Content Wrapper

[rickaren]

Dodge Motorsports Notes & Quotes - NNS Race Final Quotes - Richmond 2

RICHMOND , Sep 10, 2010 -

BRAD KESELOWSKI (No. 22 Ruby Tuesday Dodge Challenger) Finished Second
“We started off OK and really fell off. Paul Wolfe (crew chief) and all the Ruby Tuesday team worked on the car all night and made it way better throughout the race. We just needed a little bit there at the end to catch Kevin (Harvick) because he was awesome all night. What a great battle at the end. He was so good on long runs. We had to slow our cars down on the short runs to try and keep up with him. We were just a little bit off. It was a good night for me and this whole team; I really appreciate all their hard work. This Dodge Challenger was fast, real fast. Another good points night for us. I hope that the fans enjoyed it because that was some great racing.”

WHAT DID YOU THINK WHEN YOU SAW ALL THAT LAPPED TRAFFIC IN FRONT OF KEVIN LATE IN THE RACE? “I didn’t know how it was going to play out. He got loose that one lap and I thought that he was in trouble when he slid his right-rear tire. I just couldn’t get him there at the end. He’s a heck of a driver; you have to give him credit.”

HOW TOUGH WAS TIRE MANAGEMENT TONIGHT? “Real tough. A heck of a race and we did all that we could to try and save them. We just didn’t have enough for Kevin at the end.”

WHAT DID YOU LEARN ABOUT THIS NEW CAR TONIGHT ON THE SHORT-TRACK? “You’re always learning with this new car. We were really good on short runs and not as good on the long ones. We have to find a better balance on the longer runs. We tried to dial it in and it got better as the race went on, just not good enough.”

PAUL WOLFE (crew chief, No. 22 Ruby Tuesday Dodge Challenger)
“It seemed like a long night for us tonight. We started off OK on the short run and then the car just went terrible. We were losing a lot of time and knew that we had to make some big adjustments to get to where we needed to be. We worked on it during the first stop and made some small gains. Our second stop, we got a car that he could race with and from there, Brad raced his butt off in that Dodge Challenger. I’m proud of the whole team and what Brad’s been able to do. When the car isn’t perfect, he can make up for it and has the confidence in us making the changes to get him comfortable.”

WAS TIRE MANAGEMENT IMPORTANT FOR YOU?
“You just don’t know enough about these new cars to really understand what to expect sometimes. Now that we have some data on a short track, we can evaluate our car and try to get it better. We just have to go to work and get as much information as we can to help us get faster.”

JUSTIN ALLGAIER (No. 12 Verizon Wireless Dodge Challenger) Finished 12th
“I felt we would be better than we were. We actually were really good on long runs. Unfortunately, these new cars are going to a lot of people’s heads, causing some of them to forget what respect is. Unfortunately, we got run into quite a few times, especially on restarts. It’s hard to pass here anyway. When you get run into, it makes it even harder because you’re losing spots left and right. Our new Challenger was awesome. I wish we could have run a little longer under green. I think we would have been in a lot better shape at the finish. But the race went the way it went and we finished 12th, another top 15 for us. We’ll make our Challenger better by Charlotte and hopefully, run up front.”

PARKER KLIGERMAN (No. 26 Dodge Challenger) Finished 15th
“It wasn’t what we came here to do, we thought we had a really good shot at a top 10, even a top five tonight. We ran in the top 10 the first part of the race and I guess we had a commitment cone violation. The way it was explained at the driver’s meeting, I’m not too sure about that penalty. We came back from two laps down and brought our Dodge Challenger home in one piece. That’s hard to do at this track. It was good work tonight by the whole Penske Racing team.”