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Dodge Motorsports Notes & Quotes - Infineon Final Qualifying

Saturday June 21, 2008

 

KASEY KAHNE (No. 9 Budweiser Dodge Charger) POLE
CAN YOU TALK ABOUT YOUR RUN?
“So far, so good. We’re real happy with our qualifying run. The Budweiser Dodge was real fast and comfortable. It was very similar to our second-to-last run in practice earlier today. We tightened the car back up a little more and it felt real good. Hopefully that will give us something to base our combination off of for tomorrow’s practice and be ready to go on Sunday.”

THIS IS YOUR FIRST ROAD COURSE POLE, DID YOU SURPRISE YOURSELF TODAY?
“Yeah. To get the pole is always very difficult, especially at these tracks (road courses). There are certain guys who seem like they’re right there – we’ve been close here in the past. We’ve been close at Watkins Glen. I felt like I could make that one lap and come close to a pole and today we had a great Budweiser Dodge and was able to get it. I came into today thinking that we had a good shot, but winning a pole at Infineon is tougher than it sounds.”

WITH YOUR PAST POOR PERFORMANCES HERE AT INFINEON, IS THERE ANYTHING IN PARTICULAR THAT YOU LOOK FOR ON SUNDAY?
“The biggest thing is messing with my back part (of the race). We’ve always raced pretty well here the first 70 laps and the last 30 we’ve had some problems. I’ll just try and make sure that I’m ready for the race. I’ve done a lot of things to prepare to be more ready then I have in the past. Hopefully it pays off on Sunday. I’ve always liked Infineon and Watkins Glen, we just don’t have the results to show. We’ve been fast at all those races in the past at times. If we just put a full race together, we’ll definitely be fine.”

THE WEATHER LOOKS TO BE HOT ON SUNDAY, WHAT DOES YOUR TEAM DO TO KEEP YOU COOL INSIDE THE CAR?
“Our cars are fairly hot, but you can run hoses to try and keep the air moving as much as it can in the racecar. This is always a hot place. Every race that I’ve ever raced here has been hot. We just tried to be prepared before we got here. The guys that build the cars – with insulation and everything they know to keep the cars cool – our team is doing a great job. Having a good racecar is a big part of staying cool.”

WHEN DID YOU REALIZE THAT YOUR TEAM IS BACK? WAS IT THE ALL-STAR RACE?
“We’ve been decent all year. We’ve been pretty close at times and a little off at other times. Winning the All-Star Race – anytime you can win a race in this series – the competition is so tough and the drivers are so good at this level – once you can do that (win) we felt as a team that we can do it again the next week. The All-Star Race gave us that one boost we needed to realize that we’re not that far off.”

CAN YOU TALK ABOUT THE RELATIONSHIP YOU HAVE WITH BORIS SAID AND HOW HE HAS HELPED YOU LEARN TO DRIVE BETTER ON ROAD COURSES?
“I made one lap better than Boris (Said) today and he’ll make 109 better then me on Sunday. I definitely haven’t done more than Boris on these types of tracks. He’s very good at them. I enjoyed working with him. He taught me a lot of things and taught me how to go faster. It’s difficult to use some of the things he’s taught me instantly, but I think that I’ve been able to keep all of it in my head over the last year. And slowly when we go test and race, I can keep trying to figure out the things that he talked to me about. We rode a two-seater together- he rode with me and I rode with him. I watched him and then he picked my stuff apart – what I was doing good and what I was doing bad. You can learn a lot from a guy like that. It’s just two different styles of driving that make it kind of difficult to just flip over and drive like him the next day. I think that I’ve been able to put some of the things that he’s helped me with into effect today and we got the pole. It’s definitely nice when you have Boris Said trying to help you and improve you road racing.”

WOULD YOU LIKE TO SEE A ROAD COURSE ADDED TO THE CHASE?
“It would definitely mix things up. I like the schedule the way it is now. If (NASCAR) put a road course in the Chase, I wouldn’t care. I would just be different then it is now. It would probably be better for Jeff Gordon and Tony Stewart – some of the guys that are really good at these courses. Does that matter? I don’t know. I think the schedule is fine the way it is.”

