Dodge Charger Quotes from California Speedway

Sunday, Feb. 27, 2005
California Speedway
Auto Club 500.
 

JAMIE McMURRAY (No. 42 Texaco/Havoline Dodge Charger) - Finished 4th

"We went back to Donnie's (crew chief Wingo's) hotel room Friday night,
and he had all of his papers laid out and just kind of put together some
stuff we'd run in the past. As soon as they dropped the green flag the
car was good. We took a little gamble at the end. Chip (Ganassi, team
owner) is always on us about trying to do what we need to win races. The
guys on two tires earlier had some success. Track position was more
important today than ever.  The new spoiler rule, I'm not a very big fan
of it. It's just really hard to pass guys, and some of the guys you just
run right up on their bumper and you can get them loose. I did it to
Kasey Kahne and I didn't mean to. It's going to take a while to get used
to this, but track position is big. We had never run well at Daytona.
Last year I think we ran third at Rockingham, and I think it just kind
of puts you back in the middle of the points again. When it's early on
like that, if you can get a top five it seems to really boost you.  So,
we'll go to Las Vegas and take the same car and should have some
success."

WHAT DID IT TAKE TO RUN WELL AT THE END? "We just really messed with air
pressure all day.  All of the adjustments we made we kind of had to go
back on. We just kept working on air pressure, and when you get out in
clean air it's just amazing how much faster you can go. I really didn't
think the guys without tires were going to be any good. I felt like we'd
catch them and then the guys with four tires at the end would come on.
It worked out for us. Clean air was more important today than ever."

COMMENT ON NEW SPOILER RULE "I'm not a very big fan of the spoiler.
It's really hard to pass. When you get up underneath the guy you get
tight and you have to put so much wheel on it that you get loose, and
then you don't have anything back there to help you.  The Busch car was
definitely a lot more fun to drive yesterday. It was a lot easier to
drive at least. Maybe they'll look at that and we can go back and do
what we did last year."

COMMENT ON LAST PIT STOP "I didn't think anyone would stay out.
Honestly, the No. 16 and 97 were two of the better cars all day. They
could take that chance. Track position was big, and when we left the
pits first and there was only three or four cars ahead of us I didn't
think it was going to be that hard. I thought, 'This will be no big
deal. We'll get right out and go.'  But these guys were good on no
tires.  I don't know."

CHIP GANASSI (Car owner Chip Ganassi Racing with Felix Sabates "How
'bout that 42 car?  We're happy with the car. It was a great run, and I
think we're making progress with the Charger. We took a little gamble at
the end, but you've got to take a few chances every now and then.
All-in-all, it was a pretty good race."

PAUL ANDREWS  (Crew Chief No. 45 Georgia-Pacific/Brawny Dodge)

THAT WAS THE SECOND STRAIGHT TOP 20 FINISH FOR KYLE PETTY "It's our
first step. We feel like these first five races when the points are
really open we really need to be conservative and come out and finish
every race. It wasn't a spectacular finish, but it's what we need to do.
We're happy with 18th. We can take that and go on to the next two races
and build on that as a group. We had a good day. We had a little
overheating issue at the end with paper on the grille and we kept having
to pit and spend a little more time on pit road than we needed to. It
was a dirty track. The last time we came in we had a hotdog wrapper or
something equivalent to that covering one whole side of the grille. It
was just a dirty track issue today.

 

"The 43 had some issues today. He smacked the wall once and had a flat
under green. He ran over some debris. They had a lot of little issues
that hurt 'em. They were making progress at the end of a long run, and
that's our goal, too. I think it's just wait and see now. We're building
both teams and we'll see what happens. We're going to get through these
first five races and see where we are. Hopefully we'll keep improving
each week."

 

JEREMY MAYFIELD (No. 19 Dodge Dealers/UAW Dodge Charger) - Finished 28th

"I don't know what happened. We were great yesterday and qualified good
and they threw the green flag and it was like, 'wow, where did this come
from?' I don't know if the track changed or what. We just missed it and
couldn't get it back quick enough. We were loose, loose, loose. It was
weird loose. You'd touch the gas and it would want to stand up and turn
on you. We've got a lot of good people. We'll figure it out."

