Coca-Cola 600 - Dodge Qualifying Quotes

RYAN NEWMAN (No. 12 Alltel Dodge Charger) – Pole Winner

NOTE: Newman captured his circuit-leading fourth pole of the season and 31st of his career in 128 starts. Newman, who broke the track record with a lap of 192.988 mph, has finished fifth and third in the past two races and moved from 15th to seventh in the series standings. This is Newman’s fifth pole at Lowe’s Motor Speedway and his second straight at the 1.5-mile track. In nine starts at LMS, Newman has an average starting position of 2.11, and he’s never started further back than fourth.

“We’re never going to try to stop winning poles. We definitely enjoy it as a team. It’s a lot of fun and a great way to start the weekend or Thursday night qualifying off. Basically, as I’ve always said, any time there’s a trophy to win, we’re out there to win it.

“The track is obviously faster, about half a second faster than what we experienced last fall in qualifying. It’s faster, that’s pretty much it. It’s a little tougher to pass, mostly in one and two because of the way it’s ground, which is kinda good. We’ve all got to work with that. As much as everybody hates to hear it, track position is so very important. Qualifying up front is a good way to start the race and we can get a good jump, lead some laps and put ourselves in good position to have a good car and make some changes as the track changes throughout the night to stay up front.”

WILL YOU START ON THE OUTSIDE? “Do I have that option? I’ll have to think about that. I’ve got two or three days. That’s a good one.”

ARE YOU THE MOST ADAPTABLE GUY OUT THERE? “If they had got the pole, I would have said it’s hard to adapt and they would have said it’s great to get the pole. It’s just role reversal situation. It’s just a matter of who you are. I never looked up a character list of myself and saw that I was adaptable. We just go out and do the best job we can and tune the car to whatever conditions are present.”

WHAT DO YOU THINK OF THE NEW TRACK? “The best way for me to say this is it’s taken about 60 percent of the bumps away, at least in the corners. If there are bumps in the straightaways we’re not too worried about that. It’s definitely smoothed the racetrack out and created some more grip. Goodyear has brought a different tire to be able to stick to the surface. I think the combination is really good. It’s safe. Tire wear is great. We’ll take it for what it’s worth and try to get 400 laps on the car.”

IS IT TOO FAST FOR A GOOD RACE? “There’s two ways to answer that. We go faster at other racetracks. That’s one answer. My best way of answering that is until safety is of primary concern as far as the speed in reference to the racing, as far as cars going airborne and things like that, obviously we’re grateful for the safer barriers and the things that have helped safety the past two years. Until the cars become airborne and we see situations that are new, I don’t think so. I also will say, we as drivers could run two cylinder cars that have 15 horsepower and run 65 mph and still put on a heck of a show. It’s all in how you look at what kind of racing you want to see.”

“That was pretty close (to a perfect lap), but I saw Matt Kenseth run a pretty good lap, too. We’ll have to see what the track is like. That was a real good lap for me. I was just trying to break 28 seconds, and we barely did it. It’s good to have the Alltel Dodge up front.

“That’s not too fast. We go faster at Texas and Atlanta. If we go faster, that’s fine until safety is a question. We run faster at other tracks, so we’ll see how we do here. It’s all about grip. Everybody still knows where the wall’s at, and if you can keep your frame of reference on the racecar you’ll do just fine.

“We’ve always run well here and qualified in the top four every time we’ve been here. I really like the track. The team enjoys it. It’s like racing in your backyard. It’s like having a home basketball game and have your section out cheer everybody else. The last race here last fall we had a car that was capable of winning. We got caught up in a wreck with Brendan and Jimmy Spencer. We had a good shot at winning that race, and that was racing luck. We create your own destiny, and if we can do well in qualifying we can do well in the race.”

KYLE PETTY (No. 45 Georgia-Pacific/Brawny Dodge Charger)

“That was good for us. We had been working on race setups in practice. We struggled last week. We tried a bunch of stuff that didn’t work, so we came back with our basic race package. That’s the best we’ve qualified in a long time. We’re beginning to learn the car a little bit better. Maybe for qualifying (it’s too fast). I don’t think we’re racing too fast. I don’t think speed has a lot to do with racing, and I know that sounds stupid. You put on just as good a race at 160 mph as you do at 190 mph if everybody is running close. It’s not that major a deal, but you’re running incredibly fast at a place where we’re not used to running fast. At Texas it’s wicked fast, but you expect it there. You don’t expect it here.”

JEFF GREEN (No. 43 Bugles/Cheerios Dodge Charger)

“The track is getting better and the later they go the faster. We ran good on 10-20 lap tires. We put new tires on and didn’t run any faster today. It turned better on older tires, but we’re in the race and that’s the main thing. The pole guy will run seven or eight tenths faster than I did right there, and I had to hold my breath to do that. It’s unbelievable. I’d say it’s too fast.”

TRAVIS KVAPIL (No. 77 Kodak/Jasper Dodge Charger)

“It sure felt better than the lap time was. That’s the best the car’s driven since we’ve been here. I thought it was a little faster. That’s as fast as we’ve been, but as the night goes on and gets cooler the guys will go faster. Hopefully we don’t get bitten too bad by going out early. I don’t think it’s too fast. The cars are secure and stable. When we start sliding around and getting out of control, that’s when they need to slow ‘em down. I don’t think that’s any problem at all right now.”

KASEY KAHNE (No. 9 Dodge Dealers/UAW Dodge Charger) – Qualified 4th

“That was a pretty good lap, but I wasn’t that happy with it. I wanted to go faster. We drug the ground pretty hard, but hopefully that’ll end up in the top five or top 10. I don’t think we’re going too fast here. I wanted to go faster. I wanted to go a lot faster. You’re going fast and it hurts a lot more when you hit the wall. It seemed to be a little more difficult to race at these speeds last week, but hopefully it won’t be this week.”

RUSTY WALLACE (No. 2 Miller Lite Dodge Charger)

“It was good. We had a good solid car. It had another tenth in it. I got down into turn three and I put a clear shield on my helmet and it blinded me a little bit. I’ve got a solid car. I feel good about it. We picked up two tenths from practice. It’s running great. I’m ready for the 600. We won’t race this fast. The speeds will back off a good second in the race. I don’t expect anything different from what we saw in the All-Star Challenge.”

CASEY MEARS (No. 41 Target Dodge Charger)

“We picked up from practice, but everybody did. I wanted to run faster, but that’s the way it goes. We’ve got a Target House helmet with a special paint scheme this weekend, so that’s a pretty cool deal. It would be sweet if we could take it to victory lane Sunday. That’s the goal.”

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

“We’ve had a good car since we’ve been here, but the speed wasn’t there for some reason. It’s a different car than we had here last week, and we think it’s going to race good. We picked up about two tenths from practice. We were hoping for more, but that’s the way it goes. We’ll be ready to race.”

BILL ELLIOTT (No. 91 Stanley Tools Dodge Charger)

“From where we were, it wasn’t bad. Of course we’d like to be better. My main objective now is to get in these shows. To go out and put everything into it, I do, but still, I’ve got to be cautious of what I’m trying to accomplish. The surface seems to be good. It’s got a lot of grip, so we’ll see what happens.”