Elliott Sadler (No. 19 GARMIN Dodge Charger) Finished 10th
"That's a great day for us. We've been struggling the
last month. We did a lot of work at the Charlotte test and found out a
lot of things that this car liked. I'm proud of my guys at the
race shop. The burned the midnight oil on Tuesday night. They stayed
late and the truck left late to get all the stuff done so that we could
be competitive here this weekend. To qualify fourth and get a top-10
finish is a really good day for this GARMIN Dodge team."
YOUR CAR LOOKED REALLY STRONG ON LONG GREEN FLAG RUNS?
"We've got to work on our re-starts more. I can't get
our car to go for about 30 laps and once I did, then a caution would come
out. I'm proud of my guys -- one thing at a time. I'm
real proud of my guys today."
***
Roy McCauley (Crew Chief, No. 12 Alltel Dodge Charger) Finished 16th
HOW WAS THE CAR TODAY? "Grip was an issue most of the day. We had
it (the car) balanced, but overall car grip was our biggest issue today.
It was one of those days where you wish that you had a few hundred more
pounds of downforce - life would have been a lot better. We fought rear
grip about 60-70 percent of the day. We made some gains on it later in
the race, but not enough to make a significant difference. We tagged the
wall a bit in Turn 2 that got us behind a bit because we needed to come
in and fix the car. We re-started 28th and just kind of worked our way
back."
***
Brian Pattie (Crew Chief, No. 42 Texaco/Havoline Dodge Charger) Finished
20th
CAN YOU TALK ABOUT YOUR DAY? "Juan (Pablo Montoya) complained
about a set of tires that we put on the car -- we need to go back
and take a look at that set of tires and see what happened. The car was
real consistent. It wasn't like we had to make a lot of
adjustments during the day. We were real strong early -- moving all
the way up to 16th position within the first 100 laps. To get a top-20
from starting dead last is a pretty good day here."
***
Kasey Kahne (No. 9 Budweiser Dodge Charger) Finished 21st
"We just needed more grip for our Dodge Charger. We have to keep
working on our cars to make them better. On a hot day like today, grip
was everything. We just struggled trying to get the right balance on our
car. We got it good, but not great."
***
Reed Sorenson (No. 41 Target Dodge Charger) Finished 26th
"Our Target Dodge was pretty good. We were goods in certain runs
and not so good in others. We didn't have a good balance with rear
grip and front grip. We have to get rear grip first and then figure out
how to apply it to the front."
***
Patrick Carpentier (No. 10 LifeLock Dodge Charger) Finished 29th
"It was just a long day, a long day. It was not too bad for the
whole race - just the last run there I got really, really loose. I think
I got a bad set of tires or something. It just got way loose - long
day. When it's loose, it's slow [smiles]. It was a long day
for our LifeLock Dodge. We went from loose to tight for most of the day.
It was frustrating for us. The guys did a good job on pit road and we
even led a couple laps. We'll take it and move on."
***
Kurt Busch (No. 2 Miller Lite Dodge Charger) Finished 30th
"It was just a tough day all around -- loose, tight, loose,
tight. We were so loose there with 30 (laps) to go that I slapped the
wall twice in three laps. Our handling issue didn't give us a
chance to evaluate the performance of the new engine. We will get a
better opportunity at tracks like Phoenix and Martinsville."
***
Sam Hornish Jr. (No. 77 Penske Truck Rental Dodge Charger) Finished 33rd
"It was pretty good for quite a few runs. I hurt us early with the
speeding on pit road on the entry. I had all four (tires) locked up
trying to get (the car) stopped, but there was a bunch of oil dry and
stuff down there so I'm not sure exactly what happened. The other
problem was that we ran it out of fuel and the cell only took like 18
gallons, so we've got something that we need to check into there.
Other than that, we're pretty happy with it."
-credit: dodge motorsports
