Category: XFINITY Series

TALLADEGA, Ala. (April 16, 2011) – Milka Duno raced to a 19th-place finish in the ARCA Racing Series presented by Menards 3 Amigos 250 in her first start at Talladega Superspeedway Saturday morning. Sporting a fast CITGO SUPERGARD Toyota, Duno ran within the top-10 before bad luck forced her to make a late-race pit stop and comeback with only eight laps remaining.

“I have very mixed emotions about my debut at Talladega,” said Duno. “On the one hand we had a really good car that performed so well in the practice session, in qualifying, topping the charts in the final practice and in the race today also. The results we generated at this race, in spite of some bad luck, prove that we are competitive. On the other hand, we didn’t leave Talladega with a top-ten finish. We fought hard all day and we never, ever gave up. When we were shuffled back, we fought our way back up – several times. We earned our place in the top-ten several times in the race today but unfortunately, as had happened at Daytona as well; situations out of my control denied us the possibility to finish in the top-ten.”

Duno took the green flag from the outside of row four, which proved to be an unlucky position as she was stuck in the outside lane and freight-trained to the 17th position by lap two. Knowing she had a fast car, the Venezuela-native patiently maintained her position before the first caution came out on lap 15.

Crew Chief Jon Wolfe called his driver to pit road for her first stop of the day. The Sheltra Motorsports team serviced the CITGO SUPERGARD Toyota with two tires and fuel and sent Duno back to the track for the lap 20 restart in the 15th position.

The green flag came back out on lap 20 and the field started to get racy. Running in a tight pack, Duno moved her No. 63 Toyota into the 13th position before another caution slowed the field on lap 27. Choosing not to pit, Duno moved into eighth place and got ready for more green-flag racing.

Lap 33 brought the green flag back out and Duno jumped to the outside looking to move to the seventh position. With no drafting help, the ARCA Racing Series rookie was again freight-trained to the back of the lead pack and fell to 18th by lap 38 when she was finally able to get back in line. Running some of the fastest lap times of the day, Duno began to march back towards the top-10 and made her way up to 13th before the third caution of the day came out on lap 44.

Wolfe brought Duno back down pit road to the attention of her Sheltra Motorsports team during the caution for her second pit stop of the race. Changing two left side tires and adding fuel, the CITGO SUPERGARD team sent their driver back to the track in the 16th position.

The field restarted on lap 49 but only 10 laps later the caution came out for the fourth time of the afternoon. The green flag flew on lap 65 and Duno again powered her Toyota back through the field, marching into the top-10 before the yellow flag flew again on lap 71.

With less than 25 laps remaining the field prepared for a lap 75 restart. As the green flag dropped Duno ran into some bad luck. As the pace car pulled off the track two cars checked up right in front of Duno’s No. 63, causing her to make contact with the ninth-place car in front of her. The contact damaged the radiator duct work and the hood causing Duno’s motor to lose power and run hot. Trying to hold on to her damaged, underpowered car, Duno fell back to 20th before the final caution of the day came out on lap 82.

Making the decision to relinquish track position, Wolfe called his driver down pit road to assess the damage and pull tape off the radiator to help the overheating engine. ARCA Racing Series officials called for a quickie yellow and the Sheltra Motorsports team had only one stop to make repairs to their Toyota. Duno returned to the track in 25th, the last car on the lead lap.

The final restart came on lap 86 setting up an eight-lap dash to the finish. Duno moved forward six positions in those eight laps before running out of time and taking the checkered flag in the 19th position.

“I was really happy with the debut of our Toyota at the Superspeedway,” said Crew Chief Jon Wolfe. “Unfortunately Milka got banged up in a restart near the end of the race. That damaged the radiator duct work and the hood, causing the motor to run hot and to lose power. Milka ran a good race, that damage just hurt us there at the end.”

The ARCA Racing Series will take a weekend off before heading to the short-track at Salem Speedway for the Kentuckiana Ford Dealers 200. The green flag will drop for 200 laps of short track racing action on Sunday, May 1.

Camry driver Kyle Busch won Saturday’s NASCAR Nationwide Series (NNS) race at Alabama’s Talladega Superspeedway.

The victory was his fourth of the 2011 season, his 36th driving a Toyota, and his 47th career NNS win.

