Catchfence

Dodge Motorsports

“It was a solid run. I feel bad that I didn’t deliver for my Miller Lite Dodge guys. I didn’t want to overdrive any of the corners. Maybe left a little bit on each braking zone, but we’re right there in the mix of things. That’s where we need to be; this is a long race.”

YOU GUYS HAVE BEEN REALLY BEEN CONSISTENT ALL SEASON; “Yeah, it would just be nice to grab those poles when you have a shot at them and get those wins. You’ve got to be consistent to make the Chase and then when you’re in it, hopefully, we’ll get there the next few weeks, then you still have to be consistent.”

YOUR THOUGHTS ON YOUR QUALIFYING EFFORT TODAY? “To be the outside pole is a good effort for us. It gives us great track position early in the race and (the opportunity) to see how the pace sets itself. I just felt like I left a little bit too much out there in qualifying. Maybe it was because I was looking at Denny Hamlin who was second quickest in practice and saw the (qualifying) lap time and it told me to run a bit conservative and not step over the line. I just felt that we were a bit too conservative so (Jimmie) Johnson snuck in there and got the pole.”

“We basically left the car alone from our practice time. The way that the car drove, right there where I needed it to be, I just felt like that I just didn’t quite capitalize on the braking zones and so that left us a little bit shy. Overall, the difference between Watkins Glen and Sonoma for the Sprint Cup Series is that at Watkins Glen, you have a full lap to really get your tires warmed up. At Sonoma, they send you out there three-quarters of the way around the track and you don’t have much time to get the tires warmed up. Everything was where it needed to be for us today.”

WOULD YOU LIKE TO SEE SPRINT CUP QUALIFY MULTIPLE CARS AT THE SAME TIME LIKE NATIONWIDE DID TODAY? “I’ve been part of that in the Nationwide Series and sat on a couple of poles here at Watkins Glen. You still gear up for one lap. When you get the opportunity to go out in a group like that, you separate yourself as far away as you can from other guys and you’re out there just to do one lap. So, it’s not really anything different than anything that we do at the Cup level. It’s just that they throw you out there in a group and qualifying seems to go by a little bit quicker.”

WHY ARE THE LAST FOUR OR FIVE LAPS AT THIS TRACK JUST CRAZY? “It’s like that every week. We have double-file restarts and we have an opportunity to gain spots at the end and guys take chances and guys run into each other. At road courses, sometimes it’s hard to know the limit, to know how hard to push it at the end of a long straightaway and sometimes you overstep the boundary of the car and you run into another guy. Road courses are tough. You want to get out front and separate yourself from guys and you hope that you have enough fuel to make it to the end on your last pit stop when you do pit. And when you do pit the last time, you hope that you’re out in that top five group and you don’t have to mess with the riff raff that does go on. It’s a challenge each and every week. You have your beginning of the race, you have the strategy that plays out in the middle part of the race and maybe that’s what some of our fans are disconnected on, the fact that some guys take two (tires), some guys didn’t pit on that caution. Why did they stay out? If we can get our partners like FOX, TNT, ABC and ESPN to show our fans more about what the strategy is, that might give (fans) a better understanding of, ‘Hey, my driver was just leading and now he’s 18th, what’s going on?’ I think that’s what we need help with.”

CAN YOU ELABORATE ON WHERE YOU TOOK A CONSERVATIVE LINE IN QUALIFYING? DOES THAT MAKE YOU MAD THAT YOU LOSE THE POLE BY EIGHT-THOUSANDTHS OF A SECOND? “Yeah, that’s the Catch 22 that you hope that you don’t overdrive car and you want to stay on the conservative side to bust off a good lap. When we saw Denny Hamlin run a 1.11.60, I thought that dropped off a bunch from his pace in practice so that gave me the conservative mindset and then (I) just got beat flat out on the braking zones. So that means that I didn’t slip a tire, we were conservative. Yeah, it’s tough to lose by eight-thousandths (of a second), but hey, it’s just a front row starting spot, the big prize is on Sunday.”

WAS THERE A PARTICULAR TURN WHERE YOU REALLY FELT LIKE YOU SCREWED UP? “Really just two heavy braking zones like Turn 1 and getting into the inner-loop, bus stop on the back straightaway. Those two areas, I thought I was conservative. I hit my marks easy, but when you hit them easy, that means you weren’t on that ragged edge.”

DAVID STREMME (No. 12 Penske Dodge Charger) Qualified 5th

”I’ve never done a qualifying run here at the Glen. I’ve only run one Cup race here. The idea this morning was to run a lot of laps and make one qualifying run. I put a lot of pressure on myself. I just have to hit my marks. I missed a little in a couple of areas of the track with a little less grip, but I’m real happy with that lap in the No. 12 Penske Dodge. For me Sunday, I need to stay on course. If you miss one section of the corner, it screws you up for the next. As a driver, you have to discipline yourself.”

KASEY KAHNE (No. 9 Budweiser Dodge Charger) Qualified 12th

“No rear grip. We haven’t had it yet, in practice or qualifying. You can’t go fast if you don’t have rear grip. It’s the same car we won with at Infineon, the same brakes feel great. The transmission, everything feels really good. It’s just a matter of getting the car in the race track like we had at Infineon. We have a lot of time to work on it tomorrow. That’s what we need to do.”

AJ ALLMENDINGER (No. 44 Stanley Tools Dodge Charger) Qualified 18th

“It’s a decent starting spot for us. We wanted a little bit better, but we’ll take that. We’ve got a couple of practice sessions tomorrow to work on race trim. Payday is Sunday.”

ELLIOTT SADLER (No. 19 Best Buy Dodge Charger) Qualified 19th

“We didn’t have much front grip on that run. We’ll make a few changes. We didn’t get as many runs in qualifying trim as we wanted to. We keep unloading in race trim on Friday, trying to work on that and you can’t do both. We just have to take the qualifying position we’ve got and work hard on Sunday, get some of the track position back, have some good fuel mileage and go racing. It’s always a fuel mileage race. You just hope you’re on the good end of it.”

REED SORENSON (No. 43 McDonald’s Dodge Charger) Qualified 29th

“I was disappointed with that lap. We expected to run about four-tenths better in qualifying, but it didn’t turn out that way. I thought I had a better time. I didn’t miss any corners or anything. I just need to be a little more aggressive. The car was tight. We were chattering the front end a little. I didn’t do as good as I needed to. We had a good car in race trim, real consistent.”

SAM HORNISH JR. (No. 77 Mobil 1 Dodge Charger) Qualified 36th

“We’ve been having a little bit of an issue with the brakes. We get about half a pedal of travel before we get any braking and, for whatever reason, it was even worse in qualifying. Unfortunately, getting into the bus stop, it is what it is. We don’t run really well in qualifying, in the top 25 anyhow. We’ll just keep our heads up. The Mobil 1 Dodge is good in race trim, so that’s all that really matters. Strategy plays a big part here and being able to get up front. We’ll just have to play our cards right, stay out of trouble and get a good finish on Sunday.”

- Darnell Communications for Dodge Motorsports, Press Release