Alex Tagliani, Driver Dodge #81
“The worst possible scenario that we could imagine, happened to us today. I crashed the car in qualifying and we didn’t have a spare short oval car, the only spare was a speedway car that was set-up for Homestead next week. Which makes it rough as the car isn’t built for this type of track so we knew that we were going to be lucky to get very many laps in on the race. It was very unfortunate but we knew we could start the race and then we would pretty much have to park it pretty fast since the speedway car has totally different brakes and set-up than the short oval set-up that we need for Phoenix. This was a tough deal. I said to the guys, ‘I don’t know what to say, I don’t know if it was me’ and the bummer is that we didn’t even need to push hard in qualifying because we were locked in already. The car seemed like it had a wheel hop and then I was in the wall in Turn 4. I thought I was through the turn, and then the car just stepped out. I’m not sure if I got too high or what really happened but the rear really started to move on me and then bam, I’m in the wall. I don’t think I’ve ever had that happen. The car wasn’t loose or anything and I wouldn’t have risked it anyway. It was really disappointing. Even though it was my first time on an oval in this car, I adapted quickly and we had a good practice yesterday so this was really unexpected. This was disappointing for everyone that works on the car and I guess sometimes this is the way it goes in racing. It would be nice to have a “do-over” but that doesn’t happen too often. I am just sorry for the guys and hope they have a good weekend in Homestead.” |
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