Newman wins at Michigan International Speedway

Sunday, June 20, 2004
Michigan International Speedway
DHL 400.

RYAN NEWMAN (No. 12 ALLTEL Dodge) Scores first victory of 2004, 10th
career and second Dodge win in 2004

"We got some paper or trash on the grille, and it got really hot
motorwise. We played the safe card coming in hoping it would go green
and cycle out. It did, but we were the car getting ready to pass the car
that got the Lucky Dog so it put us a lap down and we had to fight for
the next caution to be at the right place at the right time again.
Luckily we were. The ALLTEL Dodge was fast all day. We struggled through
the first couple of runs just with balance. We weren't the fastest car,
but there at the end the car was awesome. It's certainly good to come to
a racetrack where you can pass and race."

 

YOU HAD EIGHT WINS LAST SEASON. DO YOU THINK THIS IS THE BEGINNING OF
THAT REPEAT? "Absolutely. No, I don't have a clue. All we can do is try.
That's what we've been doing all year. Today it worked out right for us.
We just do the best we can. Some days it works and some days it
doesn't."

 

WERE YOU WORRIED ABOUT KASEY IN THE CLOSING LAPS?

"I slipped pretty bad coming off of turn two, in the middle of two. I
don't know if it was oil or I just hit something or what, but it got
really, really loose and had to check up. They said Kasey gained three
car lengths on me in the back straightaway. I knew we had a pretty good
advantage and we had a pretty fast car and the car felt really good and
it was balanced. I really don't think he had a shot at all, but
obviously he was closing in pretty quick."

 

COMMENT ON THE RESTARTS

"At some point in the race when I get a good feel for what the car is
like in dirty air and clean air, just to know balance wise if there's
going to be big changes. Ours was a little different, but it also gave
us an opportunity to see what we had to do and track position wise how
to work our way forward and work our way forward not backward. Restarts
were big. I passed three cars in one and two on the high side. He was
one of them, but that helped a lot to be able to get up to clean air and
make some passes and go forward."

 

COMMENT ON LAST CAUTION "If I remember right I was on the back
straightaway and I saw somebody turn sideways before we got the white
flag lap, and I said, 'that's it right there.' They said there was smoke
on the backstretch but there was no caution. That would have been nice.
Then we went around again and that's when I slipped. When I got into
turn three that's when they said caution is out. I knew at that point it
was locked in. I don't think so unless there was oil on the track like I
think there might have been in turn two. I'm not sure exactly what
happened down there, but I hit something and got sideways."

 

 "I knew he had a fast car because I was chasing him on that restart
before hand when he was working over the 40. I knew he (88) had a fast
car, and that restart gave me a good chance to get in front of him.

 

"Not super concerned. We've had some great runs and my mistakes have
killed them. The deal at Dover, spinning out on pit lane, hitting the
cone at Darlington. We had a car capable of winning at Atlanta. We
stayed out long to see if we could get a caution and basically put
everybody a lap down. Each lap at Atlanta is a second a lap when you're
on old tires versus new tires. I think Junior won with a four or
five-second advantage, and I think that's the difference with what we
were, so we've played it safe getting top fives in certain instances.
We've had some mistakes with the package we had at Vegas. It was
anything but fast, but we've learned since then and tried to make
corrections. Here's a new race car and we were fast out of the box and
great today.

 

"It's definitely not what you want to see happening, but you've got to
have confidence in yourself and your team to be able to fight back.
Nobody said one thing about this is it. This is the end of the day. We
had a fast enough car that we could work our way through, and this is a
track where you can do some racing.

 

"I don't know what happened to him (Rusty Wallace). I saw some smoke off
the exhaust. I definitely had some concerns, but there was nothing I
could do about it then. I just kept peddling.

 

"I don't think we're the strongest on horsepower like Penske has been in
the past. We made it to the end today, and we had enough horsepower to
be unchallenged on the straightaways. It wasn't like cars were passing
us. I'm not over excited about the counts of horsepower we have right
now, but they've been working on it. They've been working on it. It will
get better and at some point we will be the best again."

 

 "I had to fight back. I want to thank everybody for coming out. The
fathers bringing their families out for Father's Day was awesome. I'm
happy to get the ALLTEL Dodge in victory lane. We had to fight hard for
it. Obviously we had a good race car. A caution usually makes for an
exciting situation sometimes. Having the tires being able to cool off
evened things out a little bit for the restart."

 

KASEY KAHNE (No. 9 Dodge Dealers/UAW Dodge)

"That was a real good run for us. Tommy Baldwin and the whole Dodge
Dealers/UAW team did a great job today. We were good for the final run
there. It's pretty cool to be here at Michigan. We had newer tires, and
I think at any time we could have caught him. It took us about three pit
stops. The first one we actually went the wrong direction. Tommy Baldwin
made some good choices. It was fun to come back after being a lap down."

 

STERLING MARLIN (No. 40 Coors Light Dodge)

"We had a real good car. We kept adjusting on it. It was too tight, and
we finally got it where we needed it. That last set of tires we adjusted
the air pressure just a wee little bit. It started bottoming out a lot.
We had 'em. They threw a caution. It was another one of those debris
cautions. I never did see any debris, but that's it. That cost us the
win up here last year. We pushed those last few laps, and I had to lift.
It just got too tight."

