GNC Live Well 250 - Ford Qualifying Quotes

Steady rainfall in the Milwaukee area forced the cancellation of today's GNC Live Well 250 qualifying session, and the field of 43 cars was set by the NASCAR rulebook. Scott Riggs, currently second in the driver point standings, will start tomorrow's 250-lap from the third position based off of owner points. Riggs has recorded two wins through the season's first 16 races, but trails first-place David Green by 46 points in the NASCAR Busch Series driver point standings. Riggs spoke about the points race and how the rain will affect the race strategy tomorrow.

SCOTT RIGGS-10-Nestle Nesquik Ford Taurus - YOU HAVE EXPERIENCE AT THE MILWAUKEE MILE IN BOTH THE TRUCKS AND BUSCH CARS. TALK ABOUT RACING AT MILWAUKEE. "We've never actually been to Milwaukee and had a very good race car or race truck at all. Last year we really struggled. We brought a completely different race car than Jason (Keller) brought and Jason had a very good race car and ran pretty well. We weren't running very well and then we had an engine let go also last year, so that took us out of even making changes and trying to make some changes on the car to make us a little bit better. This year we brought the car that we ran at Richmond, Nazareth and St. Louis. It's a new car this year that has only three races on it. It's got a win, a second and a 15th at Nazareth. It's a pretty good car and it always seems to respond well to the changes that we make. Unfortunately, we don't have any time to get on the race track and make changes. Maybe we will get a couple of laps in this afternoon. I think we're pretty much going off of what Jason ran last year because he had a pretty good race car. That's pretty much my baseline and Jason's baseline. I think that both of our cars are pretty much identical and I think that if we do get a couple of laps this afternoon, we already have an idea of the changes we're going to try just based off of what Jason's complaints were last year and what we want to have under the car to be fast this year. It's just right now sitting around thinking about the configuration of the race track and what the typical problems are at the race track as far as handling, the problems you sort of fight. You carry so much speed through these flat corners, and the corners are so long that whatever the problem you have, it seems to take forever around the corner because you fight it forever. Typically, you just try to have the car where you can still get into the corner and carry some pretty good speed into the corner, have the car still turn and then try to still have forward bite all at the same time. I just told my crew chief (Doug Randolph) that he needs to work on giving a very tight turning race car, which is virtually impossible. I gave that to him as a problem. We've made that joke a couple of times before this year and he said would give me a real good race car. Like I said, we've got a pretty good baseline from what Jason left off with last year. I hope we get a few laps in and make some changes. Of course, you're not going to get as many changes in as you would if we didn't have the rain today. You really have to sit down and figure out what changes are going to be the meatiest changes you can make to really give you a good idea of what direction is going to be beneficial to the race car as far as changes. It's going to be an interesting race if we don't get in very much practice."

IF THE WEATHER CONDITIONS ARE DRASTICALLY DIFFERENT TOMORROW, HOW MUCH IS PRACTICE TODAY GOING TO HELP? "No matter what anybody is thinking, if you go out on the race track for any amount of time no matter what conditions you're in, you're going to work on whatever problem your car has. You're not going to say, 'Well, this problem is going to go away tomorrow because we'll have different track conditions.' No matter what anyone has problem-wise, no matter what the conditions, this is the only practice that you're going to get, so you're going to work toward fixing those problems. You sort of have to ignore the fact the track conditions are going to be different and just work on what your car feels like and make some changes to make your car comfortable."

WHAT IS MORE FRUSTRATING, THE RAIN OR THE AERO PUSH? "Rain. The aero push is there and the rain just seems to follow us."

"It's not too bad actually. These days your race car and your qualifying race car are two different things. You have two different setups under the race car. We always go to the race track working on our race setup and then we make these wholesale changes to the car and try to make some qualifying runs and work on the car that way. There's no simulation, there's nothing you can compare from your race setup to your qualifying setup. At least nothing that is going to help you a lot. It's not too bad as long as we get a little bit of practice in race mode and race setup; that's all we want to do. Nobody came here to qualify, everybody came here to race. Not having to go through the qualifying ordeal, we all want a shot at qualifying to see of we can better our positions and we also want as much time on the race track as we can, so not having to qualify doesn't really work on you too bad. Earlier this year we ran at Darlington and we had zero practice. That was tough because you pretty much got in the race car, buckled in and went racing for the entire race and had no idea, just completely guessing in what direction you need to be on your setup. Hopefully we can get some laps in here this afternoon and we won't be that bad."

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