Sunday, Feb. 19, 2012
Daytona 500
Daytona International Speedway
NASCAR Sprint Cup Series
Post-Qualifying Quotes
Dodge Motorsports PR
Brad Keselowski (No. 2 Miller Lite Dodge Charger R/T) Qualified 19th HOW WAS QUALIFYING? “I just went out there and ran a lap. Either the car is fast or it’s not. Qualifying here at Daytona is pretty routine. I think that we’ll end up somewhere between 15 to 20th. Our Miller Lite Dodge can race from anywhere. I’m not too concerned about it.
“Our cars are very similar. To run in the 60s is about where we thought we’d be in qualifying. Our Dodges have proven to be plenty fast in race trim. We’ll just have to see how this pack racing is going to play out.”
HOW DO YOU THINK THE DUELS WILL PLAY OUT? “I think that you’ll see the guys who have to make it in the show run really, really hard in the 150s. I think everybody else will be pretty chill.”
DO YOU THINK THAT THE DUELS WILL BE MORE LAID BACK COMPARED TO THE SHOOUTOUT? “When I think that I have an answer to that, everybody does something completely different. I would have thought after the first two or three wrecks we’d figure that part out, but we didn’t. I’m not going to try to interject logic and common sense.”
AJ Allmendinger (No. 22 Shell/Pennzoil Dodge Charger R/T) Qualified 18th “A solid qualifying run for our Shell/Pennzoil Dodge Charger. I gave it all that I had. I thought we might be a touch quicker from yesterday. It’s hard to tell as heavy as the wind is today. It’s good to know that the Penske guys build race cars exactly the same because our times have been right on top of each other throughout all of practice. We didn’t think that we had a shot at the pole. Our car has been good. I’m excited about the race. With the way that we ran last night, I know that our cars are fast. We’ll just see where we end up.”
WHAT ARE YOUR THOUGHTS ON THE DUELS? “You don’t want to tear up a race car before the 500. I think it’s two things; if you have a chance to win the 500 with five laps to go, then you get after it. If it’s a struggle and you’re midpack, fifth to eight, then you try to play conservative and not wreck your car. It’s all about where you position yourself with three or four laps to go like we did last night.”
Robby Gordon (No. 7 SPEED Energy Dodge Charger R/T) Qualified 48th “We’ve run well on restrictor-plate tracks in the past in our SPEED Energy Dodge. We barley made the show at the fall Talladega race and led (the race) for a while. I’m in the same race car that we ran in Talladega. We qualified around 43rd and was leading by lap 15 or so. We have a shot at the (Daytona) 500 still. We just need to be there at the end of the 150 on Thursday to make a run at making the 500 on Sunday.”
