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[/media-credit]Saturday, May 26, 2012
Dodge PR
Charlotte Motor Speedway
NASCAR Nationwide Series
HISTORY 300
Post-Race Quotes
Brad Keselowski (No. 22 Discount Tire Dodge Challenger) Finished 1st HOW WERE YOU ABLE TO STRETCH THE FUEL? “Well, I can’t tell you that (smiles). There’s a strategy and you know, Penske Racing engines, they do a great job with fuel mileage on the Dodges and they deserve a lot of credit for it. There’s only so much you can do as a driver and a lot of it comes down to the car and what it needs. Denny (Hamlin) didn’t let me save any. I can tell you, at the end he was running pretty hard. I knew he was going to be tough, both him and Kyle (Busch). They all did a great job and I had a lot of fun racing ‘em. Thankfully, we were able to save enough fuel. And I get what I think is one of the biggest wins of my career, to win on Memorial Day weekend and what it means to me and this country. It feels great.”
YOU SAID BEFORE THE RACE THAT YOUR CAR WAS JUST A LITTLE BIT OFF. “You’ve got to be optimistic and you’ve got to believe in your people. We’re doing all we can with this Nationwide program to bring in the most talented people we can and continue to give ‘em promotions to Cup and so forth. You know, this program is our depth at Penske Racing. It’s great to see it for these guys. They deserve to get some results and the future that it beholds for them. I’m proud to be a part of that in some way.”
THIS IS THE FIRST NATIONWIDE WIN FOR YOUR CREW CHIEF, JEREMY BULLINS. “Jeremy came to us from Richard Childress Racing and we gave him the opportunity to move up from an engineer to a crew chief. I’m happy for him, I really am. He is a hard worker and a smart guy. He deserves results like today. I’m glad to be a part of that and really everyone on this team with the Discount Tire Dodge, to work with them and to help them make their mark on their career and get future opportunities. It means a lot to me.”
YOU KIND OF TALKED HIM INTO STAYING OUT DURING THAT SECOND TO LAST CAUTION WHEN EVERYONE ELSE CAME IN. WAS TRACK POSITION THE KEY? “Well, we had a lot of wrecks. I knew we probably weren’t done wrecking and so we got a few more wrecks that helped us get into the fuel window. We were leading before that. We had a good car; probably not as good as the 18 (Hamlin) but we had a really good car. I’m glad it still worked out.”
YOU HAVE TWO WINS NOW AT CHARLOTTE MOTOR SPEEDWAY. “Good. I really wish I’d have gotten that Truck win last weekend, I really do. Tomorrow would be really big, too.”
Jeremy Bullins (Crew Chief, No. 22 Discount Tire Dodge Challenger) Finished 1st WHAT WAS THAT LAST LAP LIKE FOR YOU? “Well, the last 73 were the longest 73 laps of my racing career but just so happy for this group. We’ve been close all year. We’ve been bringing good cars to the racetrack and had little things after little things go wrong. I’m just so happy to put this group where it belongs – in victory lane.”
Sam Hornish Jr. (No. 12 Alliance Truck Parts Dodge Challenger) Finished Ninth “We had an OK car. We lost the track-position game early. We were a good enough car and more consistent than a lot of people but we were a tenth off at the beginning and a tenth off among the best cars at the end. We might be able to gain a couple of positions on a start but then lose the positions. We need to get better track positions and give ourselves a better opportunity to race in clean air.”
ANY SECOND THOUGHTS ABOUT PITTING WITH MOST OF THE FIELD LATE IN THE RACE? “We had to at that point. Previous to that, we had made an adjustment to make sure we weren’t on the splitter. We weren’t on the splitter but the car was super tight because of the adjustments we had taken out of the car to try and free it up and keep it off the splitter. We need to be smarter about what our car is doing before the race starts so that we don’t make so many changes throughout the race and give ourselves the opportunity to have better track position and slug it out there at the end.”