Busch led a total of four laps en route to his first career NNS win at the 2.66-mile superspeedway.

Busch is now two victories away from tying Mark Martin’s NNS record of 49 career wins.

Camry drivers Joey Logano (second) and Joe Nemechek (third) also earned top-five finishes in the race.

Brian Scott (11th), Michael Annett (19th), Kenny Wallace (25th), Steve Wallace (32nd) and Michael Waltrip (33rd) were also in the 124-lap race.

KYLE BUSCH, No. 18 Z-Line Designs Toyota Camry, Joe Gibbs Racing Finishing Position: 1st How did you win this race? “I don’t know — look at the thing. I got hit like three times on the left side. I thought it was killed — I said it was killed. These guys did a great job putting it back together with great leadership from Jason Ratcliff (crew chief). This Z-Line Designs Camry doesn’t look the best, but it was certainly the best right there at the end, especially with the guy that was pushing me — Joey (Logano) was a great teammate today. Can’t thank everybody from the whole JGR (Joe Gibbs Racing) organization — the guys from GameStop, thank those guys. They deserve to win just as much as we do right here. This is a team win and it’s cool to get it here. Finally I won a Nationwide race here so now I completed the sweep at Talladega. NOS Energy Drink, Toyota — this Camry was pretty fast today in the draft and getting pushed with another Camry so it worked good there. Gillette, Nationwide Insurance, Marquis Jets

Saturday, April 16, 2011

Dodge Motorsports PR

Talladega Superspeedway Aaron’s 312 Post-Race Quotes

NASCAR Nationwide Series

http://twitter.com/teamdodge www.media.chrysler.com

BRAD KESELOWSKI (No. 22 Discount Tire Dodge Challenger R/T) Finished Fourth “What a wild day. That’s what Talladega is known for. We were in position at the end with Joe (Nemechek). We did everything right today. It was great running with him and I thought that we had a shot at the win. We just didn’t get it. I hope Mike Wallace is OK. I saw a heck of a wreck in my mirror. I’m proud of my team. They gave me a great car with incredible speed. This Discount Tire Dodge is fast. I had a great run with my teammate Sam Hornish. I felt like we could really do something special there at the end of the race when we got hooked up and made a move to the front. That one deal was bad when his rear bumper cover came loose and I spun him out. I wish we could have gotten back together because he had a fast Dodge. Just a great day for us at Penske Racing; a solid finish (fourth-place) that’s for sure.”

WHAT HAPPEN WITH THE INCIDENT WITH HORNISH? “The rear bumper cover blew off and when that happens, you just can’t drive the cars and when I touched him, he just spun out. It was a tough deal for Sam, that’s for sure. His Dodge was really fast and he could drive straight up to the front of the field. We were great in the draft together and if not for his spin, we may have put our Dodge’s 1-2 at the end. A tough deal for him for sure. He deserved a better finish.”

HOW CAN THESE CARS GET SO BEAT UP AND YET GUYS CAN DRIVE STRAIGHT BACK TO THE FRONT? “It’s just that big hole in that air. Kyle (Busch) made a great move at the end of the race. He probably wouldn’t have been able to hold the lead with the damage that he had, that’s why I feel confident that Joe (Nemechek) or I could have won the race if it finished (stayed green) out.”

ARE YOU READY FOR THIS AGAIN TOMORROW? “Yes. I’ll get a good night’s rest and something to eat. It’s a lot of fun out there.”

SAM HORNISH JR. (No. 12 Alliance Truck Parts Dodge Challenger R/T) Finished 13th “Our Dodge Challenger was really fast. Unfortunately, we got a little visibility for our Alliance Truck Parts Dodge that we weren’t looking for when we got turned around a couple of times today. It was tough racing out there. I thought we had a really good car and had an opportunity to win if we put ourselves in the right position. I made a mistake on the next to last restart and didn’t get us where we needed to be and was stuck behind some slow cars for the last restart. Thirteenth isn’t where we should have been today, but better than it appeared early in the race (lap 45) when we got turned around down the front stretch.

“The car was really good. I couldn’t ask for anything more out of our Dodge Challenger. We had good speed. The car handled well. We were able to push well and receive a push well. I’ve got to thank Chad “Walter, crew chief) and all the guys that work on the Alliance Truck Parts Dodge Challenger. We had a super fast car. If they keep building race cars like that for us and we keep coming back here, we’re going to get it to victory lane.”

