Race Weekend Central

Running Their Mouth: 2010 Coke Zero 400 powered by Coca-Cola at Daytona

“Same old Daytona, cars moving around and bouncing around and handling came into play and you saw a lot of passing and shuffling, and then there at the end we had the big wreck and we were fortunate to be in front of it. On the last restart, once the [No.] 24 pulled out and slowed those outside two lines down, that was pretty much the end of it. I don’t care so much about the trophy; I want some of the pavement from the start/finish line out there so this is pretty cool.” – Kevin Harvick, race winner

“I have always wanted to win this race my whole life! Now we are going to victory lane!” – Gil Martin, winning crew chief

“You had to be aggressive and drive your car sideways all night long. That’s just the way it was. I felt like I had one of the best cars from start to finish, even hitting the wall I still felt like we had a great car. It was just a wild race. I really enjoyed it. I don’t know if the tires were wrong or not, but I thought it was pretty exciting.” – Kasey Kahne, finished second

“We weren’t very good on the short runs but on long runs, we would start picking them off one by one. It was a fun night for us with all those crashes and green-white-checkered and double-file restarts, it was pretty wild out there. Was trying to get to Kasey [Kahne] to give Kevin [Harvick] a run for his money, but all-in-all, a great top-three finish for us.” – Jeff Gordon, finished third

“I was just so embarrassed about how we ran all night. We were about a mid-pack car and clean air was great. I was in the top 10 one time and I could feel a complete difference in the car. But I’ll take a fourth tonight after all that we went through. We’ve just got to do a better job. We work hard. We’re a good team. We deserve it. We’re good guys. But we can’t handle nothing; we almost did tonight.” – Dale Earnhardt Jr., finished fourth

See also
Dale Earnhardt Jr. Drives the No. 3, Wins 2010 Subway Jalapeno 250 at Daytona

“I thought we had the fastest car on the racetrack and we just got in that deal with Kurt [Busch]. To be honest, I don’t even know what happened. I know he was coming with a big head of steam and we got together. I don’t know if it was my fault or his fault. It was one of our faults and wrecked half the field unfortunately. I’m disappointed we didn’t win, like last week, I was really disappointed we didn’t win.

“We’re not finishing the deal but we will and when we do, it is going to be a bunch of them. If we can get ourselves in the Chase, we are a real contender. We can run, our speed is great so I’m real happy.” – Jeff Burton, finished fifth

“I’m not exactly sure what happened, so that’s why I went and asked. We were just coming to the start-finish line, having a good race, and the [No.] 2 car (Kurt Busch) for some reason just turned left and hit me. I don’t know if he didn’t know I was there or if he did it on purpose, but it seems like he was just frustrated. We all get frustrated when we have a bad day, so I’m sure it’ll be no big deal.” – Carl Edwards, finished sixth

“Carl [Edwards] turned right after the start-finish line and completely destroyed our car. We’ve seen him turn right before and destroy a Penske car at Atlanta with my teammate Brad Keselowski. It’s what it is. We could have limped home in seventh and not damaged like that. That was unnecessary.” – Kurt Busch, finished seventh

“Daytona is different than a lot of places you go. Just the fact that we pulled out a backup car and it was that good – it’s pretty amazing. It’s definitely the best backup car I’ve ever had.” – Reed Sorenson, finished eighth

“We got lucky. We were able to avoid both big wrecks with the worst being just a spin through the grass. I am not sure how we avoided the last big one, but I came out the other side of it with it no problem. The ninth place is a nice reward for what the team has been through lately. The only down side of the night for us was when I damaged the car after the checker because I couldn’t see out the windshield.” – Mike Bliss, finished ninth

“If I would’ve done something amazing out there it would’ve been one thing, but honestly I was just lucky having what we had out there. Staying out of everything because we weren’t good enough to be in the front.” – Scott Speed, finished 10th

[David] Reutimann came on the radio and wanted to know if we were gonna push or work with him and I gave him a really big shove down the backstretch on that green-white-checker. Overall, it was a really solid day in the points and a great effort for our whole ExtenZe team. I think it shows the progress we’ve made in the first half of the year.” – Kevin Conway, finished 14th

“You never know about these plate races because there’s a lot of wrecked stuff, but you can sometimes still get a good finish. Our car doesn’t look very pretty, but we still finished OK. We got in the wall and never recovered from that, but we were still doing OK and I don’t know if Mark [Martin] got hit or what, but I was running down through [turns] 3 and 4 and got hit in the right rear and ended up in the wall and that was kind of the end of our day. Fortunately, we were still able to stay on the lead lap.” – Matt Kenseth, finished 15th

