Sunday, Nov. 14, 2010
Dodge Motorsports PR
Phoenix Int’l Raceway
Kobalt Tools 500
Post-Race Quotes
NASCAR Sprint Cup Series
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KURT BUSCH (No. 2 Miller Lite Dodge Charger) Finished Ninth “We’ll take the top-10 finish. Our Miller Lite Dodge was a little temperamental today. We did our job on Friday (in qualifying) to get a solid starting position (third) and we just weren’t able to capitalize on the early track position that we had. After the second stop, we kept working on the Miller Lite Dodge with air and wedge adjustments and the car didn’t react the way that we needed it to. Most of the middle of the race we just fought tight in, loose in the center and loose off, and it cost us too much track position. Around lap 235, we pitted for a second time after 10 laps or so to get back to an earlier combination that the car liked. From there, the car really responded and it was obvious that it may come down to fuel mileage. Steve (Addington, crew chief) said we were good to go to the end (of the race) and if it stayed green, we could make it on fuel. It was a solid day, but we need to get a better balance on the car. For us, it comes down to working on getting the front end to work better in the center of the corner.”
TRAVIS GEISLER (Crew Chief, No. 77 Mobil 1 Dodge Charger) Finished 32nd ”The first run of the race wasn’t very good for us, we faded a little bit. The second run, we made some adjustments and got ourselves back up to 22nd, ran there for a couple of runs and felt like we were going to be in pretty good shape. Unfortunately, we got off a little bit and it happened to be the longest run of the race, so we ended up a lap down. Then, we had some contact with the 98 and had to pit for a tire rub. It just kind of unraveled a little bit on us. It seemed like we were going to get it together for a decent run with the Mobil 1 Dodge, but it just didn’t work out. We’ll get after it for Homestead and see if we can end this on a positive note.”
BRAD KESELOWSKI (NO. 12 Penske Racing Dodge Charger) Finished 42nd “Just a tough deal for this Penske Dodge team today. This was a brand new car that the guys built and I hate to see us get into the wall like that so early in the race. We felt that we had a really solid race car heading into today. Obviously, it didn’t go the way that we wanted.
“No real warning that the right-front was about to let go. It was just a last minute deal heading down the front stretch that surprised us. It looks like it was some sort of weird tire failure that I’ve never seen before. I’m not sure what happened. We’ll have to go back with Goodyear and figure out what happened. Just a strange, strange deal for sure.”
