Carquest Auto Parts 300 - Rookie Friday Quotes

Raybestos Rookie Denny Hamlin crashed in the first practice session earlier today, forcing him to qualify and race a backup car. Hamlin enters Saturday’s race third in Raybestos Rookie points and seventh in the Busch Series championship standings.

DENNY HAMLIN, No. 20 ROCKWELL AUTOMATION CHEVROLET: “We bottomed out. It was only on our first lap of the whole day. I just hit the racetrack a little too hard. It was kind of the same deal that [Jason] Leffler had here last week. It’s a bad deal but the car’s not bad. We’re going to have to turn it around and go to Dover with it. It’s just body [damage] only but we just didn’t have quite enough time to get it fixed so we decided to roll out the backup. It’s not where we want it right now but it will get there by race time.” YOU HAVE HAD A GOOD START TO THE SEASON. “It’s been great and it seems like we’re getting better runs it seems like every week. I’m just happy to be with the guys that I’m with. It’s a great opportunity for me and hopefully in the future we’ll have other opportunities.” WHY HAVE YOU BEEN SO COMPETITIVE RIGHT OUT OF THE BOX? “Coming into an established team means a lot. It’s hard for Raybestos Rookies these days to get in good cars and this team has proven themselves. They finished top-five in points last year. I’m just stepping in and doing the light work.” DID YOU TEST HERE? “We tested and we were second fastest only to Ryan [Newman]. We knew we’ve got a good package, just getting it to work with this car now is going to be our job.” WHY SO MANY ACCIDENTS IN PRACTICE? “It feels like it’s really slick, actually. I don’t know if it’s rubber or exactly what it is but it’s definitely a lot different from where is was in testing.” DO YOU THINK YOU CAN WIN A RACE THIS SEASON? “Absolutely. We’ll probably be in victory lane on a mile or less racetrack [smiles].”

JON WOOD, No. 47 CLOROX/WISK/PIGGLY WIGGLY FORD: HOW SPECIAL IS IT TO BE AT CHARLOTTE IN A STOCK CAR FOR THE FIRST TIME? “It’s cool. We ran trucks here and had minimal success. We always qualified well but those truck races here, they are kind of temperamental. The races are so short and you can never really get what you deserve. It’s competitive with all the Cup guys that are running with us and with all the prestige of running well at Charlotte everybody is gunning for a good start. I’m glad we finished practice in one piece because that seems to be an accomplishment.” IS THERE ANY REASON FOR THE ACCIDENTS IN PRACTICE? “I have no idea. The racetrack is great. There’s nothing wrong with the racetrack, there’s nothing wrong with the tire. Goodyear brought an unbelievable tire here and it’s holding up. I just think people aren’t paying attention. It doesn’t make sense. Out of 2 hours and 30 minutes of practice time we got, it may have been an hour of green flag time. Some people had some unfortunate problems so you can’t really point a finger.” YOU TESTED HERE SO IS THE LACK OF TRACK TIME TODAY A BIG DEAL? “It didn’t really hurt that much because we were able to test, but still you want to get all the time that you can. It did rain during the test so that hurt but I think we’ll be okay.” HOW SPECIAL IS IT TO COME HERE BECAUSE OF YOUR FAMILY’S SUCCESS AT THIS TRACK? “It’s a big deal to race at Lowe’s Motor Speedway. Everybody that has been anything in racing has raced here. It’s almost like it has the heritage of Daytona but in a different league. It’s a very special racetrack. I was around a little. I really wasn’t all that much into racing at the time but I was able to kind of watch some. I remember when you could stand up on top of a van and see the entire racetrack and now you need to be in a suite to see the track.” HOW SPECIAL WOULD IT BE FOR YOU TO RUN WELL HERE THIS WEEKEND? “I can’t tell you specifically who won what Busch race last year, but I know Mike Bliss won the fall race. And that’s what sticks out is this race. You don’t have to watch it on TV; you don’t have to be home at a certain time. You can be here. It’s in the backyard. To me, this racetrack is almost as sentimental to me as Martinsville because it’s such a hometown track.” DID YOUR SECOND PLACE RUN AT TALLADEGA GIVE YOU AND THE TEAM MOMENTUM? “If you look at our finishes, you’d say no, but I think it did to some degree. We’ve had good cars every week and this is our Raybestos Rookie year. I’d rather finish second one week and 30th the next going to for second than always finishing 12th and having a top-10 in points because you’re not better than a 12th-place car. You just finish there every week.” HOW SPECIAL WOULD A TOP-10 FINISH IN POINTS BE FOR YOU AND THE TEAM? “It’d be cool. That would be above and beyond the goals that I’ve set at the beginning of the year. If you look at the performance last year of the race team, my truck team or their Busch team, neither of the two were very respectable. We’ve combined what you would think is two average race teams and now we’re as good as a lot of these Cup backed teams.” ARE THE NEXT FIVE RACES CRITICAL FOR YOU? “No. The next five races is just the same as the last five. I want to start posting the finishes that we deserve and quit running into stuff.”

