Ryan Newman finished third in the first Duel.

On the race:

Ryan Newman: The Alltel Dodge was pretty good. I was worried about the tires, but they held up for us. We’re still wondering if we can make it a full fuel run, but we’re happy with the way the car handled. We have a little vibration in the car that we need to work out. It’s just nice to have some laps and get the car really fine tuned for the (Daytona) 500. I’m pretty happy with the car. We can make it better and we’ll do that. We’ll just keep working on it.

If the race were longer, do you think you could have caught Dale Jr.?

We had a run on him a couple of times. Sorenson kind of gave (Dale Earnhardt) Junior the win when he pushed him there so hard on the restart, because with these cars there was no way you can just catch up after a guy does that. Obviously his car was strong. Junior got up to the front almost by himself. We’ll keep on working on our Alltel Dodge.

Some teams were having blistering issues. Were you concerned?

I don’t know what team yet that hasn’t. We were a little bit tighter. We tightened the car up a little bit. Our first run we were great. We were loose but we were great. I’m hoping the tire life gets better because it’s not any fun having a tire that’s questionable.

Did Dale Jr. make the move by himself to get by you?

Yeah, I mean he had a good push down the back straightaway, but he made the pass and I tried to pass him back and Sorenson went with him. Way for the Dodges to stick together there.