Tropicana Twister 300 - Rookie Qualifying Quotes

Where the Raybestos Rookies will start at Chicagoland:
K. Busch second
J.J. Yeley ninth
Billy Parker 28th
Travis Geisler 32nd
Clint Bowyer 40th

CLINT BOWYER, #33 MONACO COACH CORP. CHEVROLET: "It was just loose. We changed a gear and probably hurt it bad. It was pretty loose." THIS OPPORTUNITY CAME ABOUT AT THE LAST MINUTE. "It's a good opportunity. We've just got to race out way back through 'em and we'll get it done. We've got to work on our race setup and try to get the gear situation down. Andy Petree brought this Monaco deal on board and gave me the opportunity to run it. We'll work on it here in happy hour and get it good where we can race our way up front." IS THERE IS A POSSIBILITY YOU COULD BE IN THIS CAR FOR MORE RACES THIS SEASON? "We'll just see. Right now it's just here but we're just going to have to kind of see what it brings us and try to get better."

KYLE BUSCH, #5 LOWE'S/BRIGGS & STRATTON CHEVROLET: "It was dark but I could still see out there. It was no big deal. I think that we actually got our lap in before the winds came so that was pretty good. I didn't feel any crosswind like David Stremme did on the back straightaway." WAS IT AN ADVANTAGE TO GO OUT WHEN YOU DID? "I think it was because of the cool temperatures but still if this weather sticks around for the duration and everybody else behind us is going to have it, too. I think the wind is going to play the biggest factor, more so than the temperature because you're going to have a big crosswind coming out of turn two. It's probably going to make your car tight. I was not feeling any wind at all. The car turned pretty good, did exactly what it needed to do and I'm happy with that. I think it will be within the top-three. If we started by points if it rained we'd be in the top-two so all in all, I think we'll be all right. DO YOU CARE IF IT RAINS? "I do, just because I'd like to see myself get beat rather than just settle for starting second to Truex. We made a couple of changes in practice that really helped our racecar and brought the Lowe's Chevrolet to life. We made one change there toward the late stages of practice because our car was dragging to stiffen it up a little bit and that just killed us so we went back the other way, go back down on the springs a little bit and raised the car up some." THESE TYPE TRACKS HAVE BEEN YOUR STRONG POINT THIS SEASON. DO YOU ANTICIPATE THE SAME PERFORMANCE HERE SATURDAY? "I hope so, but like I keep saying, that 25 car is strong, has been here since last year. If the race went green, he probably would have lapped the whole field so we were glad to see some cautions. Hopefully we're just as good as him, if not a little bit better and maybe we can keep up with the 25." WHAT IS YOUR SITUATION FOR NEXT YEAR? "My situation right now with Hendrick Motorsports is to stay in the number 5 NASCAR Busch Series car with Lowe's as the backing. We're looking forward to next year, hopefully going after a repeat championship if we don't happen to get it this year." ARE YOU UNDER CONTRACT WITH HENDRICK FOR NEXT YEAR? "It's been under discussion. It's not under my authority to discuss that." HAS ALL THAT BEEN A DISTRACTION? "It has been, but it hasn't been. Nothing bothers me; I don't care. Just some of the stuff that I guess you could say the media comes up with to talk about is ridiculous. Terry is doing an awesome job. He can still win races. He deserves that car just as much as anybody does. I'd rather see Terry in that car than go somewhere else and be unhappy."

BILLY PARKER, #66 DURAFLAME DODGE: "We just weren't that good in qualifying trim but we were better in race trim. We just need some speed qualifying. We'll keep working at it." DID THE RAIN DELAY HURT YOUR QUALIFYING EFFORT? "It didn't hurt anything. It probably helped some people, but we were at a point where that wasn't going to help or hurt us. I don't think it really hurt anything. Like I said there was probably some people that could probably benefit from it and some people, it probably really wouldn't affect them much either way. I don't see where it's going to hurt anybody. We came here and we were way too loose and we just started tightening it up and got it better and better."

J.J. YELEY, #18 VIGORO/THE HOME DEPOT CHEVROLET: "We had a good run in practice this morning. We didn't exactly know what the rain was going to do to the racetrack. We fixed the car from what we had in our mock-up run earlier this morning. The car was really good, just trucking around there. I stayed on the throttle pretty much all the way around there, just used a little bit of brake to slow it down. I told my team that the only thing I could have done different was lay my brake foot somewhere else and just kept the thing down on the floorboards. It's nice to be back here running the Vigoro/Home Depot Chevrolet. It's unfortunate that we have those weekends where we have two or three races off but we're getting back into the swing of things pretty good here today." DID THE RAIN HELP YOU TODAY? "I don't think it really made that big of a difference. The car was a little more comfortable than what we had earlier so I was able to run the thing harder. We picked up a tenth and a half from where we practiced. I guess the biggest thing is when Cup gets done with their qualifying to get out there and do some race runs. The car was real fast in race trim; I think we were fifth fastest then. We'll tune 'er up and see if we can maybe go a little bit faster."

TRAVIS GEISLER, #36 NATIONAL CITY BANK CHEVROLET: "We didn't get a chance to do a mock qualifying run and when we went out there we missed a little bit on how much we had to raise the front end and bottomed out really hard going into one. It scooted the nose up on both laps. Other than that, it was a good lap and I know in race trim we'll be a lot better because the car won't hit so hard and we'll be good to go." YOU QUALIFIED VERY LATE IN THE SESSION. "Everybody said that it's cooling off and I knew the times were getting a little bit better. We probably did catch a little bit of a break there. This is our first time here as a team and the first time here as a driver so it's trial by fire this weekend."

BUSCH PRESS CONFERENCE

"The qualifying run wasn't bad today. We were decent in practice. We tried to make some changes to in order to make the car a little bit better but we obviously weren't able to capitalize on the 25 car. I don't think anybody else will be able to either this weekend and probably be a runaway show like it was last year. We gave it our all in qualifying there. Hopefully we can get something for the race that's pretty decent for ourselves and be able to go out there and get a good solid day in the points battle." WHY DO YOU SAY IT'S GOING TO BE A RUNAWAY FOR BOBBY HAMILTON? "Basically just because of the way he ran last year here and so far the way that everything has been going so far today. He sat on the pole and he was leading practice by I believe two tenths of a second and he was really fast in race trim. You'll see here in happy hour that he will be really fast, too."