Raybestos Rookie Kertus Davis is running the full schedule for a small team owned by his father, Johnny Davis. The Gaffney, S.C. team has just four full-time employees and competes with a limited budget. Davis’ best finish this season came at Talladega where he placed 10th, his best finish in 22 career starts.

KERTUS DAVIS, No. 0 RACEGIRL CHEVROLET: YOU ARE DRIVING FOR A TEAM WITH LIMITED RESOURCES. HOW HAS YOUR SEASON BEEN TO THIS POINT? “We’ve made every race so far except for Richmond and the only reason that we missed that was because we had a mechanical problem. Something happened to the fuel pump, it wasn’t getting enough fuel pressure, or we probably would have had a pretty good run there at Richmond. We’re chasing it a little bit here at Charlotte. We didn’t get to come test because we are an under financed team. I’m a young kid trying to be smart and not crash the car and save it until it really counts. We’re down a little bit right now as far as financial-wise, manpower, the whole works. We’re working hard. My dad has put a lot of money into the effort and pretty much put everything he’s got up in the air just for me, his son, to try to make it.” HOW MANY PEOPLE WORK FOR THE TEAM? “We’ve got four full-time including myself. It’s pretty tough when everybody had a weekend off last week we were there at the shop still working 12-14 hours a day. For us to try to get caught up that’s what we have to do because we’re short handed.” WHAT IS A TYPICAL WEEK LIKE FOR YOU? “Nine times out of 10 when we get back we unload, at least make sure the shop is organized and ready to go back to work Monday morning. If we blow a motor, we’ll take it out Sunday. We’ll start getting the oil lines out and everything prepared if we have a little extra work. It usually starts at 8 o’clock Monday morning and I’m usually the first one there and I’m the last one to leave. We’ve got two people that live over an hour away from the shop so I usually let them leave a little early to get home and spend as much time with their family as they can. I’m usually there at 10 or 11 o’clock at night.” WHEN DO YOU LEAVE FOR A RACE? “At Talladega we had to leave on Tuesday so when I got back from Phoenix I went to work. I flew back home I was the only one who flew; everybody else drove. I was working on the Talladega car by myself preparing it for that race. We have very limited resources but all in all I think we’ve turned some heads.” HOW REWARDING WAS IT TO FINISH 10TH AT TALLADEGA? “It was real rewarding for somebody like us. Racegirl has helped us out some financially but I would say that we have the smallest budget of any team is this garage. I really believe that and for us to go and finish 10th and run up there in the top 10 and mix it up late in the race with those guys with the financial backing that they have, it felt great.” HAVE ANY OF YOUR COMPETITIORS NOTICED THE JOB THAT YOU ARE DOING? “David Green is somebody that has inspired me that I can talk to. He’s a real clean racer and he holds the rookie meeting for the NASCAR Busch Series. If I have any questions he’s always been real open-minded with me and he’s somebody I can go talk to.” ARE YOU UNDER A LOT OF PRESSURE NOT TO TEAR YOUR CARS UP? “There’s a lot of pressure. My father has put everything on the line and borrowed a lot of money from the bank for me to race and if it wasn’t for me he wouldn’t be racing. He’s doing all this for me so I owe him a lot of credit. If I ever make it one day, I’ll take care of him.” WHAT IS THE GOAL FOR YOU AND THE TEAM FOR THE REST OF THE SEASON? “If we make it through the year, which we hope we can, top-30 in owner points and top-30 in driver points. That would be a good accomplishment for Davis Motorsports. Anything else would be a bonus. That’s what we’re trying to do and hopefully we won’t miss any more races.” WHAT ARE YOUR THOUGHTS ON THE CUP GUYS COMING OVER HERE TO THE BUSCH SERIES? “I think it helps somebody like me because when I get out there behind them in practice I can learn so much. One time in practice was behind Jimmie Johnson and picked up like three-tenths. I found a line that I need to be running. It really helped me improve here at Charlotte.”

