Dale Jr. Takes Victory in Rain Shortened Phoenix Race

Quotes taken from Post Race Media Availability:

Driver, Dale Jr walks us through the race: 

            "You know, we had a really good qualifying effort.  We struggled all year in qualifying, and that was really the difference maker for us today.  It gave us this awesome pit stall that was just right next to the start-finish line.  When the caution came out, the 4 and the 22 slowed down like everyone else.  If the caution doesn't come out they would have beat us all around the racetrack.  But the caution come out so they slowed down and when we come out of our pit stall and cross the finish line and it scored us ahead of them, and then when everyone cycles it put us in the lead.  So it's just a quirky set of circumstances, but the qualifying effort really is what put us there, gave us that pit selection and gave us the track position all night.

            The 4 was the best car most of the race, but we were working on our car trying to improve, and we definitely had speed to hang with him at times, but his long run speed was pretty amazing.

            We're working on our car, and pretty happy with the speed we had and the speed we've been able to develop over the last several months.  Rick set us all down in the summer and told us to get to work, and I didn't know if we could work any harder, but when Rick tells you to get to work, you find something else to do every minute of the day.  Everybody is working harder, and the guys in the engine shop found some power.  They done a lot of work trying to improve there.  All the teams in the fab shop started working harder to build better cars, newer cars, different cars, trying things, and we found some speed.  So obviously with the wins we've had over the last couple weeks, it starting to show that we've been able to go work and develop some things to give us the competitive edge that we need.

            So real happy.  The car has been fast, and if you're fast -- we've been fast all year, just haven't qualified well enough to give ourselves the track position and give us the pit selection that we need and give us the advantage we need like tonight.  Real happy that we could put a full week in together." (nascarmedia.com)

Driver, Dale Jr on Homestead Miami: 

             "If my car drives like it did at Texas, I'm going to win.  I told Greg to just make it drive just like that, I won't hit the wall with it and we'll win the race.  We should have won Texas.  But that track is really similar to Texas, so I feel confident that we can go there and run well, and we've ran better there in the past.  It's been a really difficult track for me for a really, really long time but we had an awesome run there a couple years ago, and I think that that track suits me, how we have to run the high line there, really love racing that track up against the wall.  There's a track that -- I hate testing.  Testing is really boring, but when I get nominated to test at Homestead it's not such a bad thing because it's pretty fun.  So that says how much I really like that place if I don't mind going there to test at it.

            I think Jeff has got to feel confident with the way the Hendricks performed the last three weeks.  Jeff has got to feel good about his chances, and the 4 will be fast.  He's fast everywhere.  You know, the 78 is going to be pretty quick.  All those guys, everybody is going to be running good.  It's a strong field, man, you're right.  It's hard to pick a favorite and hard to -- last year Harvick was sort of definitely above everyone else with speed consistently week in and week out.  The 22 seemed to be that guy this particular Chase, but the circumstances didn't work out to where he gets to the final four, so it's a pretty even field, I think, going into that last race and should present a pretty exciting result."

(nascarmedia.com)