NASCAR Cup

Phoenix: Dodge - Newman press conference quotes

RYAN NEWMAN (No. 12 ALLTEL Dodge Intrepid) - Finished Third, Moved to Fifth in standings. "We had a good car most of the day. We started out a little loose and kept working with it. The guys did a good job in the pits as well as making strategy ...

Published: Nov 3, 2003, 3:57 PM

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RYAN NEWMAN (No. 12 ALLTEL Dodge Intrepid) - Finished Third, Moved to Fifth in standings.

"We had a good car most of the day. We started out a little loose and kept working with it. The guys did a good job in the pits as well as making strategy calls on the racetrack. We'll take a top five here at Phoenix. It's our first one. It was a little more (like a short track race) than it should have been, but nevertheless we made it out of it.

"It was a good run for the ALLTEL Dodge. It was our first top five here at Phoenix in three efforts, but it was a good improvement. I knew our car was pretty quick, but Junior was in the clean air there and he had a good opportunity.

"We started off really loose and watched Jimmie (Johnson) walk away. We kept tuning on the car, and Matt and the guys did an awesome job both on strategy and at the same time tuning the racecar to the racetrack with my feedback. We got out front there and led some laps. We got the car better. We got back to seventh or eighth with our four tire stop at the end and lost some track position. We fought our way back to third, and that's it in a nutshell.

"Testing here is one thing because you can learn certain things. The track is never usually in the same condition when you're here to race. We've learned that through testing the hard way I guess you could say. I've got a lot of laps here in stock cars as well as the open wheel cars. I've always known what the fast line was. It was just a matter of communicating with the team and having everything together to get it right. Fortunately we made some improvements to finish 18th last year and come back and finish third this year. The guys have done an awesome job.

"He (Dale Earnhardt Jr.) did everything but take me out this week. I will say that. He didn't and we were able to finish the race and have a good finish at that, so we'll go on."

-dodge motorsports-

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