Texas Motor Speedway, June 8th 2012, Travis Pastrana’s No. 199 Red Bull Discount Tire Dodge
Dart suffered significant front-end damage during the first lap of practice on
Friday morning after over-shooting the 80-foot, gap-jump ramp. His primary car remains under repair. Pastrana was able to get back on track in the
back-up No. 99 Dodge Dart for timed seeding.
Felipe Albuquerque is scheduled to drive the No. 99 Dodge Dart.
Travis Pastrana (No. 199 Red Bull/Discount Tire Dodge
Dart) “Oh man, we got a really awesome jump.
They built the jump to the specs of the dirt. But on a dirt jump, you kind of round it off
a bit. One of the guys went first, went
over and missed the top by about two feet and landed about 10-feet before the
bottom because of how the angles are on this jump. I followed him off the jump and was going
three miles per hour (mph) faster than he did and hit the bottom. It took out the whole front of our Dodge
Dart. It was basically jumping off of
90-foot-to-flat off of a 15-foot takeoff.
The guys are really working hard.
I’m sure we’ll get the Dodge Dart back.”
WILL YOU STILL HAVE A CHANCE AT HAVING TWO CARS FOR
TOMORROW? “There’s a pretty good chance
for two cars. Unfortunately, Felipe
(Albuquerque) is driving the second car.
Great driver. We didn’t get any practice
because of the jump; they’re just trying to figure out what to do with it. So his first time in the Dodge Dart was
qualifying. He got four laps out there. He gave us some good feedback and if we can
make some minor changes, we’ll be really in the hunt.”
HOW TOUGH WILL IT BE TO REPAIR THE PRIMARY CAR? “It’s going to be a thrash. The guys are going to work the next 30 hours,
non-stop, doing everything that they can to get the primary car ready. The IndyCar Series is here and a lot of their
guys have offered to help us get the car ready.
That’s really cool. Everybody
wants to see both our cars in the show and try and help the sport. It’s been good. I’ve got a great crew behind me and we’ll do
whatever we can to have both cars into the show tomorrow.”
Blair Stopnik (Team Manager, Red Bull/Discount Tire Dodge
Dart) WHAT ARE THE CHANCES THAT THE PRIMARY CAR WILL BE REPAIRED IN TIME FOR
THE HEAT RACES TOMORROW? “I think 100
percent that the primary car will be ready for tomorrow. We’re confident enough, our crew is confident
enough, that Travis will be in the car tomorrow. We thought about switching drivers, but the
crew guys are confident that the Dodge Dart will be ready. We really don’t have a “primary” or “back-up”
car. We have two really fast Dodge
Darts. For us, it’s an easy
decision. They’re both good. They’re both equal. All the parts and pieces are amazing. We’re set either way. We’re happy about it.”
