Saturday, Oct. 22, 2011
Dodge Final Qualifying Quotes
Dodge Motorsports PR
KURT BUSCH (No. 22 Shell/Pennzoil Dodge Charger R/T) Qualified 14th HOW WAS YOUR QUALIFYING LAP? “I feel like that was a good lap for where we wanted to be with me and Brad. We’re going to draft a lot with the 78 car (Regan Smith) tomorrow. We’ve run well together in the past and think that it’s a good combination for tomorrow.”
YOU WILL BE STARTING CLOSE TO YOUR TEAMMATE TOMORROW. IF THE TWO DODGES FIND EACH OTHER EARLY DOES THAT CHANGE YOUR STRATEGY? “We’ll let it play out. We’ll just sort it out on the race track. It’s a long 500 miles. It doesn’t matter what happens at the start of the race.”
IS HAVING BRAD NEARBY FOR THE START A GOOD BACK-UP PLAN? “Absolutely. Our two Dodges are fast and Dave (Blaney) and Regan have shown good speed.”
HOW MUCH DOES MATTER TO BE FAST IN QUALIFYING AT TALLADEGA? “I pay attention to raw speed. Guys that are up top on the speed charts have that raw speed themselves and that equates to when you put two cars that are fast together they’ll be really fast in the tandem draft. I’m happy with our lap with the Shell/Pennzoil Dodge. Our teammate is fast in his Dodge. Our drafting partners are fast. Look for this yellow Shell/Pennzoil Dodge and that black car of Regan Smith tomorrow all day long.”
BRAD KESELOWSKI (No. 2 Miller Lite Dodge Charger R/T) Qualified 16th “Nothing too exciting in qualifying. You’re just out there trying to search for speed everywhere on the race track. The lap was a little bit faster than I anticipated with the Miller Lite Dodge. The qualifying speeds are so much slower than race trim that it’s hard to really gauge. Our Miller Lite Dodge was fast yesterday in race trim. I love racing here at Talladega and it’s going to be exciting tomorrow.”
DO YOU HAVE A PLAN FOR A TANDEM DRAFT TOMORROW? “Yeah, we’re going to work with Dave Blaney tomorrow. I’m excited about it. Dave’s a really good restrictor plate driver and we worked well together yesterday. We’re going to work really hard and try to keep the fab shop happy. Both our cars have shown good speed and that’s all that you can ask for tomorrow.”
WILL YOU BE ABLE TO FIND YOUR TEAMMATE KURT TOMORROW? “We’ll see. We have a plan to race with Dave tomorrow. Kurt’s (Busch) is a great plate racer and if we find each other I know that our Dodges will be fast. It’s long a race.”
