Catchfence

BRAD KESELOWSKI (No. 2 Miller Lite Dodge Charger R/T) Finished 1st
YOU HAD NEVER WON HERE BEFORE; WHAT TURNED IT AROUND? “An awesome race car. An awesome race team. Penske Racing. The night race at Bristol! This is the race that Tony Stewart, Jeff Gordon and Dale Earnhardt win. It’s the race of champions. I can’t believe it. There are races that pay more. There are races that might have a little more prestige, but this is the coolest damn one of them all. We won it!”

TALK ABOUT YOUR MONTH OF AUGUST; HOW DOES THAT HAPPEN? “A team that just starts to click and believes in each other. I believed in Paul (Wolfe) since we started this year and we’ve just made good adjustments to our cars over the last few months. We made good adjustments to our car today and we find ourselves in victory lane. I can’t believe it, I really can’t.

“The first few pit stops of the day, we struggled a little bit, but that last stop my guys came through and got me out in front of the 24. We were able to pass Martin Truex and the next thing I know, we’re in victory lane spraying Miller Lite. This is really cool.”

PAUL WOLFE (Crew Chief, No. 2 Miller Lite Dodge Charger R/T)
“I’m so proud of everyone on this team. To have three wins now in this season from where we started the year just shows all the hard work that everybody has been doing back at the shop. All these guys on the pit crew, we had the pit stop that counted tonight. They did their deal. Everybody is doing their part. We’re building fast Miller Lite Dodge Chargers and I’m just really proud of everyone on this team.”

KURT BUSCH (No. 22 Shell/Pennzoil Dodge Charger R/T) Finished 17th
“It was just a difficult night for us all the way around. We were playing catch-up all race due to the two pit-road penalties (speeding). We finally made it up to 10th in the Shell/Pennzoil Dodge with less than 100 to go, but had our worst pit stop of the night under the last caution and lost six spots back to 16th. We went with an adjustment (wedge) that made it just too tight to advance. It wasn’t the night we expect to have at Bristol.”

(MEDIA CENTER INTERVIEW)

BRAD KESELOWSKI
TALK ABOUT WINNING TONIGHT AT BRISTOL? “What an honor to win at Bristol. We had a great car all night long. We were strong. During that first run, I knew that we had something for them. We kind of fell off a little bit after that first restart when Matt (Kenseth) and I got together. I was really concerned from there on because I thought that I did something to my car. We did some more adjustments on it and got it right. By the end of the race, we got up to the lead and the sky was the limit. I’m proud of the effort. Everybody just kept digging all night long. The last pit stop was good. The adjustments were good. I was driving my butt off and the next thing you know, I find myself in victory lane at Bristol.”

HOW IMPORTANT IS IT TO GET TO 10TH IN POINTS? “Who’s 10th? Tony (Stewart)? Tony’s pretty good at Atlanta and Richmond. Richmond, we really struggled there in the spring, so I’m really not sure what to expect going back. Twenty-one points is still a lot of points. You have to beat the guy by over 10 positions over the course of two races. Beating Tony Stewart by an average of 10 positions over two races, that’s gonna be pretty tough to be honest. I’m just happy with what we’ve done here tonight. I hate to look too far ahead, but yes, having those points for three wins would be huge in the Chase. But I don’t think that we’ve seen a Chase yet where that’s mattered. Maybe this one will be different. Maybe we’ll be kicking ourselves if we don’t get into the top 10 and it comes down to Homestead and we lose by whatever points those are. There’s no point of sitting and pouting about it. We’re going to continue to do the best that we can.”

SINCE YOU BROKE YOUR ANKLE, YOUR AVERAGE FINISHING POSITION IS 1.75. WITH THREE WINS AND ONE POSITIONS OUT, DO YOU GO FOR CONSISTENCY OR WINS NOW? “Hell, why don’t we go for both? I like to consistently win. That’s what this sport is all about. It’s been good. This sport in its simplest form is just about winning. Why make it any more complicated than that? If you have cars that can win, go out there and win. If you don’t, get the best finish that you can. I think if you look at Jimmie (Johnson) and the years that he’s had success and won the championships, he wins races in the Chase. You’ve got to be able to do that. I’m sure that we can look at this a whole lot of different ways and coast into it, or however you want to look at it, or just take all those stupid risks to win a race. You just do the best that you can on any given week and your try to be smart about it, try not to over-think it and you’ll have good weeks. As long as you have a good team, and we have a good team, I don’t think that we need to over-think it.”

PAUL WOLFE
TALK ABOUT YOUR STRATEGY FOR PIT STALL SELECTION? “Every week, everybody chooses their pit stalls based off of qualifying. You try to pick out stalls that you think can work out for you. It’s all part of the race. I feel like we’ve been doing a good job putting together a whole weekend. It’s not always about having fast race cars. It’s about the guys having good stops. They had a fast stop there at the end when it counted. It got us to the front row and then we had a shot at it.”

YOU GUYS ARE ARGUABLY THE HOTTEST TEAM IN NASCAR? “We kind of have things going for us right now. It’s weird because it’s not really doing anything different. It’s been a lot of small things over the last couple of months, just starting to add up. We’ve got fast race cars. The driver is doing his part. The pit crew is doing its part and we’re making good calls on pit road and adjustments. The biggest thing for me, being in the Cup Series, is that these races are a lot longer than the Nationwide races that I’m use to. You have to be able to adjust on your car as the track changes because as the race goes on, everyone gets better. I feel like as a team we’ve done a good job adjusting on our cars and making them have adjustability in them. We continue to bring good race cars to the race track every week, something that Brad can race out there and do his part.”

- Darnell Communications for Dodge Motorsports, Press Release