Dodge teams Homestead race quotes

Brad Keselowski, Penske Racing Dodge

Photo by: Ashley Dickerson, ASP Inc.

BRAD KESELOWSKI (No. 2 Miller Lite Dodge Charger R/T) Finished 20th

YOU FINISHED FIFTH IN POINTS. “I don’t think anyone really expected that out of us, but I never stopped believing that we could be, you know, be a contender and have a lot of fun and do well as a team. I think we’ve got a lot to build off of. We’ll have to work on it, build off it too. I’m real proud of the effort for the whole team.”

HOW DID THE END OF THE RACE PLAY OUT FOR YOU GUYS? YOU HAD TO PIT LATE. “We were just doing what we could to try to get up to third (in the Chase standings). We were going to finish fifth in the points, so we just took a chance to try to get to third. It just didn’t pay off. If we caught a yellow, we could have been in really good position, but just wasn’t meant to be. I think we did all the right things and just didn’t catch the breaks we needed and really just didn’t quite have a fast enough car. We put ourselves in position to have good things happen to us and that’s okay.”

DOES THIS RACE ENCOMPASS YOUR ENTIRE CHASE? “We do an excellent job as a team putting ourselves in position where good things can happen to us and I think we’re rewarded accordingly. The big thing that we have to work on as a team is we’ve got to be a little faster, have faster race cars. If we can do that, we’ll rely less on strategy.”

YOU WON LAST NIGHT AND RAN STRONG TONIGHT. HOW DOES THAT MAKE YOUR OFFSEASON AND AS YOU LOOK AHEAD TO 2012? “Well, you know, we’d like to have had a better finish today but, you know, like I said, I was only surprised with how we ran. I’m ready for the offseason (smiles).”

DID YOU CAR GET BETTER AFTER THE RAIN DELAY? “Yeah, when the track didn’t have rubber on it, I thought the car was really strong.”

DID YOU HAVE A BETTER CAR THAN WHERE YOU FINISHED? “We were better than 20th, but we took our chances and just didn’t catch the breaks. I’m not frustrated with that. I think that’s the right strategy. I would just like to be a little bit faster. That’s the only thing I can be frustrated about.”

WHICH IS THE BIGGER ACCOMPLISHMENT: TOP FIVE IN POINTS OR MAKING THE CHASE? “They’re pretty damn equal (smiles).”

HOW WAS YOUR RACE? “We had an up-and-down night here at Homestead. At the end, we took some chances trying to get ourselves up to third in points and it just didn’t pay off. Ended up finishing 20th and if we catch a yellow there, we’ll probably have a fifth to 10th-place day and move up to third in points. But we just didn’t catch the right breaks for that to happen, but still had a decent day and probably a better day than where the finish was. You know, we just need a little more speed in our cars to be able to do something here. You look at the 14 (Tony Stewart) and the 99 (Carl Edwards) and they just had a lot of speed. If we can get a little more speed in our cars, I feel like we can go out there and win a championship.”

DID THE TRACK CHANGE A LOT AFTER THE RAIN DELAY? “Yeah, every time it would rain or do any of that kind of stuff, my Dodge got really good. I could have used a couple more of those showers (smile).”

THOUGHTS ON THE CHAMPIONSHIP BATTLE COMING DOWN TO STEWART AND EDWARDS. “Did it come down to a tie and Tony won it? Wow – that’s pretty cool. I guess I didn’t do the math. Congrats to him. He had a great year and I don’t think you can ask for much more than that.”

DID YOU EVER THINK THE CHAMPIONSHIP MIGHT COME DOWN TO LITERALLY THE LAST LAP? “Well, you know one year, it’s got to (laughs). This is the year and I don’t think we’ll ever see that again.”

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PAUL WOLFE (crew chief, No. 2 Miller Lite Dodge Charger R/T)

“We just didn’t have the car that we were hoping to have tonight. It really would have been nice to finish with a win. We just didn’t have the car we needed. We worked on it and never could really put it all together. We got to the point where we were just trying strategy stuff to see if we could pull something off with this Miller Lite Dodge Charger. It just didn’t work out. I’m proud of the effort by everyone on this team. We were able to earn a top-five spot in the driver point standings and that’s a great accomplishment for this team. I’m proud of the effort. We feel like we know where we need to go during the off-season to make our cars faster and run strong for the championship. It wasn’t from a lack of effort. Everybody put the best effort they could to make this car a championship-caliber car and we did that. I’m very proud of this Miller Lite Dodge team. We’ve made big steps this year. We just have to continue to try and be better and ready once the flag drops at Daytona in a few months.”

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KURT BUSCH (No. 22 Shell/Pennzoil Dodge Charger R/T) Finished 34th

"I've never been so disappointed in my life. I think I missed a race once my rookie year and this almost tops that."