 

RYAN NEWMAN (No. 12 ALLTEL Dodge Charger) - Finished 9th, 12th in
standings

"We overcame a lot. We had a really good car. In general for the long
run, we probably didn't have one of the fastest cars from the start, but
we had one of the fastest cars at the end of the run. Fortunately we
made it to the end. We took four on the last stop because we were the
Lucky Dog and that's all we could do. I'm happy we got a top 10 after
the things we went through. We cut a right front tire. We overheated and
got caught for speeding. We got the Lucky Dog twice. It was a pretty big
day in some aspects. It wasn't bad for the big picture, but it wasn't
the results we wanted.

 

"Overheating was primarily because of all the trash on the racetrack. If
we didn't have people throwing trash out there and actually had people
picking stuff up it would be a lot better and we wouldn't have to worry
about that.

 

"I know it had to be close (on speeding penalty). I was in a stall where
if I just left and hauled the mail I thought I was going to be all
right. It never even crossed my mind for the potential for it because of
the stall I was in and doing what we were doing. Rpm's are fine. I just
messed up. I think we're holding our own, but in general the new aero
package could be better. The cars are all skating around. Short track
racing would be a lot more fun."

 

RUSTY WALLACE (No. 2 Miller Lite Dodge Charger) - Second Straight 10th
place finish. Tied for seventh in series standings.

"I'm still wanting more. That wasn't a good run at the end. We didn't
take tires. We should have taken tires. We did everything wrong when it
came to making tire calls today. We did two and we should have done
four. We did none and we should have done four. We got our butt beat
because of that. We've got a big problem with the nose right now. It's
packing rubber in it. Our motors are overheating like crazy. I feel like
we're going to have to ask NASCAR to get the top of the grille cut back
a couple of inches and put some angle to it. All day long I was 240 and
250 and every pit stop packing stuff out of the grille."

 

KEN SCHRADER (No. 49 Schwan's Home Service Dodge Charger) - Finished
14th

"That was a good run and a great finish. The car handled great, and
you've got to have a good handling car to get a good finish these days.
It was a lot of fun out there today. Hopefully we can learn from this
and keep improving."

 

BILL ELLIOTT (No. 91 Stanley Tools Dodge Charger)

"I got in the wall early with Ricky over on the backside. I shouldn't
have put myself in that position, but our Stanley Tools Dodge Charger
was kind of on the tight side anyway.  Then I got into the wall over
there, and it really messed the car up. Then we blew the right rear tire
getting into turn one. I hate that our day ended so early. We had more
for them today than that, but we'll have to wait until next time to get
it done."

 

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

"We had a super racecar in practice all week, and it just wasn't the
same racecar today. We were working on it trying to get it better and
better and something snapped there. That wasn't why I wrecked. I just
screwed up getting in. I hope we can get back in. It's a big weekend for
Mountain Dew and Dodge, and we were hoping to have a good showing. We've
got to get back out there and get some points now.

 

"I just lost it getting into turn one. I basically did it all by myself.
McMurray was coming down the bottom, and when I when I went across in
front of him I just lost the back end and spun around and hit the wall.
We were real loose in the center throughout the race. We were trying to
get it better, and I just lost it getting in. It hit pretty good. I'd
say it'll take a little while to fix it, but these guys do a good job
and they'll probably get us back out.

 

"We had gotten the car better, but it was starting to get loose again,
so we need to go back and figure this deal out. It's really
disappointing. We could still be out there. We didn't need to wreck it
like that. If we could have made it through that corner, I think we
could have run in the top 10 if nothing broke. We had a bad vibration
that happened about six laps before that, so I don't know what was going
on with the car but something was wrong with it.

 

"It didn't seem like a factor when you were around cars (new aero
package). I didn't feel much difference. These cars have a lot less grip
than they had before. I don't see it being any good for us really. I
think it's going to make it really tough to race. I think it's going to
be really spread out, but I might be wrong."