TRAVIS GEISLER (Director of Competition, Penske Racing) “It was a tremendous effort by a group (No. 12 team) that doesn’t get to go racing every week. Normally, when things go wrong, those teams tend to buckle under the pressure, but not this team. This group here, the Alliance Truck parts Dodge team with Chad Walter the crew chief and Sam (Hornish Jr.) driving, it a good group. They worked their butts off this weekend and kept putting themselves back in position to win the race. Unfortunately, we couldn’t get it done with either of our cars, but we were up front all day with these Dodges. We had two cars capable of winning.”

Ford Finishing Order:

6th – Trevor Bayne

15th – Timmy Hill

17th – Carl Edwards

31st – Josh Wise

37th – Jennifer Jo Cobb

38th – Ricky Stenhouse, Jr.

41st – Tim Andrews

42nd – Carl Long

RICKY STENHOUSE, JR. – No. 6 Blackwell Angus Ford Mustang (Finished 38th) – “It was just racing, I guess. It looked like Trevor might have got a push from Carl, got a little loose, and I was just following the 31 kind of wherever they went and it looked like the left-front just got into the right-rear and got us in the fence. It’s tough. Our Blackwell Angus Beef Ford Mustang was awesome all day. I can’t thank the guys enough at the engine shop, the body shop for getting this thing back from Daytona. We were really, really fast, but it just didn’t end right for us.”

THE ONE THING YOU WANTED TO DO WAS AT LEAST FINISH TODAY. THAT MAY NOT HAPPEN NOW. “It’s a tough one to swallow. This is the first of the year, but, hopefully, we’ll get back out there and make some laps, but it’s gonna be a tough one for us. We’ll go to Nashville next week.”

JENNIFER JO COBB – No. 41 Rick Ware Racing Ford Mustang (Finished 37th) – “Things happen in a hurry. You get in the middle of it and there’s nowhere to go and there’s nothing you can do. I tried to put the brakes on to minimize the pain, but I got hit from two or three different sides all-around and got caught up in somebody else’s issue. I always say that when you’re at Daytona and Talladega you have a 50/50 chance of the car surviving. I was so bored when I was out there by myself, but when we got caught up with the draft I wasn’t bored anymore, that’s for sure.”

TREVOR BAYNE – No. 16 RickyvsTrevor.com Ford Mustang (Finished 6th) – “We were leading on the last lap and that was fun. Carl and I were really, really fast together. We were leading in turn one and two when the 18 and 20 barely snuck it in there on us and when they packed there, I lost Carl and we dropped back a little bit. It’s OK. We had a really good day. We were really fast. I hate that we didn’t win the thing or finish top five because I k now we could have with as good as we were, but it was a fun day.”

HOW DID IT FEEL TO BE THE ONE BEING PUSHED TODAY? “It was different and I liked it. Carl did a really good job of pushing me. He did a great job today and never got me in any situations. I think we did a good job of staying calm and we got a decent finish, so it’s all good.”

WHAT HAPPENED IN THE INCIDENT WITH RICKY? “I hate when a teammate’s car gets torn up. That’s a bad day, but I was outside the 31. They got squirrely on the frontstretch and lost each other. The 60 and I had a huge run, we got to the outside and the 31 kept coming up and I don’t think Ricky could see exactly where they were on the track. He probably thought we had another lane outside, but we didn’t and we were there, and then he just came up and got us and it turned him unfortunately.”

TIMMY HILL – No. 15 Rick Ware Racing Ford Mustang (Finished 14th) – “I’ve played a lot of video games and done well on that, but that’s a completely different thing. We came here and practiced well. I took on to that two-car draft really well, but throughout the day we had trouble with anybody pushing me. It’s understandable because I’ve got the rookie stripes on the back of the car, but through the whole day we’d be the pusher. We would push up really good, but then at the very end of the race we lost our help within the wreck, so we just had to finish it out with no help. But that was a solid day and a great finish. I couldn’t be any happier.”

WHAT DOES THIS MEAN TO YOU? “It’s great. We’ve been really struggling at the beginning of the year, just having failures and a lot of bad luck. To finally get everything to go really well for one race is really exciting for the team and myself.”

