dodge cup notes, quotes from saturday at lvms

Saturday, March 6, 2004.

Las Vegas Motor Speedway


 

 


JOHN FERNANDEZ (Director, Dodge Motorsports Operations)

NOTE: Three Dodges qualified in the top five for Sunday's
UAW-DaimlerChrysler 400 and six will start in the top 10. Three Dodges
finished in the top five at Rockingham and six Dodges scored top 11
finishes. Although Dodge is still looking for its first win of the
season, the three-way manufacturers' race is virtually deadlocked after
the first two events of the season. Chevy and Ford are tied with 13
points and Dodge has 12. John Fernandez discusses the recent strength of
the Dodge teams.

 

"Coming out of Rockingham, we qualified well and raced extremely well.
It was probably the best points per car race we've had since I came on
board last year. I think on our top six cars we had 155 points, but we
didn't win the race. That was the down side of it. Coming here I was a
little apprehensive because I didn't know if Rockingham was a fluke or
not. Obviously it wasn't. I think the Evernham, Penske and Ganassi teams
really did a tremendous of work over the winter, and it shows. They've
done a tremendous job, and Kasey Kahne has been a tremendous help to our
program.

 

"You've also got to tip your hat to Brendan Gaughan. He qualified eighth
here. He put his foot down on the second lap and did it. We're real
happy about that. I think Brendan is doing a great job in the races.
He's had two top-20 finishes and obviously Kasey had a really good run
at Rockingham (runner-up to Matt Kenseth). I'm looking forward to
Sunday. We'll see how we do racing the cars.

 

"I think we've got good cars. Sterling Marlin is typically not a good
qualifier, but I know he's going to race well here. He likes this track,
and he had a good run at Rockingham. He was steady all day long.

 

"We've got depth. That's the big difference in last year and this year.
Last year it was Ryan Newman. If Ryan didn't do it, we were kinda
cooked. This year, I think Jeremy Mayfield is doing a tremendous job
stepping up his game. He started that last year and he's continuing it.
We lost some depth in Bill Elliott. He finished the season as strong as
anybody last year, but obviously Kasey Kahne has picked up the slack
there.

 

"I think Rusty Wallace has new enthusiasm with his new crew chief and
some new faces on that team. Matt and Ryan are plugging away as normal.
Those guys are rock solid. Brendan has a new team with a lot of new
faces on it. They've done extremely well. Casey Mears had a good
qualifying run here. That's probably the best I've seen him in
qualifying. He had a really good race at Rockingham. I'm hoping he
continues to step it up. Jamie McMurray is going to do well this year.
He had as good a car at Daytona as Earnhardt's car. I thought the 8 and
the 42 were the best two cars there. We just never got a chance to race
for the win late in the race. In the middle of the Rockingham race,
Jamie ran down Matt Kenseth and took the lead. He got caught in that
little green-yellow, green-yellow whatever the heck went on there kind
of deal.

 

"By the way, I do think NASCAR made the right call there. I talked with
Chip Ganassi after that and we went over it in detail. After we
understood what the rulings were there, I think we agreed that NASCAR
did make the right call. It was obviously confusing at the time."

 

STERLING MARLIN (No. 40 Coors Light Dodge)

NOTE: Marlin, the 2002 winner at Las Vegas, is the only driver to score
three straight top 10 finishes at LVMS. He'll start 23rd in Sunday's
43-car field.

"We just worked on race runs in practice yesterday, so we're not really
concerned about where we're starting. It's all going to come down to
handling. We saw the tires give up when we tested here, but they didn't
give up as bad yesterday. We slowed up about a second after 20 laps. I
saw one of those Chevy drivers fall off about a second after 10 laps.

 

"We'll see what happens tomorrow, but I think we're going to have a good
race. We might see a little follow the leader. It just depends on how
things get strung out. We haven't seen a lot of close racing here, but
that could change. If we can get up front and check out, I don't really
care what happens behind us. It's been almost two years since we've
parked this Coors Light Dodge in victory lane. We had a good run at
Rockingham, and we're counting on keeping that momentum going here.

 

"Las Vegas is a fun town, but I don't do any gambling. I guess most of
my gambling is done on the racetrack. We'll roll the dice if we have to
Sunday. I know Lee (crew chief McCall) and the guys will have the car
ready to race, so maybe we can end this losing streak and go on back to
the house and get ready for Atlanta."

 

KYLE PETTY (No. 45 Georgia-Pacific/Brawny Dodge)

"You're going to have to have a car that drives good. I think that's
been evident in every race. The new tire has made handling more critical
than it's ever been. It was critical at Daytona. It was critical at
Rockingham, and it always is, but it's going to critical here. It's
going to be an aero struggle, but it's going to be critical to make the
car handle all day long. I think that's going to be the big issue.

 

 "The tires are going to give up, but that's not bad. I don't think give
up is bad anywhere. I don't know why all of a sudden everybody thinks
give up in tires is bad. Tires used to give up all the time 20-30 years
ago. Technology just caught up, and now they can control their
technology. They can manipulate it, so they put give up back in tires,
and there's nothing wrong with that.

 

"It's good because it makes the car have to handle longer. If tires hold
the car lap after lap after lap, it doesn't make any difference how the
car handles. Once the tires give up and the car starts changing and the
characteristics whether it pushes more or less or whether it's loose or
whatever, the tires will accentuate that fact. When they do it, I think
give up is good. It'll take guys that know what they're doing, and
they'll win races while the other guys will be struggling a little bit.

 

"It takes you in a different direction. If bias ply was 1980 and a
radial was 2000, then it doesn't really take you in a straight line. It
takes you to the left or right somewhere. It's a little bit of a bias
ply and a little bit of a radial. It doesn't really take you backwards
in any chronological order. I think they've done a good job of welding
those technologies together."

 

####

Ray Cooper
Clear!Blue, LLC
rcooper@clearblue.biz
C: 704.975.3232

The information contained in this electronic message is confidential
information and/or trade secrets intended only for the use of the
individual entity named above. If your are not the intended recipient,
be aware that any downloading, copying, disclosure, distribution or use
of the contents of this information is strictly prohibited. If you have
received this communication in error, please FORWARD this message back
to the sender at the email address above. DELETE this message from all
mailboxes and any other electronic storage medium and DESTROY all
copies. Please note:  Although Clear!Blue, LLC has anti-virus software
in place, it does not accept any responsibility for viruses once this
email has been transmitted. It is recommended that any attachments be
scanned for viruses.

www.clearblue.biz <http://www.clearblue.biz/>