SRT Motorsports - Dodge Sprint Cup Series Race Final Quotes - Sonoma

June 23, 2012 , Sonoma, Calif. - 
A.J. Allmendinger (No. 22 Shell/Pennzoil Dodge Charger R/T) Finished Ninth
CAN YOU TALK ABOUT THE RACE? “It was a pretty good day for the Shell/Pennzoil Dodge team. I was happy with the way we drove. I didn’t make a lot of mistakes and cost us anything. The car was really amazing in some spots and then there were spots where it just didn’t react. The car was really good in Turns 9 and 10. After 10 I could just kill the field in the hairpin, but I couldn’t get off the hairpin worth a darn. We weren’t a race-winning car today. We had solid weekend. We knew what our weaknesses were coming into the weekend and it showed on race day. We got everything out of the car that we could.”

DO YOU THINK THAT YOU COULD HAVE MADE IT TO THE END OF THE RACE ON TWO STOPS? “I’m not sure. We didn’t have the fuel mileage at the start of the race. Once you commit to a strategy here you have to commit to it. A three-stop strategy is what we went with and worked out in the end.”

TRACK POSITION TRUMPED TIRES AT THE END OF THE RACE FOR YOU? “For sure. It was tough. A couple of those guys got me at the end so you can argue either way. You’re screwed in that ninth-10th range. If you’re 14th you come and pit for tires. If you’re sixth you know not to pit. We were in the middle and decided to keep our track position.”

Brad Keselowski (No. 2 Miller Lite Dodge Charger R/T) Finished 12TH
YOU LOST A BUNCH OF TRACK POSITON ON YOUR FIRST PIT STOP. WAS THAT THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN A TOP 10 DAY AND FINISHING 12TH TODAY? “Yeah, I stalled the car coming out of the pits. That’s my fault. I just stalled the car. The car didn’t take off really well out of the box and I just couldn’t keep it revved up enough to get going. It cost us a lot of spots. Add the long green flag run and you just had to be patient and wait of the second round of pit stops to start. We fought back hard with the Miller Lite Dodge. We probably had a top 10 car if not for the mistake.”

Todd Gordon (crew chief, No. 22 Shell/Pennzoil Dodge Charger R/T)
HOW WAS THE RUN TODAY? “A solid day for us. Based off of practice we decided that we needed to go with a three-stop pit strategy. I felt like we saw a lot of drop-off in tires and we were questionable on fuel mileage. Once we got in the race we thought we might have been able to make it on two stops. Rear tires fall-off so much here. I shorted our last stop and with when the 29 (Kevin Harvick) was running out of fuel and I wanted to stay out in front of the caution. The caution with 20 to go was a good opportunity to reset the field and felt like we had decent race car from there. If the last caution doesn’t come maybe we gain another few spots. We were right on the cusp of having to pit and not pit at all. I didn’t want to restart 15th with new tires. It gets awful hectic here and I thought there were too many cars that we needed to pass to get back inside the top 10.”

Robby Gordon (No. 7 MAPEI/Save Mart Dodge Charger R/T) Finished 39th
“It looks like we broke a truck arm mounts. What a bummer. Our car was fast all day. We played the pit strategy game knowing that it was going to be a three-stop race. It would have worked because we had enough speed in the car to run with the leaders.”

DID THE LONG GREEN FLAG RUN CHANGE TWO-STOP PIT STRATEGY FOR TEAMS?
“Oh yeah, for sure. It would have played right into our hand. I was just cruising and thought we were in good shape. Our lap times were ahead of the leaders. About Lap 66 the car starting to get really screwy and I slowed down about two-seconds a lap. Broken truck arm mounts did us in.”