BUSCH PRESS CONFERENCE

THIS IS YOUR FIRST VISIT TO PHOENIX OTHER THAN A SPECTATOR. YOU GOT A HANDLE ON THE PLACE PRETTY QUICKLY. "It's pretty good to be able to come out here for our first time and sit on the pole in the NASCAR Busch Series with the Lowe's Chevrolet. It takes a lot of hard work. The guys were good here last year with Brian Vickers and they had a top-three finish. We were really looking forward to coming here this weekend and with me not having any experience here we thought about testing but then we kind of decided that it was a long way to travel to go out for a test. I decided to make my test in the NASCAR AutoZone Elite Series with the Featherlite Southwest Series. It's going to be a lot of fun to race that race today and get the extra seat time and of course track time around this place. Trying to learn the track yesterday was pretty easy. I had great teachers with Kurt Busch telling me how to get around here and of course Craig Rodman, a longtime runner in the Southwest Series. It was pretty good to come out here and sit on the pole in the NASCAR Busch Series." ON THE CHAMPIONSHIP BATTLE WITH MARTIN TRUEX JR. "It's easy to say but hopefully we can keep the No.5 Lowe's Chevrolet out front, lead the most laps, and win the race. That would be the easiest way for us to keep going for us in the point standings and whatever happens to the 8 car happens. We just kind of look at it as we go to every race trying to do the best possible job we can, whether it's a win or top-five or a top-10. That's all we can ask for and whatever comes to us is I guess what we deserve so we'll try to work the championship that way instead of just going out for wins. Obviously we've done the same thing for the whole year so we'll just keep doing it." WHAT IS IT GOING TO TAKE TO MAKE THE POINTS RACE CLOSER? "It's going to take maybe one bad race but it'd be easier for us for him to have two bad races. You don't really wish any bad luck on anybody and of course we're all racers out there so there's many more years to come, especially in my career. I'm 19 years old so there's plenty more chances for me to get championships down the road but it'd be nice to get it in your first full season of NASCAR racing. We'll just go after it any possible way we can." HOW WOULD YOU RATE THE LAST COUPLE BUSCH SERIES RACES FOR YOU? "Memphis was a real downer for us. Obviously we kind of screwed ourselves up by not coming in and getting tires late in the going and we fell back from fourth or third or whatever it was to 14th and that was kind of a bad week for us. Then last week we finished second but we were trying so hard to get the win. We weren't quite able to get it for all of our lost ones but we tried to do the best we could and we were just a little bit short. I'd have to say that Atlanta was a pretty good week. We kind of hung on all day long in the race and just kind of made sure that we were there at the end and had the opportunity to win the race so that was all that counted. Coming into here this weekend at Phoenix, obviously it's my first time here and I think the team has only been here twice in the NASCAR Busch Series or three times or whatever it's been. We're trying to go out and gain experience and get what we can out of the weekend." DID RUNNING THE SOUTHWEST TOUR CAR HERE YESTERDAY HELP YOU AT ALL? "It did help me. On a half-mile, those cars are pretty easy to drive, they're pretty tame, but here on a mile racetrack, you have the stagger that fights you and you have the soft spring and stuff like that so they're pretty evil cars to drive when you are out there going at big speeds. Those cars run around here faster than the Cup cars and faster than the Busch cars. They're a lot of fun to drive and of course they're real difficult to drive so it made my job easier getting into the NASCAR Busch Series car because the Busch Series cars are heavier and they're a little bit faster down the straightaway, slower getting into the corners and stuff but still they're easier to drive so far to me than a Southwest Tour car." HOW'S THE MOOD ON THE TEAM? HOW IS EVERYONE'S SPIRITS? "A pole is a great spirit lifter there. Of course, a win is too. After last week, everybody really had their spirits raised when we finished second. They all saw how hard I was driving and I know how hard the whole team has worked over the past couple of weeks in order to get over this tragedy and of course go on. Racing is never going to stop for us even though bad things can come about but we've just got to keep going and trying to make the best of things that have happened."

J.J. YELEY, No. 18 VIGORO/THE HOME DEPOT CHEVROLET: "I thought we had a pretty decent car and being in my hometown I wanted to do good. We'll have to do good from the back. Sometimes we struggle a little bit in qualifying. That's my inexperience but in race trim we were very good today. We'll make some changes for tomorrow. Our practice is fairly early so we're not going to learn much for race time but I'm confident that we'll have a good racecar." YOU HAVE LOTS OF LAPS HERE IN A VARIETY OF CARS. IS THE TRACK ALWAYS SLICK? "From what I'm used to racing here, not really. Normally you can get the cars tightened up to where you can really fly around this place. I've noticed that so far today we've struggled keeping grip in the car. You're either a little bit too tight or you're real loose. It kind of caught me by surprise qualifying. We scuffed tires a little bit and we thought that that would help but the car was just like being on ice out there. We're going to have to come from the back on this one. It's a hometown track and hopefully we can get the crowd behind me and we can take the thing to the front. I tried some lines earlier that were more comparable to the cars that I'm used to running here and groove is real narrow today from practice. Everyone was really right on the bottom. I'm hoping with the truck race tomorrow that the second groove will get worked in where you can kind of get on the outside of guys. That's my style of racing. These guys I know are going to be hugging the bottom and even if you're better than the guy they're going to keep following each other. If we can get that second lane cleaned up I'll be more than happy to go out there and try it out for everyone."