Carquest Auto Parts 300 - Rookie Post-Race Quotes

COY GIBBS, NO. 18 MBNA CHEVROLET:

"We're not really racing yet. We're just kind of staying alive and staying out of the fence. I'll be excited when we start racing." EARLY IN THE RACE IT LOOKED LIKE YOUR CAR WAS DECENT BUT YOU WERE A VICTIM OF HOW STRONG MICHAEL WALTRIP'S CAR WAS. "I think we started out all right and then something happened in the front end, then we started bottoming out and we couldn't fix it. We fixed it but fixing it hurt the overall setup to where we really didn't have a chance. I don't know what it was. We'll look at it and figure it out and hopefully it won't happen again." THE WEATHER CONDITIONS CHANGED DURING THE RACE. DID THE TRACK CHANGE AS WELL? "Yeah, it changed a lot. I think it was good as far as the first time here. At least the weather was all over the place so you could figure out some changes about every five minutes. That's about the only good thing I can say today." HOW HARD IS IT TO KEEP UP WITH THE TRACK DURING THE RACE? "I guess the problem is that I didn't really realize was there is usually very few cautions here and when the weather changes you're in trouble because you are going to sit out there for 90 laps. You can't do anything. You just sit out there and struggle. I raced the whole race and I still can't get through three and four. I'll admit that. I have no idea what I'm doing over there." HOW DIFFICULT IS IT TO RACE AT CHARLOTTE? "It's hard. People have always said that it was hard. I went to test here and I didn't think it was that hard. I thought it was kind of like a Texas but it's not. It's nothing like Texas. I was looking at The Winston the other night and there were guys that had like 40 starts here and stuff and I'll bet they are just about getting used to it. With one, we need about 39 more. It's rough, it changes, and it's hard to pass, especially when you don't know what the heck you are doing in there and four and you can't get through there yourself. A lot of times I was faster than the guy in front of me but I didn't know what I was doing through in three and four to even pass the guy so it made it difficult."

REGAN SMITH, NO. 22 DANNY BOST MOTORSPORTS CHEVROLET:

"We burned up a clutch. That's about it. The car was terrible in the beginning and we got it better after we had the clutch problem but it's kind of irrelevant now."

JOEY CLANTON, NO. 27 TRIMSPA PONTIAC:

"We made 197 of 200 laps and brought our car home in one piece like we talked about. It's too bad that two cars sitting here running right beside each other early on got hit coming out of the pits. The biggest thing was that we learned a lot. We learned a lot about the adjustments on the car and that's he key thing here. We wanted to survive and we did that. We gained spots from the starting spot and got to run hard at the end for some finishing spots. All in all, I'm just looking forward to next week." DID YOU THINK THE TRACK WAS HARD TO KEEP UP WITH TODAY? "I had changed my line and had to start running the bottom in one and two and all the way to the top in three and four. We just couldn't get it through the center of the corner and we had it running real good there in the middle of the race and all of a sudden the clouds came back over and the car got real tight again. That hurt us but when the sun came back out there at the end it helped free it up a little bit more." WAS THE RACE PHYSICALLY DEMANDING? "I'm fine. We can go another 50 or 100 laps, whatever we want to do. I tried to save the car when we weren't good. I just rode. There wasn't any sense in pushing it and wrecking the car. I tried to save all four fenders and bring it back to another race." WHAT DID YOU LEARN TODAY? "You learn a lot out there. I don't think my line is off, that's what a lot of people talk about. I know where you have to pick up the throttle to make difference in lap times. Now we just have to get the car comfortable for me to be able to do that. We'll get it to turning in the center so it will so I won't have to yank on the wheel. You learn a lot about the race car at that speed. Right now I'm just trying to figure out what it takes and we'll go from there."

Unofficial top-five Raybestos Rookie standings after Charlotte:

Coy Gibbs               139
Chad Blount             123
Regan Smith              96
Chris Bingham            84
Chase Montgomery         60

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