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Samsung/Radio Shack 500 - Dodge Post-Race Quotes
NOTE: Newman scored his second career victory and his first in a Dodge Intrepid. It was the first victory of the season for Dodge. Newman jumped seven spots to eighth in the series standings, 242 points behind leader Matt Kenseth.
"It was a great effort all day by the ALLTEL Dodge guys. They never quit. We got behind a couple of times. It was great when all those lead lap cars got caught in the pits. I was worried for sure when Junior passed me after that last pit stop. I thought sure they would have made their car a little bit better, too. After I finally got by Junior, I felt a lot better. It was just awesome to finally win."
"We messed up a little bit qualifying, but pit strategy worked out in our favor. I feel like we had about a fifth-place car. We ended up going from third to 15th on the last pit stop. I guess a lugnut fell off or something like that, but we managed to work our way back up to 10th. For me that was a really good day. To run 11th last week at Bristol and 10th today, I feel like everything is working out for my team. If we just work on our pit stops a little more, we'll be OK.
"We've got a completely different car than we ran at Atlanta. At Atlanta we really struggled. They made some improvements with the body and some other things that made my car better. I don't know that you can really compare here and Atlanta. Even though it's fast, we really struggled at Atlanta, and I think it had to do with the transition from the straightaways to the corners. I felt like we had a very balanced car today. When you have the springs stiffer in the rear than you do in the front, it's wild with the size sway bars we're running. I don't know if there's any such thing as a standard setup, but I wouldn't believe if someone told me what they raced today with my setup."
"That's better than we'd been. We were lucky to stay out of trouble on the track. I wish we could have stayed out of trouble in the pits. They called me down pit road and I didn't know they were under me. We've got to have better communication on that. It didn't really hurt the car, but it didn't help it any, either. I'm proud of the guys. They kept digging all day."
"We had some trouble early and had to play catchup the rest of the day. It's a shame because we never really got a chance to see if we were going to be good or not. We'll try it again next week at Talladega."
"The Pillsbury Dodge was tight off. We kept working on it, but it was still tight off. It was a good day. We managed to keep the car in one piece and that was kind of nice."
"It was a long day, but we never gave up. I've got to take my hat off to the guys on the team. They kept working and we got all we could. I think the car was pretty good at first, and we were headed to another good finish, but that's racin'. We'll get 'em next week."
"You're fighting so many variables whether it's track position or a lapped car that's racing you hard in the groove. It's a constant struggle all day. Once we got that track position, it was huge. I didn't see the end of the race behind me, but Matt Kenseth had an awesome car when he was out front and so did Jeff. Once they got behind me they were tight.
"Buddy (Baker) has helped me out a lot. I've said it before. He's always told me what not to do. Buddy told me he made mistakes when he was growing up driving or just as a person, and I don't want you to make those same mistakes. If you can avoid making those mistakes you're going to make other ones, but I'll eliminate the variables for you. He's helped me so much, in and out of the car, primarily in qualifying trim. He showed me how to get the best lap out of the car and the best line. I'd say the first year and a half or two years of my racing, Buddy came to every test we had. He helped me understand the track, the tires, everything else. Buddy is in the top 50 or whatever in the history of NASCAR, but he's got so much experience whether it's doing tire testing or other things. It's like the racing school down at Rockingham. He still gets in the race car every once in awhile and goes out with some of the slow cars. He knows what these cars feel like Their school race cars are virtually what we ran today.
"The United States Auto Club, midgets, sprint cars, silver crown cars teach you a lot about car control and teach you a lot about holding that car on the edge whether it's loose or tight. It's kind of wild. We're out there and the reason those four tires are there is basically because you're racing on air. You have to race through air to do it. Those (open wheel) guys are awesome drivers. I wish more of them got an opportunity to be where I am.
"Even when my car was out front, I was still tight. He (Earnhardt Jr.) would get a good corner and pull me and I'd get aero tight. The next corner he'd be ahead and I'd be back far enough where the air didn't make any difference and I could run up on him. I had an awesome Penske engine under the hood. I got down the straightaways and really caught up to him. I think it was as much a mental thing with me getting up to him on the entry of the corner and just working him over a little bit and making him push the edge and making him be as hard as he could on that right front tire because he was tight.
"Just because we won this race doesn't mean we've figured it out, but it was one of the tough things as far as adapting, not just the body location, but the body itself. There are some guys in Dodges out there that are struggling just because of the body location and the new nose.
