SRT Motorsports – Dodge NSCS Race Advance
Sylvania 300
New Hampshire Motor Speedway
Sunday, Sept. 23, 2012
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DODGE AT NEW HAMPSHIRE MOTOR SPEEDWAY
· Dodge has three wins at New Hampshire (Ward Burton, Ryan Newman and Kurt Busch).
· Dodge’s Brad Keselowski claimed his first career Sprint Cup Series pole at the fall event last year.
· Dodge drivers have captured the pole for five of the last 15 races at ‘The Magic Mile’ when qualifying was completed.
· Dodge’s Brad Keselowski finished fifth at NHMS in July after qualifying the No. 2 Miller Lite Dodge 22nd.
DODGE DRIVERS IN THE CHASE – NEW HAMPSHIRE
· 2004: Jeremy Mayfield and Ryan Newman made the 10-driver field for the inaugural Chase. Both had problems in the first event at NHMS. Newman finished 33rd and Mayfield 35th.
· 2005: Jeremy Mayfield, Ryan Newman and Rusty Wallace made the Chase field. Newman won the opener after starting 13th. He jumped from 10th to third in the point standings. Wallace finished sixth and Mayfield 16th.
· 2006: Kasey Kahne was the lone Dodge driver in the final year of the 10-driver field. Kahne started 33rd in the opener and finished 16th.
· 2007: Kurt Busch was the lone Dodge representative as the field was expanded to 12 drivers. He started third and finished 25th in the opener at Loudon.
· 2008: There were no Dodges in the 2008 Chase field.
· 2009: Kurt Busch and Kasey Kahne made the elite 12. Busch finished sixth at NHMS, Kahne 38th.
· 2010: Kurt Busch was the lone Dodge driver in the Chase; he started 12th and finished 13th at Loudon.
· 2011: Brad Keselowski and Kurt Busch represented Dodge in the Chase; Keselowski finished fifth and Busch sixth in the opener at Chicagoland. In the second Chase race at NHMS, Keselowski was second and Busch 22nd.
QUOTE OF THE WEEK “As we head to the second race of the 2012 Chase, series engineers are spending the week dealing with the problem that there’s no other track in Sprint Cup like Loudon. It’s a simple layout really; a nearly rectangle-shaped track that races like an oval but that’s about all that’s simple about it. Long straightaways lead to very tight-radius corners at both ends of the track so acceleration is as important as braking and braking is as important as turning ability. No other track in the series requires any more from each of those three chassis elements. That’s what makes Loudon the engineering problem that it always is.” Howard Comstock – SRT Engineering
THE DODGE BOYS
· For the first time in the nine-year history of the Chase for the Sprint Cup, a Dodge driver is the point leader. Brad Keselowski has a three-point lead over Jimmie Johnson after winning the Chase opener at Chicagoland Speedway.
· Dodge has 216 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series wins.
· Dodge teams have posted 56 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).
2012 Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup Standings 1. Brad Keselowski 2056 7. Dale Earnhardt Jr. -17 2. Jimmie Johnson -3 8. Greg Biffle -19 3. Tony Stewart -8 9. Martin Truex -21 4. Denny Hamlin -15 10. Kevin Harvick -24 5. Kasey Kahne -15 11. Matt Kenseth -26 6. Clint Bowyer -15 12. Jeff Gordon -47
DID YOU KNOW
· Dodge’s Brad Keselowski leads the NSCS standings for the first time in his career. His previous best ranking was third twice, the last following the 2011 Chase race at Talladega. He has scored 10 top-10 finishes in the last 11 Sprint Cup races and has an average finish of 11.1 for the season. The driver of the No. 2 Miller Lite Dodge Charger has led 485 laps in 15 races this season.
2012 RACE REWIND
· Race Four: Brad Keselowski qualified fifth and led 232 laps en route to his first Sprint Cup win of the season at Bristol.
· Race 10: Dodge visited victory lane for the second time in 2012 when Keselowski led 10 circuits and avoided a nine-car mishap with just two laps remaining at Talladega.
· Race 17: Keselowski claimed his third Cup win of year at Kentucky Speedway, leading the final 56 laps.
· Race 18: Sam Hornish Jr. assumes the ride of the No. 22 Shell/Pennzoil Dodge Charger for Penske Racing.
· Race 22: Hornish earns first top-five in the No. 22 Dodge, finishing fifth at Watkins Glen.
· Race 25: Keselowski earns second consecutive berth in Chase for the Sprint Cup with third-place finish at Atlanta.
· Race 27: Keselowski scores his fourth win of the season, moves into first-place in Chase standings.
DODGE QUOTES On leading the NSCS driver points: “The points lead is nice. It means we won the first race in a 10-race playoff format. But that’s really about all. I refuse to let it sink in because there is so much work left to be done. We need to keep our eyes looking forward. I’m going to focus on the next nine races and I know everyone on the Miller Lite Dodge team is going to do the same. It would be a disservice to Sunday’s win if we allow our focus to get away from tomorrow’s workload.”
On racing at New Hampshire Motor Speedway: “It’s always a lot of fun when we go up to Loudon to race. The fans really love what we do and they show it by filling the stands. It’s one of those tracks we can go to and almost guarantee that it will be sold out. The racing that we put on at New Hampshire sometimes gets a bad rap, but I think it has produced some of the most exciting finishes over the last few years. It’s a one-mile track, but it races like a short track. There is a lot of beating and banging going on and the fans love to watch it unfold. Loudon has been an underrated track for us over the last couple of years. I think we can run well there again and keep the points lead.” Brad Keselowski, No 2 Miller Lite Dodge Charger
“In the first Loudon race, we really didn’t know what we wanted or needed in the car going into the race. It was really my first full-blown opportunity back in a Cup car in quite a while. The Nationwide cars and the Cup cars are different and I had not had the opportunity yet to get a good grasp on the transition. During that race, we struggled with the car being really free on entry and that plagued us the whole race.
“The biggest difference this time around will be the accumulation of what all we have learned since then. In that race, it just didn’t seem like we ever got the right adjustment to make it better. What we had at the beginning of the race was what we had at the end of the race. It’s totally different out there now. The communication we’ve developed since then is like night and day and continues to get even better every race we are together.” Sam Hornish Jr., No. 22 Shell/Pennzoil Dodge Charger
