Dodge/Save Mart 350 - Dodge Post-Race Quotes

JAMIE McMURRAY (No. 42 Texaco/Havoline Dodge) – Finished Second

“I hit every curve as hard as I can and jump When I got behind Jeff, it seems like the harder you try here the slower you go, so I thought I was going to just try to do what Jeff was doing. I was going to try to miss the curves and just do what I can, and I just kept getting slower. So I started back hitting the curves and running out of control.

“Rusty got on the outside of Casey going into 3 or 3A. I’m not sure, but it was a left-hander. I knew that wasn’t going to work. You can’t pass there. At least I can’t pass there. I knew it could have been big. He dropped a tire off and got sideways out of control. I just waited for him to kind of gather it up, and it was easy because he had lost all of his momentum.

“With 10 laps to go, I don’t know what happened, but he (Chip Ganassi) said, ‘don’t give up. Got get him.’ I thought, ‘I don’t know what the hell you think I’ve been doing.’ I’d been trying for 108 laps. I just didn’t give up all of a sudden. He wants to win just like I do, and at one point, I didn’t think I could pass Jeff. Even if I caught him, just like Scott said, it’s one thing to catch a guy it’s another thing to pass a guy. I started 11th, and I could pass four or five cars getting into turn 11, but the closer to the front you get the better everybody is. I knew Jeff was going to have to run off the track or goof up, and typically he doesn’t do that. I was just waiting on him to make a mistake, but I was driving as hard as I could. The harder you try here, it seems like the slower you go. We were just hanging on.

“Chip only calls you when things are bad. When things are going good, he doesn’t call and pat you on the back. He’s not that kind of car owner. When things go bad, he’ll call and say don’t worry about it, we’ll get it fixed. I think that’s a cool way to go about it. I don’t have to worry about him calling me this week.

“I was very excited about getting to come here to test. My first year at Watkins Glen in the Busch car I didn’t do very well, but I’ve always enjoyed getting to road race. I’m a big Formula One fan and watch it every Sunday. I’m a fan of road racing. I read a quote by Tony Stewart in Scene this week. He said if you come into this with a negative attitude typically you don’t do very well. It seems like everyone who is a Nextel Cup champion can do well on a road course. They can win anywhere, a superspeedway or anywhere. I just kept a positive attitude, and when we didn’t do very well here I still enjoyed it. I told everybody when we left Watkins Glen, because we didn’t do very well, why don’t you send me to school or whatever I need to to get better at this because I really want to do well. It’s an easy way to gain points on somebody. A few of the guys, I don’t know where they’re at in points, but around me in points that don’t run well here, so here and superspeedways are places if you can do well you can make up a lot of points. I just came back and everything clicked. We came here and tested. I like this better than Watkins Glen last year. I don’t know it seems to me it’s more finesse, more throttle control and just being smooth. It seems like you driver a lot harder at The Glen than you do at this place, so I was a little better at this place than the Glen.

“We have so many engineers at our place. I joke around because everybody makes fun of Sterling’s accent, but about half the other people sound English or German on our team, so it’s hard to understand anybody. We’ve got guys with road racing backgrounds. This is a little bit different car than we ran here last year. When we came back here all three of us were all really good off the truck. It’s important for Chip to run well everywhere. He’s been around road racing and he typically doesn’t give a bunch of input. He’s just a cheerleader and says what he feels. Today he actually gave some advice. I thought that was pretty cool. You can tell he’s been around for awhile.

“I think it would be cool if they’re going to do a (10-race run) for the championship to include everything. It wouldn’t matter to me if it were here or Watkins Glen. I know we have one of those superspeedway races this year, and I wish we didn’t because you can get eliminated from that and just be a victim. I think it would be cool to see one of everything, superspeedway, intermediate, short track, road course, one of everything so that everybody could show what they’re good at.”

SCOTT PRUETT (No. 39 Target Dodge) – Finished Third

“That’s the biggest challenge for us. It’s difficult to step in for one or two races a year and really gel with your guys. To be clicking on all eight cylinders and not make a mistake…. We came in on our second stop, and I think if I had been a little more heads up I would have stopped short and got the car turned because when a car came in in front of me I was jammed in. I couldn’t get out. That cost us a few positions. Stuff like that, doing it week in and week out keeps you sharp. Stepping in running one or two races a season puts you that much, and that much is worth two or three positions.

“It’s tough to pass. Rusty had a good solid car. Jamie had a good solid car. It’s just a little hiccup in the pits can cost you two or three positions. I went to come out and the guy was running around the back of the car with a tire and I couldn’t get out of there. I guess that’s just part of racing.

“If you’ve got to come in and do a one-race deal, this is my best opportunity. The guys did a great job. If you noticed on that first stop we beat Gordon out of the pits. I can’t say enough about those guys. They did a great job. We came in and hit our marks. For coming into one race, I couldn’t think of a better team to be with than Ganassi. Chip is real good about making sure all his drivers have the same thing or nobody has it. Coming in, what I have in my car is at every level as high as everybody else. All the cars are purpose built road course cars. They’ve got to turn right and left.