TYLER WALKER, No. 38 GREAT CLIPS DODGE: “We’re getting better the more consistent I get in the car. I’m learning more about making adjustment on these cars and what I need as a driver. We were horrible this morning and we adjusted and adjusted and got back in the ballpark and ended up like 14th at the end of practice. We were pretty free but I think we’re going to need to be by the time the sun goes down and track will tighten up. We’ll see what happens. We really didn’t get to do a real good qualifying run. I got one lap and we ended up 14th. We’ll see what happens.” HOW DIFFICULT HAS IT BEEN ADJUSTING TO THIS SERIES? “It’s difficult because my consistency of being in and out of a car. Once I get in that car and really get comfortable, I don’t see it being a problem at all. I just need to get that seat time that you hear about all the time.” WHAT HAS BEEN THE ONE THING THAT YOU’VE HAD TO ADJUST TO MORE THAN ANYTHING ELSE? “Making adjustments on these cars, and I just don’t know enough about them. I can say that ‘I’m tight, I’m loose here’ but I can’t give suggestions on that I want this right front changes or the left rear track bar up or down or shocks, if we need more compression or rebound, just all the things that it takes to get these cars the way a driver wants them. You listen to any of the good guys in Cup and they can give good feedback. They know what the want. A crew chief might change it or do something else, but at least they know what they want.” WHAT HAS BEEN ENCOURAGING TO YOU AS A DRIVER? “Kasey [Kahne] is like ‘Don’t worry, man. I couldn’t have drove that car.' Don’t worry about it.’ That’s encouraging because it’s easy to get down on yourself and say ‘Man, what am I doing wrong here? Why can’t I cut it?’ When I have a good car I’ll be up front and I’ll be fast. When I have a bad car, I’ve got to learn to make it fast and that’s not me overdriving the car. That’s me making some suggestions and the crew making adjustment on the car better so it can be up front. I’m so used to being in an open wheel sprint car where if something is a little off I just overdrive it, overcome it. It doesn’t work that way in these cars. You’ve got to get the car good because there is little things that a driver can do but not a lot if the car is not right you’re not going to run up front.” HOW DIFFICULT HAS IT BEEN TO MAKE CHANGES DURING THE RACE? “Every time we do pit we get better. I think we’ve been doing all right there. We’ve just got to not get wrecked. We’ve had some bad luck. We had a spotter issue, had issues of the radio not working. We’ve got to get rid of all those issues and I need to know better where I’m at on the racetrack with the mirrors and stuff. I’m not quite used to that yet but I’m getting used to it. I’m not used to looking in the mirror to see who’s behind me [smiles], just little things like that. You look at all the guys and they’ve had to take time to adjust. Tony Stewart didn’t run very spectacular at all in Busch and got in a Cup car and was unbelievably fast. Kasey had to make adjustments running the 98 car. It takes time for an open wheel guy. It’s not that we can’t do it because you see every day Jeff Gordon, Tony Stewart, Ryan Newman, Kasey Kahne, Mike Bliss, the list goes on and own. They are all successful stock car drivers. You’ve got to give them seat time and give them an opportunity to get comfortable.” HOW DIFFICULT IS IT TO LEARN TO PIT AT THIS LEVEL? I’ve been doing pit practice. I’m not near as good as Kasey or Jeff, but I watch and try to pay attention and learn. It is difficult to learn how fast you can get in and be slowed down before the cone. I know I lose some time there but really in the Busch Series it seems like we haven’t had too many green flag stops. Hopefully we’ll quit wrecking each other and start running some green flag pit stops.” ARE YOU MORE COMFORTABLE PITTING UNDER GREEN? “I am under yellow because you just cruise on in there. Under green you’ve got to really get slowed down and sometimes you’ll warp your brakes because you are on them so hard it just warps them. It just a lot of things to pay attention to.”