KURT BUSCH (No. 2 Miller Lite Dodge Charger) Qualified 3rd
“We were a little surprised. We made about four or five changes to the car based upon where we were last year (at Infineon) and it paid off for us. We’re hoping for good things with our Miller Lite Dodge. The car felt good on the forward bite on traction getting out of the corners, just a little tight on the apex’s….and there’s twelve apex’s out there. Tomorrow’s practice will give us more of an idea where we stack up. We’ll put the car in race trim again.
We’ll work on fuel mileage; that was a big player last year and has been for years (at Infineon)…but you have to have a fast racecar to do it. So we’re hoping that we have the right combination heading into the weekend.”

“It seemed like our car was opposite of what Jimmie (Johnson) went through with practice. We were struggling quite a bit and ended up going back to our last year’s notebook, which we haven’t really done much with this race car because you learn so much every week and it advances your program. We threw everything but the kitchen sink at it for qualifying and the car was underneath me. I was surprised by the lap. Sometimes when you go and just hit your marks and keep for tires on the track and not try to spin a tire or lock up a brake where you end up slower. We’re happy with it. I’m ecstatic that the changes made the car drive different and hopefully that will help us here on Sunday as well.”

ON THE HEAT:
“It’s definitely going to be a tough one. Last year I experienced heat exhaustion here after the race, so I’m trying to do the best that I can to stay ahead of it and make sure that we do the right things inside the car. On a day like today you are only in it for five laps at a time. We’ve got 110 laps on Sunday.”

ON MARCOS AMBROSE:
“He seems to be doing really well. I’m sure that the Wood Brothers told him that it pays a whole lot better to be 43rd than 44th, so he had to make sure that he put a lap underneath him to go out there and make the race. We’ll see how he does on Sunday. We’re looking forward to him running well.”

ON HIS CAR FOR SUNDAY:
“I feel like we have some more work to do to get our new car competitive with some of the top teams, but each week we learn so much that we have to filter through it and make sure that we know exactly what changes we’ve made and what we’ve done. I feel like we’ve covered from A to Z and now we are going back to A again. We’re trying to cover as much ground as we can. We are just trying to get the rear of the car hooked up and if we do that pit strategy will come into play and I think that we have the right strategy played out for us on Sunday to have a top-five run.”

ON QUALIFYING VERSUS RACE SETUP:
“I’ve found that my qualifying setup is very different than a race setup here, because you have a big heavy stock car and it’s hard to make it turn and hard to give it traction. If you can confuse it just for one lap then you’re going to have a good lap. The magic is how to make it last for a full fuel run and that is tomorrow’s work.”

ON LOSING SPEED TO KASEY KAHNE COMING OFF TURN 10 AND GOING INTO TURN 11:
“I can say maybe I’m a bit bothered by it, because what he has here at Sonoma seemed to work really good at Pocono, it worked really good at Charlotte and he’s caught on to something. It seems like all of Gillett Evernham is doing much better, so we have to go figure out what it is that he has that is helping him do good, but you can’t take the lap away from him. He drove a really good lap and he’ll be a tough car to beat on Sunday.”

BOBBY LABONTE (No. 43 Cheerios/Betty Crocker Dodge Charger) Qualified 4th
“We unloaded and did a few passes in qualifying trim and felt like our Cheerios/Betty Crocker Dodge was pretty good. On the qualifying run, I just tried not to screw up which is so easy to do here. When you unload a good car like we did, the last thing you want to do is screw it up during a qualifying run.”

RYAN NEWMAN (No. 12 Alltel Dodge Charger) Qualified 9th
“I lost a lot (of speed) in Turn 2 when I missed the corner. I stayed on the track but just missed the corner trying to carry too much speed and couldn’t get the car to cut down. I feel like our Alltel Dodge is competitive and that we unloaded a pretty good racecar. We’re in good shape. We just have to figure out Turn 3 and the esses where I lost my four-tenths to the other guys.”