7th, JOEY LOGANO 8th, MICHAEL ANNETT 18th, STEVE WALLACE 19th, KENNY WALLACE 20th, JOE NEMECHEK 22nd, KYLE BUSCH 23rd, BRIAN SCOTT 24th, MICHAEL WALTRIP

JOEY LOGANO, No. 20 GameStop Toyota Camry, Joe Gibbs Racing Starting Position: 7th Are you happy with your car this weekend? “That was a good qualifying run for us. We didn’t expect to qualify good. I was guessing seventh and my crew chief was guessing a little bit further back than that. I’ve got a good GameStop Toyota for sure. I think it’s pretty quick. It pushed really good yesterday and got pushed pretty well. About all you can ask for here. There’s not much you can really do with it.”

How many other drivers will you have on your radio for tomorrow’s race? “I don’t really put a whole bunch of guys on my radio. A lot of them come to me so that makes it a little bit easier. I’ll work with Kyle (Busch) a lot and we’ll be on each other’s radio the most. I won’t have as many other drivers on my radio as most of them do for sure.”

MICHAEL ANNETT, No. 62 Pilot Travel Centers/Flying J Toyota Camry, Rusty Wallace Racing Starting Position: 8th How was your qualifying lap? “It’s about the easiest place we qualify I guess, but to be at the top of the board after you go out that’s the goal here, and then just try to stay up there as long as you can. With this wind you really can’t pick out a time to shoot for right now.”

What will your communication be like between teammates during tomorrow’s race? “The biggest thing is the communication started on Monday talking about this weekend and Steve (Wallace) and I definitely have each other on each other’s radios. They’ve been calling us two peas in a pod all weekend. As long as we can stay together. We have a motto between us that if one of us falls back the other guy is going to go back and get him. We’ll stay together for the whole race and like I said, we’re on radios and let each other know if something is working better for the other car and kind of meet in the middle there.”

Will you have other drivers to work with other than your teammate? “I hope I do. I haven’t necessarily had any handshakes on anything or any other teams on our radio, but people know I’ve got a win here and hopefully people remember that. If something happens to Steve (Wallace) or I there’s somebody else out there that one of us can go to.”

How strong do you think your car will be this weekend? “I think we’ll be real strong. I know Steve (Wallace) and I were both a lot more comfortable than we were in Daytona pushing each other. It got a little hairy the way the bumper and the nose lined up. It felt like here we got a lot more control and definitely will make the 140 laps a little bit easier.”

STEVE WALLACE, No. 66 5-Hour Energy Toyota Camry, Rusty Wallace Racing Starting Position: 18th How was your qualifying lap? “It was fine. It was an alright lap. We worked real hard yesterday on me and Michael (Annett) just practicing drafting with each other and stuff. It’s the same exact car we ran at Daytona. We kind of fluffed and buffed it a little bit because we didn’t have any damage from Daytona. Michael (Annett) brought his car here (from Daytona) that’s all prepared and fixed. We feel like we’ve got two good cars. It’s definitely not where you start, it’s where you finish here.”

Was the draft in practice yesterday a lot like what we saw at Daytona in February? “It was a lot easier here than it was at Daytona. The track is wider and longer and the whole deal. It’s a little bit easier I guess you would say. The only guy I’m really going to work with is my teammate Michael (Annett) the whole time so that’s all we really worked on. Me and him working on switching and drafting with each other. I feel like we’re both really comfortable doing that so we’ll see.”

KENNY WALLACE, No. 09 Family Farmers Toyota Camry, RAB Racing with Brack Maggard Starting Position: 19th How was your qualifying lap? “The wind is going to play a big factor in today’s qualifying. You come down the front straightaway and cars are turning 7400 RPM’s and then you get on the backstretch and you go with the wind and it turns 7800 RPM’s. You can feel the wind gusts in the car.”

What did you learn from yesterday’s practice? “There’s a lot of Nationwide drivers that drafted a little bit at Daytona and we still don’t know what we’re doing. The Cup guys are going to have a much larger advantage because they know what they’re doing. I think the key tomorrow is to get to the end and have a shot for the win. I think we get to pushing each other too hard tomorrow — we’re going to have to be careful. We saw all of the wrecks at Daytona with everybody spinning each other out so we need to limit that to where we can get to the checkered flag tomorrow, and then do that when it comes a chance for the win.”

