Kahne Wins Pole; Newman Second; Five Dodges Qualify in Top 10 at AMS

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

“I wasn’t sure if it could hold on. I thought I left just a little bit out there in turn three, but it held on and we’re excited to win a pole at Atlanta Motor Speedway. This is one of the tracks I look forward to qualifying and we look forward to the night qualifying on Friday nights. To try and beat Ryan Newnam, he’s tough to beat here, but we barely got it done today. The whole Dodge Dealers team has been doing a great job, and we’ve got to keep it up. We’re got some momentum right now and we have to have two smart practices tomorrow and get the car ready for Sunday.”

COMMENT ON BILL LESTER “I just found out about it this week. I listened to one of the radio stations, I think it was the Eli Gold show. I heard him and Jimmie Johnson talking about it, and it’s exciting. I saw Bill right before he went out to qualify, and I wished him luck. I think he was the fastest car to make it without points. He did a great job. Hopefully he gets a lot more opportunities to be in these NASCAR NEXTEL Cup races.”

DO YOU FEEL LIKE YOU’RE MOST PEOPLE THOUGHT YOU’D BE LASTA YEAR? “We’ve had a good start to the season for sure. I think it seems like things can change so quick in this sport. Last year we had a tough year, and I learned a lot. I think people at Evernham Motorsports learned a lot, too. Things can change quick, but we’re definitely on a high right now. We have momentum and things are going our way. We’ve got to capitalize while we do have this and hopefully keep it going all season, but this is the kind of thing that Ray Evernham was hoping he had when he hired me and Kenny Francis and the whole Dodge Dealers team. It’s working out for us, and Jeremy is happy with the team he has with those guys. Scott Riggs is doing a great job making it into these races right now.”

ADDITIONAL COMMENT ON THE START THIS SEASON “I had my fingers crossed throughout the whole Daytona 500. That’s a race I’ve struggled to finish in in the past. We ended up 11th, and just about ended up in the top 10. I think we could have been in the top 10 with another couple of laps. We’ve been working hard since. We learned a lot in the off season, and these guys have been doing a good job with the car every week.”

DID YOU THINK ABOUT HOW YOU COULD IMPROVE AS A DRIVER OVER THE WINTER? “One thing I did was watched Tony Stewart through the week and watched some of the things he does from the time he makes his first lap in practice until he’s done racing that weekend. You can watch the guys who run up front every single week, and you can learn a lot from those guys. I looked at some of the things I did last year and learned from those mistakes also. We struggled last year at times and felt like we just weren’t getting the job done. You look back and I think sometimes that stuff helps. You don’t want to do it all the time, but it’s such an up and down sport. I think I learned a lot from it, and I know the team has. Talking with Ray and Kenny Francis, I think I’m more prepared and ready for the season to get underway.”

COMMENTS IMMEDIATELY AFTER QUALIFYING LAP “There’s some left out there, and I think guys like Ryan Newman will find it. He always qualifies so well here. That’s a great lap for our Dodge Dealers/UAW Dodge Charger. I think a couple of guys can beat it. Hopefully we’ll end up in the top five. So far it’s been great. Atlanta is one of my favorite racetracks and it always has been. The Busch practice was great today. We’ve got a great opportunity to do well in both cars this weekend. I left some in three and four. I was a little too tight, and I didn’t get down to the white line quite as fast as I’d like to. I knew some guys would be shooting for us. We got lucky.”

REED SORENSON (No. 41 Target/Fuji films Dodge Charger) – Qualified 15th

“We made a couple of air pressure adjustments. It was actually my decision, and it didn’t go exactly like I’d planned. We ran a second lap and it was almost identical to the first one. We did the best we could, and we’ll get ready for the race now. I think we’ve got a good car. We thought we had good cars at California and Vegas, and we think this one will be good too in the race. It’s a different car, but we’re excited about the race.”

RYAN NEWMAN (No. 12 Alltel Dodge) – Qualified second, missed seventh straight pole at AMS by two thousandths of a second

“We picked up a lot. The car felt a lot better. That was a good pickup. To be two thousandths off the guy on the pole it was definitely a good gain for the Alltel Dodge. I thought the car was pretty good on both laps. I wish we could have got that seventh pole, but now we’ll just see if we can take the car to victory. We’ve always been pretty good in practice and qualifying. It’s the racing part where we struggle a little bit. We’ll work on that tomorrow and hopefully the weather will be nice on Sunday. I might have found what Kasey lost out there, but we picked up a lot from practice and we’ve got no complaints about that. The guys made good changes. We’re happy to be moving forward in practice. The last two races have been disappointing for us, even in qualifying. We rarely don’t show our hand, and we showed everything we had in practice. That was the problem. Some people thought we were sandbagging in practice, but we weren’t. The Alltel Dodge wasn’t ideal in practice.We came from 15th place to two thousandths off. My quote for the night is I wish we could give up a couple of tenths on a couple of the poles I won here if I could have gained three thousandths tonight.”

COMMENT ON BILL LESTER “That’s a loaded question and you can take it several ways. I caught the tail end of what Jeff said and I have to agree with that part of it at least. On one end I understand the importance of it. From an Africian-American standpoint, and I understand the importance of that. On the other hand, and no opposition to that, we’re all drivers and we ought to be treated alike whether we’re male or female, no matter what color skin we have. That’s the way I look at it. Bill Lester is another driver out there to me.”

CASEY MEARS (No. 42 Texaco/Havoline Dodge Charger) – Qualified 10th, best starting position of the season

“That’s teamwork right there. The 41 and 42 went in two totally different directions in qualifying setup in practice. The 41 was real fast in practice. We went more toward their setup. We changed a bunch of stuff and had problems in tech. We got there late and ended up being a lot better, so I’m happy with that. That was a pretty good run.”

KURT BUSCH (No. 2 Miller Lite Dodge Charger) – Qualified 9th

“I think we made good adjustments. It just came in a little looser than we anticipated. It’s still a great qualifying effort. You can pass without any problems at Atlanta. It just qualified looser than I’ve qualified all year. I don’t know if that’s a product of the car or the change we made. We’re definitely still learning. We’re gathering a lot of information each time we go out.”

JEREMY MAYFIELD (No. 19 Dodge Dealers/UAW Dodge Charger) – Qualified 20th

“We made a lot of changes there at the end and picked up a full second from practice. We’re kind of a new group. We’re trying to get all we can every week, and there are still some learning curves there. Overall it’s been good. We came here in the first part of practice in race trim and had an awesome racecar. We were really fast. We put it in qualifying trim and couldn’t go anywhere. We got it balanced for qualifying finally, and that’s what we got. I’m happy for Kasey. He did a great job tonight and he deserves the pole. And how about those Chargers? They’re starting to come on. We’ve got a great race setup and we’re going to be good Sunday. I’m excited about it.”

BOBBY LABONTE (No. 43 Cheerios/Betty Crocker Dodge) – Qualified 4th

“Our guys did a great job this weekend. It’s the same car we had at Fontana. We came back and got the balance down a little better. We’ve got to work tomorrow and get it in race trim. So far, so good. It’s not going to be an overnight success. The guys have done a great job and the car has been good, but we really haven’t had a chance to race. Hopefully we can rebound here. I’m not going to say we’re going to end up in victory lane, but we’d like to. I hope you continue to see consistency throughout the season. That’s what we need to do. That would be a big thing.”