"I think we just beat him (Earnhardt Jr.) That was pretty much it. He had just as good of an opportunity to work on his as we did ours. He had a better restart. He got by me, and we raced each other clean. That's a hard thing to do at a place like Texas where the speeds are so high and you have to come off of the corners so close. His car was that way.
"It's going to be a very big confidence builder for the whole team. It's more directly a confidence builder for Matt, the leader engineer Mike Nelson and the shop guys. We're primarily the guys responsible for what gets put in that race car. It's just a matter of us building another library of knowledge in reference to what we did last year with the Ford. It took us awhile to get there.
"Even if we would have finished second, I feel that (taking two tires on final pit stop) was the right decision. If we had taken four tires and three cars had taken two tires and beat us out, then we were pretty much guaranteed not to have a shot at winning the race. When Junior got by me, I kinda anticipated him checking out a little farther. When we started coming back, I was starting to get a little excited. Then when I saw the 24 catching me, I thought I was getting excited for nothing. Fortunately Jeff got aero tight behind me, and I was aero tight behind Junior. He got tight enough, and I was able to work by him. Matt did a great job on making the call, and track position was the biggest important thing today. You could have a great balanced car, but when you're running seventh here you're really 14th and you're on top of the race track."
JOHN FERNANDEZ (Director, Dodge Motorsports Operations)
"I was hoping it was going to be a little bit shorter than this, but with the new cars I knew it was going to take some time before we won. I thought we had really good cars at Bristol. I think that's when we broke through a little bit. I think that's when we showed our cars had potential to run in the top 10 and give us chances to win races. In practice this week and again in qualifying the cars looked good. We were running solid and consistent lap times. With 30 laps to go and when Junior went by, I was thinking, 'man, this is a strong Chevrolet.' Ryan hung in there and kept dogging. He was there and finally he got close enough where he could race him hard and when he did he went by him and drove away from him. It was awesome.
"I think we've still got some things to learn, but we're gaining on it. I think Jamie McMurray did a heck of a job today and so did Casey Mears. He's still learning the tracks. Rusty was off a little bit off all weekend. Two tenths and he's right there as well. I'm obviously encouraged. I think this will work for everybody. The other Dodge guys
will dig down a little bit. They'll say if he can do it, so can we. I think it's good for everybody.
"I thought Jimmy Spencer did a good job today, too. He got a couple laps down and he got a lap back and ran strong. He just had a little unfortunate incident, and Bill Elliott looked smooth and fast when he was out there.
"We've been working hard on our plate program. We were obviously behind when we were at Daytona. This is the first time we've got to go back, and we hope we've made some progress. I wish we were going back to a mile and a half track next week. We'll see what happens. Hopefully we made some progress with our plate-motor program."
"There's a lot of moving parts in the motor. There's no telling what happened. It was pretty strong, but it's not too strong when it's loaded on the truck before the race is over. It's been par for the year. We've had a lot of problems. The first time you feel like you have a decent car and this happens. I've got to hand it to the guys. They've put some good stuff under me, and we'll get it. It'll take a little bit of time. I'm just happy where we're at. At least it tore up leading the race. That's one positive side. It's the best we've run this year.
"The track was pretty much one groove. I didn't do anything wrong. I didn't over turn it or miss a shift or anything. When I went from one gear to the next, it started missing. Then it just started smoking down the backstretch. We had a good strong race car. I just need to keep the morale up for all our guys. It was just one of those unfortunate deals. You can't ever tell. This is one of those race tracks that's hard on motors.
"We've worked hard and come a long way. We've had a tough start to the season. We're showing improvement every week. We ran good at Darlington. I feel like we had a good day at Bristol, and we were having a good day here. We've just got to figure out how to stick around until the end. These guys have worked their hearts out to make this deal work."
NOTE: Fittipaldi subbed for injured Kyle Petty on Sunday, competing in only his third NASCAR Winston Cup race.
"The last 10 or 15 laps I was out there I think I was running out of brakes. I kept pumping my brake pedal. When I came out of turn two, Jarrett was right next to me. Because we were racing, I guess I forgot to pump the brake pedal. When I went into three, it was way, way low, like almost on the floor of the car. When I came in, I lost the rear wheels a little bit. I spun. I don't know if we would have made the distance. We were running out of brakes big time. Considering I hopped in at the last minute, I was having a pretty good time out there. The car was good. We were going forward, and that was a good thing."
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