 

JEREMY MAYFIELD (No. 19 Dodge Dealers/UAW Dodge)

"We just missed it today. I was very excited about this race. We tested
that car and it ran good. Every practice session it ran good. We started
the race and didn't run very good. I don't know what happened. I have no
idea."

 

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

"We were decent on long runs today. The car was just a touch snug, but
it came back to us on longer runs. We came in on that last caution and
took four tires. That helped. We were able to rebound back to a top-20
finish. All-in-all it was a pretty good day for us."

 

JAMIE McMURRAY (No. 42 Texaco/Havoline Dodge)

"Something in the motor broke and ended our day. We had a really good
car. That's the first time since Darlington that I felt like we had a
car capable of winning. We started 30th and the car was good all day
long. We didn't make that many adjustments. We were just kind of riding
around there. This place is really hard on motors. We turned about 9,500
(rpm) today and it stays there for a really long time. We thought we had
the motor stuff figured out. We broke a motor in Atlanta. It was the
same thing. We went back and we felt like we'd figured it out. We ran
the 600 and turned a ton of rpm's there. I thought everything was OK,
but we'll just have to keep working on it. It was really tough. I saw
Kasey (Kahne) was a lap down and Ryan Newman was a lap down. I thought
we had a shot to win the race, so you think you're going to have a
really good points' day if you just finish. Then to have stuff like that
happen, but that's just part of it."

 

BRENDAN GAUGHAN (No. 77 Jasper/Kodak Dodge)

"Good day, bad day, good day, bad day, good day. Racing is an up and
down deal. The guys worked their tails off. The Kodak/Jasper team led
our first laps, real official laps of the year. It put this team where
it belongs, and that's up front. Congratulations to Ryan Newman. Way to
kick some butt. We were pretty darn good, and something happened one lap
and shot me up the racetrack. I still don't know what happened. It hurt
our day a little bit, but the Kodak team battled back. Tires, no tires
and it got us back up to 16th. We'll take it. It felt good to let 'em
know we're really coming around. I'm used to running up front, and I
need to get back to being used to that. We gained five or six spots
putting tires on with a few laps to go, so I'm happy."

 

RUSTY WALLACE (No. 2 Miller Lite Dodge)

"We were decent at times today. We didn't pit that one time and got up
front. I'm not sure what happened, but we ended up on seven cylinders
and that was that."

 

KASEY KAHNE (No. 9 Dodge Dealers/UAW Dodge) - Fourth runner-up finish in
2004

"Ryan got loose, and I had a good run on him, but we would have still
run second. Ryan and that whole Dodge team did a great job today. It's
been awhile since we finished second, so it feels good to get back up
into the top five. We've been struggling back and forth. We'd have some
good runs, but it wasn't where we wanted to be or where we felt like we
could be. It was a great run for the Dodge Dealers Dodge today. On the
restarts our Evernham motors run great. I spun the tires a little bit
and that kinda held us up a little bit, but it was great to have a 1-2
finish for Dodge.

 

"I would have needed three or four more laps, and it would have probably
been one of those races where we lost by a car length or so at the
checkered flag. Ryan did a great job, and we got our Dodge Dealers Dodge
close to another win. Tommy Baldwin and the team made changes all day
long. We were terrible at the start of the race. We made some changes
overnight and we had to get back in the pits and get the car back on the
racetrack. Once we did that we started going back to the front. It was
really bad back there. If your car's not perfect, the air affects it
badly. Once you get a really good car and you can move all over and it
stays where you want it the aero push isn't quite as bad. That's where
we were at the end of the race.

 

"Down the straightaways there's a lot of that (drafting) going on, a
little bump drafting, but I wasn't bumping anybody. I got a little
bumped up a couple of times. It's fun."

 

"At the end we had newer tires than the cars in front of us and we had
the car the best it had been all day. We got a bunch of momentum.

 

"We missed it at the start of the race and we came back and started
getting better and better from there. Tommy Baldwin made some really
good choices there at the end of the race, and it was fun to go forward
after being a lap down.

 

"I saw Ryan get loose. At first when I saw him wiggle in turn two I
thought he might have been out of gas. Then he was just loose, and I got
a good run on him down the backstretch. I was just going to drive as
hard as I could to see if I could catch him. If it had gone all the way
to the start/finish he would have beat me by a car length probably. It
was getting good. Our car took off better on that final four-lap run
than it had the time before that. It freed up for some reason.

 

"The teamwork was good. I was trying to give them feedback when I could.
It was a weird feeling early in the race. I actually got 'em going in
the wrong direction. Once we fixed that on the second pit stop from
there everything the Mountain Dew team did helped and we got better and
better.

 

"The second place, I wonder myself. If it had gone to the start/finish,
I would have lost by half a car length. It would have been another close
one. I'll take a second. We haven't finished second in a long time, so
it's nice.

 

"When he got loose I said, 'I'm going to catch him.' I told myself that,
and I was going to do all I could in three and four. Thinking about it
now after the race is over I probably would have come up a little
short."

 

####