ELLIOTT SADLER (No. 19 Stanley Tools Dodge Charger) Qualified 6th
“We had a great racecar in qualifying and I thought we had a chance for a pole. I think I had it pretty close to Kasey (Kahne’s qualifying run) all the way until Turn 11. I got loose and almost spun out. I overdrove the corner – 100% my fault. I’m proud of my guys. The crew gave me a very fast racecar today. I think we’ll be good on Sunday and our Stanley Dodge is pretty good right now.”

JUAN PABLO MONTOYA (No. 42 Texaco/Havoline Dodge Charger) Qualified 21st
“We struggled earlier today in qualifying trim. We just struggle trying to get a good qualifying run with this car. Like I told the guys, I could have maybe gone a tenth faster if I would have nailed the whole lap. But that’s about the best I could have done. We’ve been struggling with rear grip. I think by the time the race starts we’ll be pretty good.”

ROBBY GORDON (No. 7 Dodge Charger) Qualified 8th
“Not too bad. I lost a lot getting into (turn) one. I locked up the left front brake really bad. We had to pull some tape off and I think that caused us to lose a little bit of downforce on it. I think we were pretty good. It was a little too slippery down in Turn 10 and then I was real cautious going into Turn 11, because by that point I knew that I probably didn’t have the pole, so I was probably too cautious and that probably hurt us a bit.”

TERRY LABONTE (No. 45 Wells Fargo Dodge Charger) Qualified 11th
“We were having a little brake issue and it kind of messed us up there going up to the top of the hill. I must have hopped the back tires up there or something and I got loose in both directions. Once I got passed that I started pumping the brake up it was okay. We’ve had a little brake issue, but hopefully we can get it fixed by the morning.”

PATRICK CARPENTIER (No. 10 Valvoline Dodge Charger) Qualified 37th
“I told them I didn’t want to go home on a road course, I’ll tell you that. I’m happy but I mean it was so loose. I was trying to roll the corner fast and just no backend at all. The thing was just loose, loose and I didn’t think we were going to make it so I kind of went back to the old days driving, just brake really deep in a straight line, you know, to try to keep up some time into it. We did but we’ve got to work on it. For the race we’ve got to work on the car and make it better. We’ll take a look at what these guys got over there. It seems to be pretty good because I saw Elliott (Sadler) miss two or three corners and was still pretty fast so we’ve got to look at that closely. But we’re in, you know. The guys did a good job from this morning and this morning we made some changes and didn’t work out. And I said ‘Let’s go back to what we had when we arrived. If we run that time we’ll be in’ and we ran that time and we’re in.”

SAM HORNISH JR. (No. 77 Mobil 1 Dodge Charger) Qualified 17th
“It’s okay. I overdrove it a little bit coming to get the green flag and then I was all mad at myself and didn’t get a clean shift and ended up hitting the limiter going down there. Then I felt like a couple corners I didn’t drive hard enough. When they told me the lap time it felt about like a 79.5, not a 78.5. It turned out better than I thought it was and I’m real happy with all the guys on the Mobil 1 Dodge. These guys have been working real hard. If we can start in the top-15, top-20, that would be good. I feel like there’s another couple of tenths in the car. If we’d have had that we’d have been like fifth or sixth. I just want to get to the point where I feel like I’m giving them everything that they give me with the car. I’m real happy with these guys and hopefully we can get to the point where we’re giving it our all and getting the most out of it. These guys have been doing a great job.”

DARIO FRANCHITTI (No. 40 Texaco/Havoline/The Hartford Dodge Charger) DNQ
“We were just loose, very, very loose and that was it. The other guys complained about it a bit but I think we were maybe a bit looser even this morning. We felt we got caught out with it. I’m kind of shocked right now that we come to a road course and didn’t qualify.”

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This report was provided by an outside PR source and posted by Kim DeHaven.

 

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