NASCAR Cup

Bristol: Dodge teams qualifying quotes

KURT BUSCH (No. 2 Miller Lite Dodge Charger) Qualified 2nd "It was an exciting lap. I wasn't sure we were going to run that good because the car was a little loose. I actually hit the rev chip going down the back straightaway which means we got a ...

Published: Mar 20, 2010, 1:00 PM

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KURT BUSCH (No. 2 Miller Lite Dodge Charger) Qualified 2nd

"It was an exciting lap. I wasn't sure we were going to run that good because the car was a little loose. I actually hit the rev chip going down the back straightaway which means we got a good run coming off of Turn 2. I think I scrubbed some speed coming off if Turn 4. Otherwise, we may have grabbed a pole. I'm really happy with the Miller Lite Dodge. We know we have a couple things to tweak on tomorrow in practice, but overall a great qualifying lap for us.

"Overall, we exceeded our expectations today. I didn't think that we'd be sitting on the front row and stopping by the media center after our qualifying run but, hey, here we are. It shows that things are just going our way right now. Overall, we struggled today to find the right adjustments. Some of the front-end geometry that we unloaded with, we didn't have time to undo it, unbolt it and completely revamp what Steve Addington wanted to throw at it. We improvised a little bit. I'm pleasantly surprised that we ran the lap time that we did. I'm even more surprised by the lap time that Joey Logano laid down. That's a perfect lap in a COT around here. He did really good to hit that just right. Congrats to them for getting a pole. That's probably his first pole. I've given a lot of people their first pole by qualifying second. I'll give that one to Joey (laughs). I'm just kidding. He did an outstanding job today."

HOW MUCH OF THE EQUATION TODAY WAS STEVE AND KNOWLEDEGE THAT HE BROUGH OVER FROM THE 18 TO 2 TEAM? "That's been the balance that we've had to sort out each of the races so far this year. The 2 car wasn't terrible last year. We are proud of ourselves of being first in class against the Hendrick guys. We have our setups, Steve Addington has his setups and we're realizing that there's two ways to skin this cat. So we're trying to balance the best ideas that we're use to at Penske Racing and what Steve Addington is use to. Again, today we're surprised by the lap that we ran and to be second overall was Steve throwing a couple of things at the car last minute that he was comfortable with. They worked out. Tomorrow is a new day. We've got a couple things that we really want to sort out in the first practice and get in-tuned for the full 500 laps that we'll have to run. Right now, it's more of the Penske stuff, but Steve's throwing his stuff at it as quick as he can get it in there and most of it correlates. That's the balance that we've been fighting the first four races. Hey, we're fast but we have two different ways to skin this cat.'"

CAN YOU TALK ABOUT TIRE WEAR? CAN YOU RISK TAKING TWO TIRES, NO TIRES ON SUNDAY? "We saw excessive tire wear on our left front and right now, we're not in position to take any two tire stops. We've got to sort the car out a little better so that we're using all four tires equally. But right now, I would say that the track is going to rubber in and things should shake themselves out to be OK. This is that tire from a few years ago that rubbers in the race track to help give it that color as well as not be so abrasive on tires."

***

SAM HORNISH JR. (No. 77 Mobil 1 Dodge Charger) Qualified 22nd

"We were just too tight. We thought the track would free up a little bit, but it didn't. We thought the car was a little bit better than what we ended up with in qualifying, but we were pretty good in race trim earlier today. We just need the car to turn better where we can pick the throttle up earlier and drive off the corner."

***

BRAD KESELOWSKI (No. 12 Mopar/FLO TV Dodge Charger) Qualified 36th

"I just got loose into three. I was trying real hard to put up a good lap and didn't quite pull it off. We've got to keep working on it no doubt, but we made a lot of progress today on our Dodge."

-source: dodge motorsports

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