Montoya leads Dodge effort at Martinsville

Posted on Sunday, October 19th, 2008 at 5:47 PM EDT.

Juan Pablo Montoya led all Dodge drivers in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series Tums QuickPak 500 Sunday at Martinsville (Va.) Speedway with a 14th-place finish. A.J. Almendinger, taking over the No. 10 Dodge Charger for Patrick Carpentier, finished 15th.

Jimmie Johnson won the race, stretching his lead in the Chase for the Championship with four races remaining.

Other Dodge finishers Sunday were Ryan Newman in 23rd, Scott McCumbee 25th, Kasey Kahne 33rd, Sam Hornish Jr, 34th, Reed Sorenson 35th, Kurt Busch 36th, Bobby Labonte 37th, Robby Gordon 40th and Elliott Sadler 41st.

The next NASCAR Sprint Cup Series race is the Pep Boys Auto 500 at Atlanta Motor Speedway next Sunday, Oct. 26, on ABC with coverage beginning at 1 p.m. EDT.

DODGE TEAM COMMENTS:

Juan Pablo Montoya (No. 42 Big Red Slim Pack Dodge Charger) Finished 14th

“We were really good on short runs. On long runs, we struggled. The longer that we ran, the slower we got. That’s what really hurt us. The car was fast at times; other times it wasn’t so fast. Not a bad day for our Big Red Slim Pack Dodge.”

A.J. Allmendinger (No. 10 Tow Truck in a Box Dodge Charger) Finished 15th

“It was a good start to the first five races that I’m going to be in the 10 car for Gillett Evernham. I think that we learned a lot throughout the race. Martinsville is a place that I haven’t had much luck at, it’s almost kind of new to me. We had a good racecar. Our pit stops were great. With where we were pitted, we just couldn’t get track position; we got blocked in a lot. It was good day overall for our Tow Truck in a Box Dodge.”

Chad McCumbee (No. 45 Marathon American Sprit Motor Oil Dodge Charger) Finished 25th

“We really went through everything today. We were tight in the middle and I had decent drive off most of the race. I think that we had a little bit of a rear brake issue. The longer that we ran, the looser that we got. Later in the runs, we got really good in the center (of the corners), but lost our forward drive. It was my first time at Martinsville. I learned a lot. We’re getting our notebook bigger and bigger so next time we come here, we’ll be really good.”

Kasey Kahne (No. 9 Budweiser Dodge Charger) Finished 33rd

“After we had the electrical problem, I just tried to race and get better as a driver. We tried to make some adjustments to our Budweiser Dodge to make it better. As well as the Hendrick cars are running here, it’s tough enough to drive with those guys without having any mechanical problems. They were awfully good.”

Sam Hornish Jr. (No. 77 Mobil 1 Dodge Charger) Finished 34th

“It was a tough day. We probably should have about been two laps down at the end of it. Three cars popped a tire right in the same corner which was pretty unbelievable. Then it wore through the sway bar arm and we obviously had to come in and fix that. I feel that we had a better car than what we had here last time but still not where we need to be. The guys on the Mobil 1 Dodge worked real hard to get me back out there in as little time as possible and that probably picked us up three or four positions by how quickly they got that fixed and got us back out there. Obviously those aren’t the kind of ups that you want to look for but you’ve got to find a positive in a negative day.”

Reed Sorenson (No. 41 Target Dodge Charger) Finished 35th

“We were OK. We stayed about the same the entire day; not any better or worse until the front brakes went out. It’s disappointing because we had a top-15 car, but end up finishing 40th (finished 35th). We had a good run until the brakes went out.”

Kurt Busch (No. 2 Miller Lite Dodge Charger) Finished 36th

“Two out of the last three races, we’ve had part failures and the one race we didn’t, we finished in the top-five…that’s pretty much a statement for our season. Today, it was the right rear brake system. I don’t know exactly what happened, but something in the bleeder was off when we pitted. I felt the brakes get really spongy and when we pitted, fluid was spewing everywhere. NASCAR wouldn’t allow us to cap off the line and sent us to the garage to repair it before we could go back onto the track. So we looked at the rest of the race as a test session trying big changes. Like a lot of guys, we had right-front tires problems. I popped two right-front tires and had to pit under green twice. That just drove the dagger through the heart as far as today’s race goes. The way the fronts (tires) were popping, I was ready to park it after the second time. We were probably running too much camber as usual.”

Robby Gordon (No. 7 Menards Dodge Charger) Finished 40th

“We’ve broken (rear) gears here the last three times that we’ve raced here. I don’t know what’s going on. It’s disappointing. We had a decent racecar. We’ll take this car to Phoenix (International Raceway) and run it again. We’ve got some work to do on it. We were running decent. We were running inside the top 20 and that was our goal. You’ve got to be there at the end. You just have to stay on the lead lap. What was it, 13 or 14 cars on the lead lap at the end? We were on the lead lap, doing what we need to do until the gear problem.”

Elliot Sadler (No. 19 Best Buy Dodge Charger) Finished 41st

“There’s no explanation for that (clipped from behind by No. 8. on lap 196), anybody that would misjudge it that bad. That’s probably the hardest hit I’ve ever had in racing. Thanks to our new safer barriers and the safety we have on our car. We had a top-10 car easy, easy. It was one of the best cars I’ve had here at Martinsville. It’s just a shame we couldn’t run the whole race. I don’t know what he was thinking. We all know that he is a weapon every week and we try to stay away from him, but that time I just didn’t give him enough room.”

This entry was posted on Sunday, October 19th, 2008 at 5:47 PM EDT and is filed under Motorsports. You can follow any comments to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Comments are currently closed.