JOE NEMECHEK, No. 87 NEMCO Motorsports Toyota Camry, NEMCO Motorsports Starting Position: 20th

KYLE BUSCH, No. 18 Z-Line Designs Toyota Camry, Joe Gibbs Racing Starting Position: 22nd What did you learn from running your qualifying lap on the apron? “We were going so slow here that I was wondering if the shortest way around wasn’t the fastest way around, but apparently not. Just figured we’d try something excited and make qualifying a little bit more amusing for everybody. The Z-Line Designs Camry was good in race trim. We knew we didn’t have a car for the pole so we were just making the laps here and just getting it into the show. We feel good about tomorrow and how it’s going to race.”

Will you race on the apron tomorrow? “You can race down there as long as you don’t pass down there. I don’t know if it’s the fastest way around. (Turn) one and two was really good. It got a little bit tight in (turn) three and four so I had to get back to the race track. Overall, it was just something fun to do.”

BRIAN SCOTT, No. 11 Shore Lodge Toyota Camry, Joe Gibbs Racing Starting Position: 23rd

MICHAEL WALTRIP, No. 99 Aaron’s Toyota Camry, Pastrana-Waltrip Racing Starting Position: 24th

–Young Pilot Notches First Top-10 Start since 2009, Teammate Wallace on Row Nine–

TALLADEGA, AL (April 15, 2011)–Rusty Wallace Racing’s Michael Annett (No. 62 Pilot Flying J Toyota Camry) scored his fourth-career Nationwide Series top-ten start this afternoon, in qualifying for Saturday’s Aaron’s 312 at Talladega Superspeedway. His best lap of 53.78 seconds (178.059 MPH) slotted him eighth-fastest of the 43 cars to make a qualifying attempt.

Annett’s eighth-place result marks his first top-ten start since October, 2009 at Kansas Speedway and the second-best starting position of his young career. It also marks the best start for a Rusty Wallace-owned car at Talladega in 12 attempts. RWR cars have previously scored two pole positions at Daytona, Talladega’s sister track.

Noted Annett, “I’m very proud of the guys on this Pilot Flying J Rusty Wallace Racing team. We had a really strong Toyota earlier this year at Daytona, but just never got the chance to show it. Hopefully our two Rusty Wallace Racing Camrys can get hooked up tomorrow, stay out of the crashes and finish off this top-10 start with a top-10 finish.”

Meanwhile, following a top-20 effort in his Sprint Cup debut at the Daytona 500, Annett’s teammate, Steve Wallace (No. 66 5-Hour Energy Toyota Camry) will join Annett in the top-20 of tomorrow’s starting field. Wallace’s best lap of 53.91 seconds (177.629 MPH) was good enough to place him on the outside of row nine for tomorrow’s event.

Stated Wallace, “Our 5-Hour Energy Toyota Camry drafted and drove pretty well in practice yesterday and that was definitely our main concern. Qualifying isn’t that important here; you can win this race from any starting spot and that’s exactly what we’re going to try to do. Hopefully we can get together with our teammate, draft to the front and have a good run.”

# # #

About Rusty Wallace Racing, LLC

North Carolina-based Rusty Wallace Racing (RWR) is a professional auto racing team steeped in the legendary history of its founder, Rusty Wallace-one of NASCAR’s top-ten drivers of all-time. The team currently campaigns the No. 66 and No. 62 Toyota Camrys in the prestigious NASCAR Nationwide Series, driven by Steve Wallace and Michael Annett, respectively. RWR entries have been among the top-ten in the final Nationwide Series driver or owner standings in each of the last three seasons. For more on Rusty Wallace Racing, please visit the award-winning rustywallace.com.

FORD FAST FACTS:

·         Ford drivers are leading the NASCAR Sprint Cup (Carl Edwards) and NASCAR Nationwide Series (Ricky Stenhouse, Jr.) point standings this week.

·         Ford has three NSCS wins in seven races this season and one more will match the entire total from 2010.

·         No current Ford driver has a NSCS win at Talladega Superspeedway.

·         Ford has 18 all-time NSCS wins at Talladega, led by Buddy Baker and Davey Allison with three each.

·         Baker’s three Talladega Ford wins came consecutively in 1975-76.

