Race Weekend Central

Running Their Mouth: 2009 Price Chopper 400 at Kansas

Each week, we’ll go through media reports, interviews, PR and all of our own stuff to find the best quotes from the Sprint Cup race, capturing the story of how the weekend unfolded. It’s the most original commentary you’ll ever find: the truth, coming straight out of the mouths of the drivers, crew members and car owners themselves. This week, here’s a peek at what they all were thinking following the Price Chopper 400 presented by Kraft Foods at Kansas Speedway:

“This is a proud moment. To win the manufacturers’ title for Chevy by winning this race is awesome. Chevrolet has been a big part of my career and General Motors, in general, has. To be the team that wins the race today and locks down the championship for them is a huge sense of pride for us.” – Tony Stewart on winning the manufacturers’ title

See also
2-Tire Gamble Allows Tony Stewart to Prevail in 2009 Price Chopper 400 at Kansas

“When somebody starts running you down, it’s easy to overdrive your car trying to maintain a gap and you end up making it worse on yourself. We just ran hard enough to not abuse the tires.” – Stewart on holding off Jeff Gordon at the finish

“I started really running out of steam there toward the end with the tires. I had just used them up so much trying to catch him (Stewart). It was a great effort by the DuPont Chevrolet team. We were really far off when this race started and I thought there is no way we’ll ever finish second today. That [proves] just what kind of a great team that we have and how we never, never give up.” – Jeff Gordon

“We had a really good day. It felt good to run back up front again. It was a good day for the company today and a good day for us. I feel bad – at the end I wanted to take four tires and the crew chief wanted to take two, and I decided I wanted four. That was probably the wrong thing to do.” – Greg Biffle, finished third

“You know, we’re going at it – whatever it takes. It’s OK. I got inside of him (Brad Keselowski) and I don’t think they told him I was there and he just turned into me a little bit. It’s OK, it was one of those deals. Everyone on this Target Chevy has done an amazing job. When they give you good cars, you look good.” – Juan Pablo Montoya, finished fourth

“It was a solid run. I felt like maybe we could have finished a little better than that. The low lane just wasn’t the place to be on the restarts – lost a little bit right there with the [No.] 48 (Jimmie Johnson). It was a good day overall for our FedEx Freight team. It’s better than what we usually run here. We’re going to keep digging.” – Denny Hamlin, finished fifth

“The Budweiser Dodge was pretty decent. The two tires didn’t help us at the end. We thought more would take two. It seemed to work for some earlier in the race. Looking back, we probably should have taken four. We weren’t that good on restarts; it just takes my car too long to get going, so the late cautions didn’t help. Other than that, we had a solid day.” – Kasey Kahne, finished sixth

“It’s really great when a race team can fight and scratch and battle and come up with a seventh-place finish when you miss it a little bit. We did try to throw some magic at it today, but it was still just a little bit off. We finished as high as we could. We raced our guts out; that’s what you’ve got to do in all of them [races] and see how [the points] tally up.” – Mark Martin, finished seventh

“All in all, it was a really good day. I had a good racecar and the guys did a good job – pit stops were good. Everything went pretty well, so I’m encouraged. I felt like we could have been a little better there at the end, but we still ended up OK.” – David Reutimann, finished eighth

“Well, as bad as we struggled in practice on Saturday, I knew we had our work cut out for us today and we didn’t run too bad. We struggled at the start of every run and then it would get going. The track was pretty tough today with the seams, but we got a decent finish out of it.” – AJ Allmendinger, finished 17th

“That was some day. Our Dodge dodged wrecks all afternoon, but we made it through. We are getting better and better each week. I think Wally Rogers and I are making progress, and that’s showing in our results. Today was about survival. When you start 42nd and finish in the top 20, you have done something in this sport.” – Elliott Sadler, finished 20th

“It was too bad we went out that early. We made some changes to the car that we thought would make us competitive in the race, but really never got a chance to get going to prove them out. I think the No. 98 (Paul Menard) lost it off turn 2 and was collecting the No. 6 (David Ragan). We had Mahindra Tractors come on board at the last minute. It would have been nice to give them a better ride than eight laps today.” – Bobby Labonte, finished 43rd

“This was my best oval race so far this year, and I’m proud of this GEICO team. We have a platform to work from for the future, and we need to keep building. I had a nice weekend here in Kansas and it was great to celebrate and promote LIVESTRONG day, as well as celebrate my birthday. My dad was in my heart today and I could really feel his presence.” – Max Papis, finished 32nd, reflecting on losing his father to pancreatic cancer in 2006

“I just want to get out of Kansas to be honest with you. It’s been a long weekend for me. We just weren’t as good as we needed to be today. The engine was the only thing that put us out of our misery. It’s not what we wanted, obviously. We were really looking to get to a mile and a half [track] and have a good run, but what do you do?” – Brian Vickers, finished 37th

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