Emerson Radio 250 - Rookie Post-Race Quotes

Where the Raybestos Rookies finished at Richmond:
K. Busch, 5th
P.Menard, 13th
J.J. Yeley, 15th

Raybestos Rookie standings after Richmond
K. Busch, 319
P. Menard, 177
C. Bowyer, 146
J.J. Yeley, 141
B. Parker, 74

KYLE BUSCH IN THE #5 LOWE'S/SHOP VAC CHEVROLET WAS THE RAYBESTOS ROOKIE OF THE RACE AT RICHMOND. Notes: Busch finished fifth, his 12th top-five and 17th top-10 finish of the 2004 season. He scored his 14th top-five finish in 33 career starts. Busch took Raybestos Rookie of the Race honors for the fifth consecutive race. Unofficially, he trails Martin Truex Jr. by 105 points in the Busch Series championship standings. "We had a pretty good car all night. It was just a shame that we couldn't finish better than what we did. I drove my butt off and so did everybody else out there, too. It's hard to race against teammates that are racing for the championship, the other car, obviously. It's a shame that we couldn't get where we wanted to but overall Lowe's and everybody else, their support has been great." YOU WERE PRETTY HOT AFTER THE RACE. WHY? "Basically because, I know that everybody drives their butt off all day long but I did too. We just didn't have the finish that we obviously deserved. I think we had a top two car, even maybe a winning car there the whole race, and pit strategy beat us out today. Other team cars that were racing against us really hard, you know the only reason it stayed clean was the 5 car. We'll go on to Dover in two weeks and see what we get." DID YOU AND PAUL MENARD GET TOGETHER THERE AT THE END OF THE RACE? "Yeah, I had to. I tried racing him clean and he didn't give me three inches to race with. I had to move 'em up out of the way. The was the only way I was going to get by him." IT MUST BE FRUSTRATING TO A DRIVER WHEN PIT STRATEGY DECIDES A RACE. "Yeah it can, especially for other reasons that happen and stuff like that. We had an awesome car all night long. The Lowe's Chevrolet was exactly what it needed to be up until the end and that's when it counts is the end of the race. It's a shame that we didn't get the finish that we needed or wanted or deserved but we'll go on to next week. It was just hard racing out there. Sometimes it gets to you." DID THE TRACK STAY PRETTY CONSISTENT ALL NIGHT? "No. For some reason we got really tight there at the end. It feels like the track is losing some grip and lost some throughout that race. The pavement is getting old and you're wearing it out." WHEN YOU WERE BACK IN TRAFFIC, WAS IT A MATTER OF TRYING TO RACE AS CLEAN AS YOU COULD TO GET BACK TO THE FRONT? "Yeah it was. You try to race some people cleanly and they give you not even three inches to race with so you're the only one trying to make it clean. Nothing got hit up until the last restart. I had to move him out of the way to get by him. That was the only reason that we got a scratch on our car." YOU AND KASEY KAHNE STRUGGLED ONCE THE TWO OF YOU WERE STUCK IN TRAFFIC. "We were. It's a short track and it's hard to pass here. It's such a rhythm racetrack. You get out of rhythm any bit and it's so hard to get going. Guys on the outside, they can run into the corner, they don't get through the center, but then they can get a run up off. You just can't handle that. When you're stuck on the bottom you can drift out toward the walls so that means you can't step on the gas as early as you'd like." YOU ONLY LOST A HANDFUL ON POINTS TO MARTIN TRUEX JR. "We keep not losing too many points but we've got to start gaining."

PAUL MENARD, #11 MENARDS/ENERGIZER CHEVROLET: "The car was really good tonight. We definitely had a top-five car, just got run into with a couple of laps to go on that last restart. I got up in the stuff and just fell back. I got up in the marbles and had a lot of stuff on the tires and it took awhile for it to come back around. We definitely had a top-five car, it just didn't work out that well." THIS RUN MUST BE A BIG CONFIDENCE BOOST. "Even though we didn't get the finish out of it, it helps our confidence. We know that we ran good and that we can run with these guys. They knew that we were here." WHAT'S THE ONE THING THAT YOU LEARNED TONIGHT THAT WILL HELP YOU LATER THIS SEASON? "Patience and you've got to go when you've got to go and you've got to lay back when you can't make a run yet. The car wasn't all that great at the start but Tony [Gibson, crew chief] and the guys kept working on it and got it pretty good there at the end." WAS THIS RACE PHYSICAL? "For the most part everybody was pretty good, just minor touches. But every once in a while you get a number 5 car that piles it in there."

J.J. YELEY, #18 VIGORO/THE HOME DEPOT CHEVROLET: YOU HAD AN INTERESTING NIGHT. "It all comes from being in the middle of the pack and that' where all the chaos happens. The guys are fighting ill-handling racecars. We were one of them. Most of the race we were real, real loose. I couldn't turn the wheel and get after the throttle, just like being on ice out there. The last pit stop they put four tires on and made a couple of changes and made the car really good. I wish we could have made that adjustment a little earlier. We could have fine-tuned it a little bit better. When I got up about 14th, and the car was pretty good. It was fast, my problem was that I lost my maneuverability. I couldn't dive underneath guys to try to get by 'em. We dodged a lot of real close calls out there and brought the thing back in one piece. It's another decent night for the Vigoro/Home Depot team. We were looking for a little bit better run here. We ran better in the spring but we rolled it in the trailer so that's good." DO YOU THINK THAT IF IT'S YOUR NIGHT TO BE CAUGHT IN AN ACCIDENT, YOU'RE GOING TO BE INVOLVED IN AN ACCIDENT? "I don't think so. You've got to be really aware of what's going on around you. These places here, you kind of know which direction the car is going to go when they're spinning. The closest one was on the front straightaway because there was so much tire smoke you couldn't really see what was going on. The rest of the guys spun in front of me and it was just a matter of getting the car slowed down and making the decision to get around them. I think in most accidents the guys don't slow the cars down and things catch 'em by surprise and then it all hits the fan." WHAT DID YOU LEARN TONIGHT THAT WILL HELP YOU LATER THIS SEASON? "We just need to make sure that we are really close with the car at the start of the race. We've struggled with that a little bit this year. We went off our spring notes and I think the racetrack had a lot more grip then and we got really tight. We made a bunch of changes today to really free the car up. I guess we really expected the racetrack to really get tight and it didn't and I think a lot of guys out there were expecting the same thing. We just need a little more experience from my side and a little bit more practice."