·         Dale Earnhardt leads all drivers with 10 career NSCS Talladega wins, but did you know the first of those came while driving the Ford of Bud Moore in 1983?   Ricky Stenhouse, Jr., driver of the No. 6 Blackwell Angus Beef Ford Mustang, comes into this weekend leading the point standings for the second straight race week.  He spoke to the media about what it’s going to take to get through Saturday’s race and still be in first place.  

RICKY STENHOUSE, JR. – No. 6 Blackwell Angus Ford Mustang – WHAT DOES IT FEEL LIKE LEADING THE POINTS COMING INTO THIS WEEKEND?  “It’s cool coming to Talladega and, obviously being the points leader.  This is one of the races that we’ve focused on to make sure we finish.  We feel like if we can finish, we’ll be in the top 10 and in these races you never know what’s gonna happen, so that’s one of our key things that we’re focusing on.  We focused on that at Daytona and Bristol and this is the next one we’re kind of focusing on just to get a finish and be conservative and make sure we come out of here with a clean race car and close to the front.  Talladega is fun.  I like the two-car draft like we did at Daytona.  We had a lot of fun with that for the drivers, and I’m just looking forward to getting out there. Hopefully, we get qualifying in.  I’m not sure if we will or not, but, hopefully, we do.” 

WHAT IS YOUR POINT OF VIEW ON THE RICKY VS. TREVOR PROMOTION GOING ON?  “It’s a lot of fun.  Trevor and myself, we compete in everything we do.  Everything turns into a competition, so having it on our website is kind of cool for everybody, just to let everybody see we’re competitive, but yet we’re still friends off the race track and like to hang out.  Hopefully, I get the win in the end.  Obviously, I think the ultimate win is to get the championship, so, hopefully, we’ll be the ones to do that.” 

HOW DO YOU PLAN ON FINISHING THIS RACE BECAUSE MUCH OF IT ISN’T IN YOUR CONTROL?  “Talking to Carl Edwards, he’s been a lot better here at the speedway races at finishing, and he thinks if you do get shuffled in the back to just kind of ride back there.  With the two-car draft, you’re not gonna lose the draft.  As long as you have a partner back there with you, you’re not gonna go laps down or anything like that.  Obviously, staying up at the very front is a good spot to be, or at the very back.  I think once you kind of get eighth on back it gets kind of hairy, so we’ll try to stay at the very front or probably the very back.” 

HAS NASHVILLE BEEN A LOVE-HATE RELATIONSHIP FOR YOU?  “It has not been our specialty, for sure.  I love Nashville and the city and the fans that come out there, but I haven’t gotten along with the race track too well.  We haven’t been there with the Mustang yet, and I feel like I’m a little stronger in the Mustang.  I feel like our team has a little better handle on the Mustang, so I’m looking forward to getting there.  I think we’ve got a good setup for us with the stuff we’ve been working on.  The Roush Fenway guys have been working really hard on it, so I’m actually looking forward to getting back there and kind of redeeming ourselves there.” 

RICKY STENHOUSE, JR. – DOES THE RELIANCE ON TWO-CAR DRAFTING CHANGE THE LEVEL OF THE ‘WE DON’T KNOW WHAT’S GOING TO HAPPEN HERE’ MENTALITY?  “I don’t think so.  I think it’s still all up in the air about the same.  The way it is now, I feel like the drivers have a little bit more control.  You’ve got trust who you’re with, though, and that’s the key.  I drafted with Carl and Trevor yesterday and, obviously, I have a lot of confidence in both of those guys.  We swapped around a couple of times, but I feel a little bit more in control than just being in one huge pack.” 

DO YOU THINK THERE IS MORE OF A CHANCE OF A BREAKTHROUGH FOR A NATIONWIDE FULL-TIME DRIVER TO WIN AT TALLADEGA THAN ANY OTHER TRACK?  “Probably so.  Over the years it seems the superspeedway races have produced some winners that maybe wouldn’t have a chance to win at other race tracks, but a win here in the Nationwide Series at any track is gonna be good for us.  You still have to go out and beat those guys.  We want to get a win this year, and we think we can.  If we can do it here at Talladega, that’s gonna be fine with us, but we definitely want to do it with the Cup drivers in the field.  We’d like to win some stand-alone races, but we definitely want to win a race with all the Cup guys there, too.”