“It was actually gonna be a pretty good night. I got through those major wrecks with minor damage, but the real problem was we had a major oil leak and I had to stop on pit road and fix it. It’s just frustrating because our car was OK to continue, but our oil wasn’t. That’s kind of mysterious, so we’ll have to figure out how that happened next week so it doesn’t happen to somebody else.” – Greg Biffle, finished 20th

“We’ve been working really hard to make our cars faster and I felt that we had a really good car. It handled great all night. We got beat up a little bit on the big wreck, had to pit and go to the end of line. Our car was so good that I was able to drive right back up to the front and thought that we had a chance to win the race. Our Mobil 1 Dodge was way too good tonight to deserve a finish like we had.” – Sam Hornish Jr., finished 21st

“I was trying to stay away from him (Sam Hornish Jr.), but that’s just the way my season has gone. I just cannot get a break. I’m proud of my guys. We were gonna have a solid top-seven or eight finish, just trying to make it to the end, but it’s just one of those years. It’s just very hard to swallow.” – Elliott Sadler, finished 22nd

“I saw the No. 12 (Brad Keselowski) and the No. 83 (Reed Sorenson) sideways and I couldn’t tell you what else happened. I just know I got pile-drived. I saw the No. 48 (Jimmie Johnson) sideways and myself sideways and up on two wheels. Right place, wrong time as usual for me. You know when the No. 48 is sideways, it probably isn’t his fault. All I saw was a blocked racetrack and I’m on the way to the airplane.” – Ryan Newman, finished 26th

“The fire was outside, it wasn’t inside. It wasn’t as bad as it looked. No big deal. It is a disappointment to be in a wreck as hard as we fought and as hard we worked. My guys did an awesome job battling through things. I wish we hadn’t been in that wreck. My spotter said get down. Well, I was going too fast, there wasn’t no getting down.” – Mark Martin, finished 28th

“I’ve been hanging on every lap out there. You see guys that about wrecked every lap. I said at one point during the race, ‘Man, I’m glad they’re repaving this joint,’ because I was about shot from hanging onto the thing. I just wish I had a good run tonight.” – Joey Logano, finished 29th

“It was just plate racing. Everybody is racing hard, somebody gets loose in front of the pack and all heck breaks loose. I didn’t see much because everyone just stopped in front of me and I had nowhere to go. By the time I checked up, it was just too late and caused a huge pile-up behind me.” – Brad Keselowski, finished 30th

“I would just be speculating, but the energy inside the draft changes as the laps wind down. We all know that every move you make could be worth five or 10 points on the track in position. You could sense it. We knew it was coming and you could feel it building and sure enough it happened.” – Jimmie Johnson on the lap 147 wreck, finished 31st

“I’m just sick of crashing man. It’s just been a terrible year. I’ve had more hard licks this year than I’ve had in my whole career combined. Just feel bad for the team – it just wasn’t our night. I don’t know – just the Big One.” – Marcos Ambrose, finished 32nd

“We either cut a tire down or got in that oil or something and I got loose and then wrecked. We were just riding and trying to mind our own business and it ended up not working out, but we’ll just keep going.” – David Stremme, finished 37th

“I don’t know who else got involved because it happened pretty quick, but I just got free. I don’t know if someone was right underneath me on the bottom, but our car just got free and I was chasing it and tore it up.” – David Ragan, finished 38th

“The track is really slick, but it isn’t any different than it has been in the past. It is really fun. I hate it that they have to re-pave this place. It is so much fun to slide around like that.” – Jamie McMurray, finished 39th

“I was out there on old tires two laps away from pitting and I was lapping the [No.] 42 (Juan Pablo Montoya) and trying to stay away from the [No.] 11 (Denny Hamlin). He was going low, I was trying to stay away from him and the [No.] 42 was on my quarter panel and his car – the air on both of our cars just started steering me right, right across the nose of his car.

“I mean, I didn’t turn right to wreck myself. Why would I do that? That’s dumb. We had the fastest car out there. The Interstate Batteries Camry was flying just real unfortunate to be wrecked another week. Another year here in Daytona being the fastest car.” – Kyle Busch, finished 40th

About the author

The Frontstretch Staff is made up of a group of talented men and women spread out all over the United States and Canada. Residing in 15 states throughout the country, plus Ontario, and widely ranging in age, the staff showcases a wide variety of diverse opinions that will keep you coming back for more week in and week out.

Sign up for the Frontstretch Newsletter

A daily email update (Monday through Friday) providing racing news, commentary, features, and information from Frontstretch.com
We hate spam. Your email address will not be sold or shared with anyone else.

Share via