Dodge Motorsports Notes & Quotes
NSCS Race Advance
Bank of America 500
Charlotte Motor Speedway
Saturday, Oct. 15, 2011
DODGE AT CHARLOTTE MOTOR SPEEDWAY
. Dodge has 15 wins at Charlotte Motor Speedway.
. Dodge’s Kurt Busch is the most recent winner at CMS. He led 252 of 400 laps en route to victory in the 2010 Coca-Cola 600. He also won the Sprint All-Star Race the week before.
. Dodge has six victories at the 1.5- mile track since returning to the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series in 2001.
. Dodge has 14 poles at CMS. The most recent was Brad Keselowski at the Coca-Cola 600 in May.
. Dodge has swept the pole for both Charlotte races five times (1968, 1970, 2003, 2006 and 2007).
CHASE FAST FACTS
. Dodge’s Brad Keselowski qualified 12th and finished third at Kansas. He is fourth in the standings, 11 points behind the leader.
. Dodge’s Kurt Busch qualified 17th and finished 13th at Kansas. He dropped two positions in the standings to sixth, 16 points behind the leader.
. The last time two Penske Racing Dodges qualified for the Chase was 2005 (Rusty Wallace and Ryan Newman).
. Dodge has not won a championship since the Chase format was introduced in 2004. Kurt Busch won the 2004 title before moving to Penske Racing in 2006.
. Dodge has won four Sprint Cup championships: David Pearson (1966), Bobby Isaac (1970), Richard Petty (1974, 1975).
2011 CHASE to the NASCAR Sprint Cup Standings (After 30 of 36 Events) 1. Carl Edwards 2161 7. Tony Stewart -19 2. Kevin Harvick -1 8. Kyle Busch -20 3. Jimmie Johnson -4 9. Dale Earnhardt Jr. -43 4. Brad Keselowski -11 10. Jeff Gordon -47 5. Matt Kenseth -12 11. Ryan Newman -54 6. Kurt Busch -12 12. Denny Hamlin -79
DODGE IN THE CHASE: CHARLOTTE . 2004: Ryan Newman started from the pole and led 31 laps on the way to a 14th-place finish. Jeremy Mayfield started 13th but was involved in an accident and finished 30th. . 2005: Ryan Newman started second, led 42 laps and finished seventh. Jeremy Mayfield rallied from a 37th-place starting position to finish 11th. He led once in the race. Rusty Wallace started 27th and finished 24th as 27 cars finished on the lead lap. . 2006: Kasey Kahne won the race, crossing the finish line 1.624 seconds ahead of Jimmie Johnson. He led a race-high 134 of 334 laps. . 2007: Kurt Busch started eighth and led 13 laps. He finished 26th. . 2008: There were no Dodges in the 2008 Chase field. . 2009: Kasey Kahne started third, led 67 laps and finished third. Kurt Busch started 15th and led once en route to a 10th-place finish. . 2010: Kurt Busch was the single Dodge entry. He started 15th and finished 30th.
THE DODGE BOYS . Dodge has 212 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series victories. . Dodge has five victories this season, three by Brad Keselowski (Kansas, Pocono and Bristol) and two by Kurt Busch (Infineon, Dover). Dodge’s most recent win came at Dover. Busch led five times for 90 of the 400 laps. . Dodge teams have recorded 52 victories since the manufacturer’s return to NASCAR’s premier series in 2001 after being out of the sport since 1977.
FROM THE DODGE ENGINEER: “As we approach the second race of the season at Charlotte Motor Speedway, we find vast differences in how we have to set up the car for this race compared to the spring event. Charlotte has probably the most temperature-sensitive track surface in the series. We find the mild weather in October gives the track considerably more grip than we see during the usually hot spring visit. More grip means faster laps and higher corner-entry speeds. That requires multiple setup changes for the same 1.5-mile track that we raced at only five months ago. A seemingly small difference in temperature at Charlotte makes for a big engineering challenge.” Howard Comstock – Dodge Motorsports Engineering
STATS OF THE WEEK . Brad Keselowski has scored two wins, seven top five and nine top 10 finishes in the last 11 NSCS races. He has an average finish of 7.5 through four Chase races including three top fives. . Kurt Busch remains the only driver in the Sprint Cup Series that has remained inside the top 10 in driver standings all season. He has two top-10 finishes in the four Chase races including a win at Dover. He has an average finish of 10.5 in the first four Chase races.
2011 SPRINT CUP SERIES SEASON BEST . Kurt Busch Start: 1st (Kansas, Pocono & Michigan) Finish: 1st (Infineon, Dover) . Brad Keselowski Start: 1st (Charlotte) Finish: 1st (Kansas, Pocono, Bristol) . Robby Gordon Start: 30th (Daytona) Finish: 16th (Daytona)
DODGE DRIVER QUOTES “We’re coming back to Charlotte hoping to be able to continue to flex some muscle on the intermediate-sized tracks. Getting a solid finish, a strong top-five or at least a top-10, that’s the most important goal for this weekend. But when the dust has settled there on Saturday night, it’d be one of the greatest accomplishments I could ever experience to be standing there in Victory Lane with another Charlotte Motor Speedway winner’s trophy.” Kurt Busch (No. 22 Shell/Pennzoil Dodge Charger R/T
“Charlotte is definitely a track that I am looking forward to going back to, especially now that the Miller Lite Dodge team is in the hunt for the championship. It was a place that I struggled to get a grip on during my early trips, but last year (crew chief) Paul (Wolfe) and I picked up a win in the Nationwide Series there and it seemed like a light went off for me. After winning the pole for the 600 in May, I felt we were one of the cars to beat. We put ourselves in position at the end of the race and just had nowhere to go when the 4 car ran out of gas. We just ran right into the back of him. That killed our chances for the win, but we know that we can run up front and lead laps there.” Brad Keselowski (No. 2 Miller Lite Dodge Charger R/T