“The biggest thing I’ve seen in the last five years, these guys are all working hard. In years gone by you could have brought in a road course guy and be guaranteed he was going to run strong all day long. You’ve seen what literally everybody has done, Jamie and Casey has worked hard even though he has a road racing background, Junior, Jimmie Johnson, a lot of these guys are working real hard. They know if you’re racing for a championship you can’t give up those points. There are two road course races, and you’ve got to do what you can to go out there and get the most out of your car. If it’s going to some of these schools or going testing on road courses.. I don’t a lot of guys went to Virginia just getting familiar with the repetition of shift-turn. It’s always going on all the time. Some of these guys can put together one fast lap, but you see these guys running hard all race long and not making any mistakes.”

RYAN NEWMAN (No. 12 ALLTEL Dodge) – Finished 14th

“A tire went down, and we had to pit under green and that killed us as far as track position went. I think we had a top five or a top 10 racecar. We would have been better than where we finished, that’s for sure. All-in-all it wasn’t bad for the hand that got dealt to us.”

CASEY MEARS (No. 41 Target Dodge) – Finished 7th, matches career best

“I’m real proud of the Target Dodge team. These guys did an excellent job, and to have Jamie and Scott to finish second and third was a good day for Ganassi. This is a place where I have struggled, and we overcame it and had a good race. They did a really good job and we had some really good luck, but that really doesn’t matter. We came out here to get a good finish, and I feel real good about what we did today.”

RUSTY WALLACE (No. 2 Miller Lite Dodge) – Finished 28th after running out of gas on the last lap

“We had a really good car. We just ran out of gas and that was it. I didn’t know we needed to save fuel. It was just run, run, run, run. They told me we had plenty of gas. I came around turn 11 and it just quit running totally. It passed the line and went up the hill and that was it. We didn’t have anything for Jeff Gordon all day, but we had the second or third best car at least. We just came up one lap short, and it’s really frustrating. The last four weeks we’ve had super fast cars and crazy things just keep happening. We had a fast car at Charlotte, a fast car at Dover, a fast car at Pocono, a fast car at Michigan. Dumb things just keep happening, and I can’t get myself out of that 16th or 17th points’ position. There’s nothing else we can do about it today. All that’s left now is to go home.”

JEREMY MAYFIELD (No. 19 Dodge Dealers/UAW Dodge) – Finished 30th

“Our Dodge was really good today, and we were on our way to a decent finish, even though we had to start all the way in the back. I was hot into turn four and I’m not sure what happened. I don’t know if we lost a gear or what, but I spun it coming out of turn four. I’m sorry I let the guys down.”

KASEY KAHNE (No. 9 Dodge Dealers/UAW Dodge) – Finished 31st

“We were pretty good, although the car was loose. But my back really started bothering me early in the race, and I just couldn’t get comfortable in the car. But we learned a lot about road course racing, and we’ll be ready to go for Watkins Glen.”

Mayfield Gives Kilborn Ride around Infineon in Dodge SRT-4

Craig Kilborn, host of the Late Late Show with Craig Kilborn, was a guest of NASCAR and Nextel at Sunday’s Dodge/Save Mart 350 at Infineon Raceway. Jeremy Mayfield gave Kilborn a ride around the 11-turn, 1.99-mile road course Sunday morning in a Dodge SRT-4. Mayfield and Kilborn discuss the two-lap ride.

JEREMY MAYFIELD (No. 19 Dodge Dealers/UAW Dodge)

“We didn’t make it to the top of the hill before he was telling me to slow down big-time. It’s a pretty quick little car. It’s a cool car, and I really like it a lot. He got comfortable, or a little more comfortable on the second lap and I picked it up a little bit. We came through turn 11 pretty fast on the second lap, and he wanted to slow down again. Then I hit the brakes, and we made a pretty quick stop. I think it got his attention.”

CRAIG KILBORN – “It was interesting. The course was interesting. Obviously I thought Jeremy’s racecar could have handled it much better. I wanted it to hug the road. I thought he was going a little fast. I thought the car might roll. I’m a tall guy and I always feel like I’m going to fall over anyway, but I really like the course. I know that ovals are more popular, but I think these road courses are really cool. I can’t imagine 43 cars on the track at the same time. That’s amazing.

“It’s my first time here. I’m going to stay for the race, and I’m really excited to see it. We went around the track twice and the first time halfway through it I said, ‘I’m done.’ He slowed down and I got used to it. The second time around he went fast again. It takes me awhile. I’m used to sitting in my chair and not moving. There was a lot of movement going on and it threw me off a little bit.

“When I lived in Monterey, I’d go to Laguna Seca, and my dad would take me to the fairgrounds races when I was growing up in Minnesota. I’m really looking forward to watching the race today. I really expect it to be exciting.”