Dodge opens strong with top-heavy finish in the 500
Manufacturer claims six of top eight positions at Daytona
DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. -- How good was Dodge in Sunday's 50th Daytona 500?
Robby Gordon, who's only owned a Dodge race team for about 10 days, finished eighth -- his second-best career finish in 10 Daytona 500 attempts -- and was the exclamation point on six Dodges in the top eight positions, behind winner and lead Dodger Ryan Newman.
Daytona 500
Dodge Results
| Pos. | Driver | Team |
|---|---|---|
| 1. | R. Newman | Penske |
| 2. | Ku. Busch | Penske |
| 5. | R. Sorenson | Ganassi |
| 6. | E. Sadler | GEM |
| 7. | K. Kahne | GEM |
| 8. | R. Gordon | R. Gordon |
| 11. | B. Labonte | Petty |
| 15. | S. Hornish | Penske |
| 32. | J. Montoya | Ganassi |
| 33. | D. Franchitti | Ganassi |
| 34. | K. Petty | Petty |
"First, second, fifth, sixth, seventh, eighth and 11th -- pretty darned impressive," Gordon said.
"That's exceeding expectations, for us," said second-place finisher Kurt Busch, who was the best Dodge driver in the series last year. "It felt like Toyota power was a bit stronger than us and maybe the Hendrick cars were handling better.
"But we were working hard at keeping our nose buried in our own book, and trying to figure out what we could do to make our cars faster. So maybe the hard work shined through."
Gordon's crew chief, Frank Kerr, was even more impressed after overseeing a changeover to Robby Gordon Motorsports' 11-car fleet of new chassis. He only laughed when he was asked what the team might do after being a Dodge program for 20 days.
"That was great -- great for the team [because] everybody's put so many hours in, with the changeover," Kerr said. "We've been working in shifts actually, trying to get stuff changed over -- and then we had the wrong nose on one car and we had to switch it here, plus four others that were done, back at the shop."
Gordon acknowledged the good night might be offset by a penalty he expects to receive for starting Speedweeks with the wrong nose piece -- an unapproved Charger nose that was delivered by mistake from Gillett Evernham Motorsports, Gordon's Dodge connection -- rather than the mandated Avenger nose.
"It's definitely a good start," Gordon said in between TV and print interviews in a dark garage. "Now we just have to see how many points we're going to get taken away from us [by NASCAR]. At least we got a good baseline before they start taking them."
Gordon's baseline included a low-key effort that saw him never inside the top 20 until less than 40 laps remained in the race.
"We just rode around until it was time to go -- we wanted to be in the race at the end," Gordon said. "My car was good. I was just surviving and trying not to put myself in position to tear my car up until about the last 40 laps."
Gordon didn't get into the top 10 until there were 11 laps to go, after the race's sixth of seven cautions flew for an accident started when defending Daytona 500 winner Kevin Harvick and Dave Blaney got together heading into Turn 3.
From there, Gordon was able to maneuver with fellow Dodge drivers, not coincidentally Gillett Evernham teammates Elliott Sadler and Kasey Kahne, who finished sixth and seventh, respectively, ahead of him.
Dodge driver Reed Sorenson provided a critical push to second-place Bush and leader Newman that secured the 1-2 Penske Racing finish.
"For us to get six out of the top eight is just a phenomenal showing for Dodge. It shows the depth of our program and we couldn't be more excited for the 2008 season."
"Hats off to all of the guys at GEM and the motors and everybody else that worked on all these cars and hard work, so congratulations to Dodge and obviously the two Penske boys," Gordon said. "They said we were going to run the high line and I have to be honest with you -- I was good enough with a 10th-place finish at that time.
"I didn't think we were going to go from 10th to first after the restart. We moved up a couple spots, which is not bad. We were beating and banging pretty hard."
But the Dodge teams were able to work together, which paid off.
"They know how to work together and they work well together, and I thought that sixth, seventh and eighth was a wonderful finish," team owner George Gillett Jr. said. "Robby showed us some speed and I thought Elliott [Sadler] had the fastest car in the race for a long time, and he got hung out after that pit stop.
"But it was fun to see, though. It's unbelievable, and it shows what a great job our team is doing. Ray [Evernham] is providing us with great leadership and [competition director] Mark McArdle and his crew are doing a fabulous job and they're working together and giving us good cars and good engines.
"This winter, we really started to make a breakthrough on the handling of the cars, which is really critical."
It provided an edge for the Dodge cars at the end, some of them felt.
"There was a nice Dodge train on the top side," Busch said. "I think all of us knew that the top side would help us and in the end it paid off. I had a glimmer of hope of winning the thing until Newman pulled in front of me. I said, 'perfect dude -- here we go.'
"It feels great to push him to the win."
Dodge paid a $1 million bonus to Newman for his win. Mike Accaviti, director, Dodge Motorsports and SRT Marketing for the Chrysler Group, said he wasn't concerned.
"A 30-second TV ad [on the Daytona 500 broadcast] cost $500,000," Accaviti said. "With the exposure we got with Ryan's win and six cars in the top eight, we more than made up for that.
"It wasn't gambling -- we only paid if we won -- and the payoff for this is huge in terms of our exposure. The win is super important [and] it was a great showing by all the Dodge teams.
"For us to get six out of the top eight is just a phenomenal showing for Dodge. It shows the depth of our program and we couldn't be more excited for the 2008 season. We've been telling everybody that we're working better together and the proof is in the pudding."
Newman and Busch's owner, Roger Penske, said he certainly wasn't surprised with the Dodge showing, but it only validated one week of the season.
"We had a good test here and we knew we had a lot more power that we could bring to the race, and that's what we did, with the reliability," Penske said. "But again, it was execution [Sunday], plus reliability -- which we didn't have last year.
"Ryan missed a couple wins last year because of reliability. I think as we go forward, this will give our team a lot of momentum, but I can tell you this -- when we line up with everybody else next week at California, I don't think, because you won the Daytona 500, they give you an extra lap ahead of the field."
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