Subway Fresh 500 - Dodge Thursday Quotes

NOTE: Dodge Charger drivers Travis Kvapil, Ryan Newman and Jeremy Mayfield posted the top three speeds in the first Cup practice session Thursday.

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

“We came out here last week and tested and left here really confident. It’s a brand new Charger, and it’s working good. We’re happy with the changes we made. We really thought when we left here that we’d have a top 10 car. We unloaded in race trim today, and I think the track temperature was a little higher than it was last week. We were slip sliding around a little bit, and our times were off a little bit from the test. The balance of the racecar is still good. This is the time of day we’re going to qualify tomorrow, so we wanted to get one run in in the mid afternoon. We taped it up and put tires on it and put a good lap on the board. We’re happy with it. Everybody on the team has been doing a good job, and we need to have a good run after all the finishes we’ve been having lately.

“We know the track is going to get a little snugger when the sun goes down and it cools off a little bit. We feel like we’re going to put some adjustments in the car to compensate for that. We’re really not too worried about it. We feel like when we tested out here we had that in mind. We’re going to spend this evening’s practice working on race trim and working on making sure we’ll be decent Saturday night.

“This is just short track racing to me. It’s a mile track, but it reminds me of Saturday night short track racing, and I think I’ve got a pretty good feeling for that.”

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

“We had a great test here and we’re running good now. We had a little problem with the steering box and we changed it. We did one qualifying run. We were running qualifying times in race trim. We put it in qualifying trim and ended up third. We’re going to work on race stuff in the next practice. We’ve got some things to work on. We’re still bottoming out a little bit, but we’re going to get that fixed.”

NOTE: Six different Dodge Charger drivers have scored top-five finishes in the past two races, and three of those drivers are ranked in the top 10 after seven of 26 races leading up to the final 10-race Chase for the Championship.

JAMIE McMURRAY (No. 42 Home 123 Dodge Charger)

“I think we surprised a lot of people last week with the three Ganassi Chargers in the top five at Texas. I think we all ran well there last year, so we’ll just have to wait and see how it goes from here. Casey (Mears) ran well here last year in the Cup race, and I won the Busch race. We’ve got a different tire this year, so you never know what might happen, but I think we’ll run well.

“I really like this race track, but it’s hard to pass here. That makes qualifying real important. We’re going to try to qualify well. We’ll make some qualifying runs in practice today and make our race runs in the second practice. The schedule changes so much each weekend and that’s tough. I’m in the Busch race, so I’ll stay busy. The Busch race didn’t help me much here last year as far as the Cup race was concerned, but we had a pretty good car here last year. We should have run between fourth and seventh, but I spun out trying not to hit Dale Jarrett with about 10 laps to go.

“We’ve run well this year, but we’ve just had too many flat tires. At Bristol we ran fourth or fifth and had a flat tire. We had some issues the next week at Martinsville. Even though we’ve run well, you kind of get down when you don’t get the finishes to show for it, so that runner-up run last week at Texas was a big boost for our team and really the entire organization.

“We’d certainly like to improve that finish one spot and win a race. Another top five would be great, but to win a race is really what everyone is after. That 16 car really had everything together last week, and Biffle was in a different category than everybody else. He might come out here this week and struggle. I doubt it, but he might.

“The 48 team hasn’t been as dominant as it was a few weeks ago. They’ve had some pretty average weeks, but they still get the good finishes. Some teams get on a roll, and it’s hard for them to do anything wrong. It looks like the 16 is on a roll right now. I wish I knew how it all happened, because if I knew we’d be there, too. Last year we got on a little top 10 roll, but that’s not winning. Last year I won three Busch races with three different teams, so that was pretty cool. I would give all those Busch wins back for a Cup win.”

KASEY KAHNE (No. 9 Dodge Dealers/UAW Dodge Charger)

“The track will change some, and the temperature will definitely change. More often than not when the track cools off you should be able to gain a little grip instead of lose grip. From that standpoint it’ll free up and you can usually tighten your car up during pit stops to take that little bit of freeness away. Hopefully we’ll get a little free and we’ll still be running good. That’s the key here, to have the car turning good all day.

“We’ve had our ups and downs with it (shorter spoiler). We’ve had some things go on, and not just because of the spoiler, the new Charger nose and the spoiler together, we had a few issues, but I’m starting to get used to it. I don’t think it’s the right way to go. The Busch race last week at Texas showed how much better of a race it is when you have some spoiler and have a little bit of a car you can do things with and race two and three wide and not feel like you’re going to crash. I think the bigger spoiler makes guys get a little more aggressive.

“I’ve really enjoyed racing with Atkins Motorsports. I don’t know if there will be any (Busch) races with them next year or not. I think Tyler Walker will probably run the whole season for them. Ray’s got some good things going on on the Busch side, and I’d really like to run 15-20 races.

“I think it’s pretty good (six runner-up career finishes). Three or four victories got taken away by certain things, crashes and other things happening. If you put those in there, I think three wins and six second-place finishes would be pretty awesome. I feel good about the seconds. We just need to keep working and get some firsts.

“We were just learning the track (at Sonoma test this week), learning these cars on a road course. I started liking it a lot. I liked Watkins Glen at the end of last year, and I feel like we were pretty decent at Sears Point. I came a long way in two days. We learned some things with the cars and hopefully we’ll be able to go back there and run in the top 10 all day.

“I think the Charger is starting to come around. We’ve worked hard on it, and it’s taken a little longer than we thought it would. It’s coming around and things are getting better and better. Phoenix is a downforce track, but it’s not a track, but it’s not as critical as Las Vegas or California. I think it’ll turn out to be a pretty good race here this weekend. I’ve raced here in Midgets and Silver Crown and the Busch cars. I feel like it’s one of my favorite flat tracks. It should be a good race. I remember last year on restarts it seems like everybody runs close for awhile and then it gets spread out. I think the race will be a lot like it was last year.”

CASEY MEARS (No. 41 Target Dodge Charger)

“We know we can run that well. All year we’ve had the potential to run like that (fourth-place last week at Texas). To finally bring one home like that, it takes a lot of pressure off the team, and it was good for Jamie and Sterling (Marlin) to run like that, too. I don’t regret taking two tires on that last pit stop. Obviously looking back we would have had a better fighting chance if we had taken four, but the thought process was to get out front and if we could stay on the bottom to take enough air off his nose so he couldn’t get by us, but he (Greg Biffle) was just too strong.

“It was cool to come back and get a good run and redeem ourselves a little bit. We ran second and third out here last year. We cut a left-rear tire down, and I didn’t feel it until the lap before we were going back green. If we had come in we would have gone a lap down and finished 38th. For me, I’d much rather wreck trying to finish in the top three. Looking back, it probably wasn’t the right decision because we wrecked the car and we didn’t get the points. It was one of those deals like at Texas. We had good cars all year, but we hadn’t had any luck. To be up there running up front, it was so hard to give away. I feel good about it this time. We should be fast again this year. It’s going to be a night race, so it should be cool and I’m looking forward to it.

“The sun is going to be difficult. We ran into that at California and Darlington. The one thing about Phoenix is that the sun sets over the grandstands. The grandstands provide a little bit of shade. It’ll be an issue, but it won’t be as bad as California and Darlington. We’ll make the most of it and try to get another good finish.”