Atlanta: Dodge teams race quotes
BRAD KESELOWSKI (No. 22 Discount Tire Dodge Charger) Finished 12th HOW WOULD YOU ASSESS THE EVENING? "We probably had a fourth or fifth-place car. We rolled the dice to win because we want to win. We know that we have a real good shot at winning ...
BRAD KESELOWSKI (No. 22 Discount Tire Dodge Charger) Finished 12th
HOW WOULD YOU ASSESS THE EVENING? "We probably had a fourth or fifth-place car. We rolled the dice to win because we want to win. We know that we have a real good shot at winning the driver's title and it's looking really good. We're just going for wins and doing all that we can to do that. We banked a set of tires by staying out on that last yellow. We were really prepared for another yellow to come out and we just didn't catch it. We just didn't catch the breaks that we needed to get a solid finish or win the race. We put ourselves in position and sometimes that's the way it goes. I'm really proud of the effort of the Discount Tire Dodge and everyone at Penske Racing."
TALK ABOUT THAT GAMBLE TO STAY OUT AND NOT PIT? "Every race that we've run, we usually get another yellow and we were banking on getting a yellow in the next 10 to 15 laps or have a green-white checker finish. We really felt with 25 laps on our tires that we could drive to the front and maybe get to the lead or at least maybe the first three. We just didn't get it (a caution) at the end."
WHEN DID YOU REALIZE THAT YOUR DECISION NOT TO PIT PROBABLY SEALED YOUR FATE? "When somebody hit the wall and nobody threw a yellow (laughs). It was pretty obvious."
ON THE LAST RESTART WHEN YOU DECIDED NOT TO PIT AND DROPPED FROM FIRST TO 10TH BEFORE YOU GOT BACK TO THE START-FINISH LINE, WERE YOU SURPRISED HOW FAST YOU DROPPED BACK? "A little bit. When you have 25 laps on your tires, I think we saw with Harvick earlier in the race that he had...we had 14 laps on our tires and he put tires on and got to the lead I think in less than 10 laps. Tires are a big deal here."
JUSTIN ALLGAIER (No. 12 Verizon Wireless Dodge Charger) Finished 13th
"The tires were so hard; it's quite ironic they fell off as much as they did. The Verizon Dodge guys did a great job all night. Unfortunately, we rubbed a hole in the exhaust early in the race. Anytime you do that, you lose power like crazy. We just didn't quite have the car we needed all night. The guys never gave up. They had awesome, awesome pit stops. That's what it takes. We had a bad night, but still finished 13th. We go on to Richmond where I feel we have a great Verizon Challenger.
"We found something in the middle of the race and it worked really well, but the next to last stop we thought we went a little too far with our adjustments. We took the adjustments out and the car wasn't as good the rest of the race. The biggest thing for me was how inconsistent the sets of tires were. I felt like from set to set, you never really knew what you were going to get going off into turn one. It's frustrating, but at the same time, they're trying to build tires that don't come apart. That's been a problem here in the past. They seemed to have fixed that. That's a plus. We've just got to deal with it, get more data at the shop and find a solution to the things we had a problem with tonight. Then when we come back here next year, we can be even better."
-source: dodge motorsports ooa
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