Sears Point: Ryan Newman post-race interview

RYAN NEWMAN (No. 12 Alltel Dodge Charger) -- Finished 2nd

"I wish we could have won the race, but at least we had ourselves in position. We got our second top five of the season, and I'm ready for Daytona. The red flag hurt me a little bit. I'm a little sore. I was quicker than Jeff Gordon at the start of the day. He was quicker at the start of a run, and I was quicker at the end of a run. It was the end of the run, so Terry blocked me and held me up a little bit. He did what he needed to do, and I'm happy we finished second.

"It was a good day for the Alltel Dodge. It was our second top five finish of the season. It's pretty late in the season for that, but it was a good effort by Penske Racing. I appreciate the opportunity to drive the car and finish second.

"He (Terry Labonte) was definitely holding me up a little bit. He definitely made it hard, but that's his job. There's two good passing zones at this racetrack, and I got him at one of them. The heat was bad. I had a cramp in my left butt cheek, and it's still there, so I'm trying to get out of here.

"We've improved upon our finishes here in the past, so it's an opportunity for us to come back next year and improve a little more and be at the right position at the right time. We ran second at Watkins Glen in 2002 or 2003. We just need track position. We've had tires spin here. We've had brake problems. Things went right for us today and we came away with a second-place finish. About lap 60 I started hurting pretty good. On every caution I tried to lift my butt up in the seat and that's hard to do when you've got your seat belt strapped in tight.

"It's significant from where we finished, but we didn't look at it as that significant coming in. We didn't say this is the place we've got to turn our season around."

-dodge motorsports