? “It gets to a point in the race where you’re in a position where you have nothing to do but gain. There’s really not much more to lose (laughs). And when you get in those situations then go for it and that’s kind of what we did.”
HOW BIG IS THIS FINISH TONIGHT POINTS-WISE? “Obviously it’s good that we got two wins this early in the season but hopefully we can add to that before we get to the Chase. You never know. There’s some guys that can win some races. There is obviously no guarantee that we’re in yet so keeping all the points we can as we keep working towards getting ourselves in the top 10 in points is big. When you take what you call a bad night and still get a top 15, that’s a good accomplishment and like Brad said, it felt like a win to him.”
Todd Gordon (Crew Chief, No. 22 Shell/Pennzoil Dodge Charger R/T) “David Hoots (NASCAR Managing Event Director) said at the driver’s meeting that you’ve just got to race the racetrack. We had a long green flag run there to start with and didn’t quite have the balance we wanted to and got down a lap and just seemed like we were always the one car off of getting back on the lead lap. I felt like we had a decent race car and felt like we could run in the top 15. We didn’t have a top five car by any means but felt like we could run 10th to 15th. Just racing back by the 1 car there at the end and I think he got loose underneath us. It bent the track bar and we had to go to the garage area and make some repairs. Even after that we rolled back out with some decent speed.”
