Advance Auto Parts 500 - Dodge Post-Race Quotes

KASEY KAHNE (No. 9 Dodge Dealers/UAW Dodge Charger) – Finished second, moved up six spots to 18th in standings

“We need to get some more top fives and get all the points we can and start working our way back up in the standings. This is a brand new Evernham chassis and we had a great engine. We’re looking forward to coming back here next time.

“Most of the day I was back there where I had to start on the outside of a lot of lapped cars. It was pretty wild to battle all day to get up front. You can’t ever count out Jeff Gordon here. He’s one of the best drivers ever at this track.

“We didn’t qualify good on Friday, so we had to start in the back and battle all day long. The guys did a great job in the pits, and this is a brand new Evernham chassis that ran really well. I’m excited we had some good pit stops and were able to get a top-five finish. I think he (Jeff Gordon) had a little more forward bite than I did. I just had to feather the throttle and I just couldn’t get in the gas enough to challenge him.

“I certainly like these places (short tracks) a lot better than I did last year. We’ve come a long way as a team, and I think I’m a better driver on the short tracks. It was a great day for our Dodge Dealers/UAW Dodge Charger. I was hoping we’d have a little more forward bite than we did with the tires cooling down (during the caution). We just couldn’t get going good enough off the corners. Coming from 35th to second was a good deal. We hurt the car a little the first 10 laps and after that we didn’t put a scratch on it.

“We had a really good car since yesterday in practice. Tommy Baldwin (crew chief) and the guys did a good job to get the car to cut so well through the center of the corner. I actually beat up the car pretty good the first 10 laps. From there I don’t think I hurt it anymore. I’m glad we didn’t hurt it bad enough early in the race to have to pit. We had a good enough car to drive up through the field.

“I don’t think it (testing at Caraway Speedway) helped too much because when we showed up here we were 30th-36th all day in practice and qualifying on Friday. They made a lot of changes and Saturday we were a lot better. Caraway didn’t help, but the car was nice with that brand new Evernham chassis.

IS THE SECOND-PLACE THING GETTING OLD? “Not this year. We struggled and I crashed a couple of cars that didn’t need to be crashed earlier in the season and lost a lot of points. We’ve run fifth, 14th and now second the last three weeks, so I’d really love to win but second at Martinsville is a great finish for myself and for my whole team. Last year we really struggled here in the first race. We learned some things here the second race and now in the third race we feel like we had a car that was capable of winning.”

“Running 1,000 laps here last year was huge and it’s just so different. You brake so hard and you have to save your brakes. It can get loose, and you have to cut through the center. So many things have to go right here to have a good car. My biggest problem here last year was getting into the corner, and I feel like we’re doing a lot better job of that now. I think we can carry some of that stuff to road courses because that’s where we struggled there last year, getting into the corners. Hopefully we can improve our finishes there also.

“I was watching Mark race Sterling, and Sterling was racing as hard as he could. Mark was a little better, and Mark kept getting looser and looser. They were racing hard, and I thought he was going to heat up his tire. They both slid up in the corner, and I slid underneath them. It felt good. I just kind of sat there and watched them, and they battled so hard. They were wearing down their cars, and I could save mine a little bit.

“You never know. These races are tough to win. I’ve run second six times in Cup now, and I feel real good about that. These races are so hard to win. You need everything to go right. We got put in perfect position to win today and ended up second. Hopefully we’ll do that next week at Texas and get a shot at winning. We had the dominant racecar last year at Texas and got caught in the pits and went a lap down and had to come back. We just about still won, so I’m definitely looking forward to that next week. It’ll happen. I can promise you that. It’s going to happen pretty soon I hope. We’ll see.

“I tested at Texas two weeks ago, and we still had our same issues with the Charger just being so loose when you get in the corners the balance changes so much. The guys at the shop have been working on that. A lot of engineering and things going on to try to help us on these tracks. It wasn’t the best test, but hopefully they’ve made some changes and we’ll go back and be a lot better than we were when we tested.”

NOTE: Kahne celebrated his 25th birthday Sunday at Martinsville.

JEREMY MAYFIELD (No. 19 Dodge Dealers/UAW Dodge Charger) – Finished 15th, led twice for 68 laps

“We had the car to win today. I guess I just messed it up.”

RYAN NEWMAN (No. 12 ALLTEL Dodge Charger) – Finished 4th, moved to eighth in standings

“I’m pretty whipped after that. It was pretty hot in this ALLTEL Dodge Charger. It was a good run. I’ve got to thank everybody at Penske Racing, but I’ve got to try to catch my breath right now. We’ve got four straight top fives at Martinsville, and we moved back into the top 10 in the standings, so we’ll go to Texas next week and try to win there again.”

RUSTY WALLACE (No. 2 Miller Lite Dodge Charger) – Finished 5th, moved to 7th in standings

“I made a big mistake. On that very last stop I should have hollered for two tires instead of four. I saw Newman stay out, and I expected that. Then the 40 car stayed out, but I had a real good car and I think two tires might have won me the race. I was just too late hollering to Larry. I feel good about a top five, but I don’t feel good about not winning. I feel bad we didn’t win last week. I feel like we had two dominant cars both weeks. It got pretty hot out there today, and my helmet cooler never worked all day. I didn’t think I came out of pit road too fast, but I guess I did. I had to come from dead last up to the front and we got to 10th pretty quick. Those last seven or eight cars were hard to deal with. Everybody did a great job today, and our Miller Lite Dodge ran awesome. We had some good pit stops.”

STERLING MARLIN (No. 40 Coors Light Dodge Charger) – Finished 6th, moved to 12th in standings

“Once we got up there we were able to stay in the top 10 the rest of the day. I knew the 24 was going to be quick (on next to last restart). I thought I might could hold the rest of them off. The 6 got to crowding me pretty hard, and it’s better to finish in the top 10 than get spun out. He had fresher tires than we did, but the guys on the Coors Lite Dodge team did a good job. This is one of my favorite racetracks and we got us a top 10 out of it. I thought we had a top-five there for a minute, but we’ll take sixth and go to the house and get ‘em next week at Texas. We had some close calls out there today. They all got jammed up and Elliott (Sadler) ran into the back of me and I ran into the 11. No one could help it because everybody was just jammed up and stopped. It was just the same old stuff today. If the car drives good you can run good and get good finishes.”