Catchfence

KURT BUSCH (No. 2 Miller Lite Dodge Charger) Finished Fourth
“We missed it pretty big here at Pocono.  It wasn’t pretty.  It was pretty ugly as a matter of fact.  The Miller Lite Dodge never-give-up attitude and all our guys, we did what we could.  We played the fuel-mileage game like we needed too.  I just don’t know what to say, I don’t know how we missed it that bad.

“It was an eventful day.  I really don’t know how we survived like we did.  We really missed the setup big.  It was one of those days when it wasn’t pretty.  To finish sixth, wow!   We’ll take it and go on to the next one.  We definitely missed it pretty big today.

“We had to go for broke because of our speed today.  It was off, so we had to pit for the final time when we could make it to the end.  With that green-white-checkered at the end, I was hoping there wasn’t another one because we would have been very, very close on fuel.

“This is a day where we struggled and we made good of it.”

STEVE ADDINGTON (Crew Chief, No. 2 Miller Lite Dodge Charger)
“We were way off at the start of the race and don’t understand why.  When we get back, we’ll go over the car and try to figure out what happened.   We were trying to make the best out of a bad situation.  We came in and topped off and got four tires and asked him to save fuel from that point on and it worked out for us.  I’m just really proud of everybody hanging in there, especially Kurt.  We got a sixth-place finish out of it.”

SAM HORNISH JR. (No. 77 Mobil 1 Dodge Charger) Finished 11th
“We had a pretty good car today, I think a top-15 car.  It wasn’t the greatest car, but we had a good strategy.  Travis (Geisler, crew chief) had a good strategy.  We’ve been working on fuel mileage stuff.  Man it was rough seeing Denny (Hamlin, the race winner) about 10 feet from the start-finish line (to complete lap 199) when the yellow came out and we were running fourth.  Obviously, we wanted to win, but a fourth would have been great.  That’s (11th) probably a couple of spots better than we might have got.  I’m real happy with all the guys with the Mobil 1 Dodge, what they did today and how we were able to move forward all day long.

“I wanted to see those guys battle and beat their stuff up a little more when I was out front.  Denny was so strong, it was hard to think anybody was going to hold him off for too long.  After he caught up with me, I had to make sure I was smart about what I do.  Once he got a run on me and got around me, I wanted to get back in behind him and lose as little time as possible.

”I love Pocono.  I love coming here.  This track is a lot of fun for me.  It’s definitely a step in the right direction of where we need to go.  We need to work on our cars and get them better.  Going into Michigan next week, I’m excited about it.   We ran well at California earlier this year, so a lot of things make me excited about going to Michigan including the fact it’s my home track.

THE LAST RESTART, WHAT HAPPENED? “I ran so hard trying to keep Denny and Tony (Stewart) behind me, I killed the rear tires.  I just had nothing to get going.  I spun the tires, got hit and spun them again.  I used everything I could to make it a 200-lap race.  It ended up 204.”

BRAD KESELOWSKI (No. 12 Penske Racing Dodge Charger) Finished 22nd
“It was a long day at Pocono today.  We got a better finish than I thought we would.  The entire complexion of the race changed over the last 15-20 laps.  This was my first race here and I learned a lot.  Hopefully we can be faster when we come back in a few weeks.”

- Darnell Communications for Dodge Motorsports, Press Release