Carquest Auto Parts 300 - Rookie Qualifying Quotes

DAMON LUSK, NO. 6 STA-RITE PUMPS DODGE:

"It's pretty good. They said we went a .85 or so and the pole is around a .50 or .60 and man, I gave up a little bit down there but that was good, it was really good. I can't explain how hard we've worked, including myself, these last few weeks a couple of all nighters to get this car ready and it paid off. You're hoping when you come to the racetrack that all this hard work paid off and it did today. Great job on the Sta-Rite crew; everybody did a fabulous job. We're starting to get it. We want to have a good solid run tomorrow. We're pretty excited." IS THIS A NEW CAR? "This is a brand new car. This is the car that I destroyed at Texas and cut it from the firewall forward and the seat back and redid it. We put everything back to just standard basic stuff and that paid off for us today. I'm so excited. This is a relief. I saw the rain coming there and it started to sprinkle and I thought 'Great. We're going to go home when we have a fast car.'" IS IT EXTRA SPECIAL TO RUN SO WELL AT CHARLOTTE? "It is. Coming here, you watch, everybody is on the hauler watching. I don't care if it's Richard Childress, Rick Hendrick, whomever. All these guys are watching. You have to run good here and these guys gave me an opportunity. It's just awesome." REALISTICALLY, WHERE DO YOU THINK YOU CAN FINISH IN THE RACE SATURDAY? "We have a board in our shop that I wrote the number 14 on it. We have to crawl before we can run; 14th or better is my goal and I feel like we have a shot at the top-10, I don't know, maybe. I just want to finish, have a good solid run, be on the lead lap, and have a good day."

REGAN SMITH, NO. 22 DANNY BOST MOTORSPORTS CHEVROLET:

"I think that a pretty good lap for us. I got 12 total laps on the track. We picked up eight tenths from what we practiced today so anytime you do that you are pretty happy. I'm not going to complain. We're getting the car to where it's feeling better. I'm getting more comfortable with the track. This is a really tough track. Second to Bristol, this is the probably one of the toughest tracks that we've been to all year and actually I think it might be tougher than Bristol just because of the speed that you are carrying. So we're getting the feel there and getting the car better. Our goal is the top-20 in qualifying and the top-15 in the race. We'll see if we can meet them all here." IS THIS A NEW CAR? "The frame is old. The body is new since California. We kind of wrecked this one in that little incident but then we got the new motor deal with Dennis Fischer and Fischer Engineering. We're really pumped up about all of it. We're ahead of a lot of good cars now so for a small budget team like we are, we can carry out shoulders pretty high." IS IT SPECIAL TO RUN WELL AT CHARLOTTE? "The thing I keep looking at is that I didn't get to test here. We don't get to test anywhere. A lot of these guys that I know have 50 times more laps than I have here, at least. That's what makes it gratifying is that we can pick up on a track that everybody says is tough, pick up that much and get up to speed." WHAT MAKES IT SO TOUGH HERE? "The bumps. The track is bumpy and got some different dips and stuff like that in it and they are in the spot where it can be uncomfortable for the driver. You just have to tell yourself that the car is going to stick and convince yourself of that before you get to that point. I think that's the toughest part plus you drive it down into the corners pretty good here, more so than other places. At Texas you drive it down in there but it's smooth."

JOEY CLANTON, NO. 27 TRIMSPA PONTIAC:

"We didn't get a mock run. I've never been at a track this fast as far as qualifying runs and knowing what it's going to do as far as when the put springs to it and make it that stiff. I just wasn't ready for it and I didn't bury it off in there like I should have to get it to stick. The second lap I got in there a little deeper and it still wasn't enough. That just comes with experience so we'll learn that as we go along this year."

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