Dollar General 300 - Rookie Post-Race Quotes

Where the Raybestos Rookies finished at Charlotte:
C. Edwards 4th
J. Wood 7th
B. Sherman 13th
D. Hamlin 30th
R. Sorenson 35th

DENNY HAMLIN, No. 20 ROCKWELL AUTOMATION CHEVROLET: “It’s one of those deals where the racetrack is so bad you can’t pass. They’ve screwed up this racetrack. You can’t run side-by-side. Every time you do you just get loose under somebody. You can’t go in the corner at 190 miles an hour and expect to race with somebody. We shouldn’t have been back there anyway but that’s the way it is.” WHAT HAPPENED? “It looked like the 58 got under me and got loose but it’s one of those things where you can’t run 190 miles per hour and not expect things to happen. You just can’t race side-by-side here. It’s just a product of the racetrack.” YOU AND THE 58 CAR HAD MADE CONTACT EARLIER IN THE RACE. “Yeah, and we got back there and we were trying to fix the car. I was just trying to get out of the way until we could get the car fixed good enough to get out there and run good. I never made it that far.”

REED SORENSON, No. 41 DISCOUNT TIRE COMPANY DODGE: IT LOOKED LIKE YOU HAD A TIRE RUB. “Yeah, we had a tire run there. I don’t know if that caused what happened. I don’t even know really what happened yet. They said in TV that it was a right front but I really don’t know what happened. It almost felt like something broke on the suspension. I’m on my way over there to the car to check it out right now but that was a pretty hard hit. That’s the hardest hit that I’ve had. I’m going to go see what happened and get ready for next week.” DO YOU FEEL A LITTLE GROGGY? “Groggy? What’s the definition of groggy [laughs]? We’re all right. I feel okay. These soft walls are good and the HANS device and these seats are so much safer now. I’d hate to hit that wall that hard six or seven years ago, that’s for sure.” YOU HAD A TOP-10 CAR ALL NIGHT SO THAT MAKES ALL THIS EVEN MORE FRUSTRATING. “Yeah, I think we could have done pretty good. At the beginning there I think we showed that we had a top-three car. That’s about all I can about that.” DID YOU NOTICE ANY TIRE PROBLEMS EARLIER IN THE RACE? “No, the only tire that was wearing was the right rear a little bit. The right front and the left front looked great so I don’t really know what to say. I don’t really know what happened yet. The replay that I saw just showed a bunch of sparks so I’ll have to go back and look.” THIS IS A WILD RACE. “Definitely. Fast, super-fast and real tough to race side-by-side and a lot of wrecks as you can see.”

CARL EDWARDS IN THE No. 60 CHARTER COMMUNICATIONS FORD WAS THE RAYBESTOS ROOKIE OF THE RACE. Notes: Edwards finished fourth, his 12th top-five finish this season. He took Raybestos Rookie of the Race honors for the 11th time in 2005.

Edwards is just the FOURTH Raybestos Rookie to post a top-five finish in the fall race at Lowe’s Motor Speedway since the program was created in 1989. The others:
1995: Jeff Fuller, fifth
2001: Greg Biffle, first
2004: Kyle Busch, fifth

Other Raybestos Rookies to score top-10 finishes by Raybestos® Rookies in the fall race at Charlotte:
1989: Kenny Wallace, eighth
1990: Ward Burton, seventh
1990: Dave Mader III, eighth
1995: Jeff Fuller, fifth
1997: Steve Park, sixth
2000: Ron Hornaday, ninth
2002: Shane Hmiel, 10th
2004: Kyle Busch, fifth

EDWARDS: “Fourth-place is alright but man…congratulations to Ryan Newman. That’s four in a row for him. I don’t know what to say other than I’m glad that nobody got hurt. I know nobody could forecast that, the forces being that great and the cars going that fast and having the trouble with the tires. It’s not Goodyear’s fault but that’s scary. HOW DO YOU RACE UNDER THOSE CIRCUMSTANCES? “You don’t race. You ride around to the very end and hope you are in a position where you can go kind of hard and still be safe. We didn’t race the whole night. We just cruised around and tried to keep from blowing tires.” YOU MADE A LATE STOP FOR FRESH TIRES. HOW BIG OF A FACTOR WAS THAT DOWN THE STRETCH? “That was big because the other ones were blistered. We had to stop; there were no options there. It’s good practice for tomorrow night. If we run these tires tomorrow night in the same configuration I’m really glad I got to run tonight so I know what to do.” DID YOU SCUFF A LOT OF TIRES IN CUP PRACTICE TODAY? “No, so we’re going to have to do it tomorrow during the race. It’s going to be interesting tomorrow. I don’t know if there is a solution. I don’t know what we can do to make it better for tomorrow but we have to do something.” ARE WE GOING TO SEE 500 MILES OF THIS SATURDAY NIGHT? “Yeah, absolutely, I do. I think the Cup cars don’t quite have as much force in the center so we’ll see.”

JON WOOD, No. 47 CLOROX/WISK FORD (Notes: Wood finished seventh, his fifth top-10 of the 2005 season and second consecutive): YOU WENT FROM SITTING STILL IN THE GARAGE AREA DURING THE RACE TO SCORING A TOP-10 FINISH. “If you had asked me at lap 80 what the outcome was going to be, I would have said that I hoped we could have finished. The cautions came just right, the red flag came just right, and we were able to work on our stuff and the next thing that I know we’re running seventh.” WHAT HAPPENED TO PUT YOU IN THE GARAGE? “One of the 20 wrecks that happened tonight [smiles]. Someone wrecked in front of me and Sterling Marlin checked up and I got in the back of him and it blew the oil cooler up. Had we raced green flag those last 50 laps we wouldn’t have been able to hold on but the cautions kept coming right when the guys with tires were about to catch me. We just maintained that track position.” YOU AND ASHTON LEWIS RACED HARD IN THE LAST FEW LAPS. “He’s got that reputation for driving a little over his head and I guess it’s not his fault. I don’t really blame anybody. I didn’t get wrecked. It’s frustrating to get run into running seventh on the white flag lap. There’s really no need for that; hey, everybody came out okay.”

BRENT SHERMAN, No. 10 SERTA/COUNTING SHEEP FOR THE CURE FORD: “This is the best car that I’ve ever driven. It was just solid all night. We kind of got caught out on pit strategy but we were able to stay out of trouble and we were able to work our way back up to 13th. It was a solid run and we needed it. My guys have been working hard and I haven’t been giving them the finishes and the starts that they deserve. This is a good finish and something for us to build on.” WHAT HAPPENED TO PUT YOU IN THE FENCE EARLY IN THE RACE? “We were running 17th with fresh tires and I got a run on the outside of the 43 and he just put us in the wall. I don’t know if his spotter didn’t see me. We were there and we were going to try to move forward and it knocked the toe out and hurt the body a little bit and from then on out we just tried to maintain and avoid the wrecks and we did and finished 13th.”

JAY GUY, CREW CHIEF, No. 47 CLOROX/WISK FORD: HOW DID YOU GO FROM SITTING IN THE GARAGE TO A TOP-10 FINISH? “It was just a lot of planning there during that red flag. All the guys on the Clorox team, we just came up with a good game plan and it all worked out for us for once. The guys did a great job and Jon did a great job. We struggled there after we got a little bit of damage. Track position killed us at the beginning of the race but after we got all the bad luck behind us with the fender and everything, everything worked out good for us. We’re building momentum, just trying to keep top-10s, not trying to knock one out of the park. Everything worked out pretty good.” WHAT WORK DID YOU DO TO THE CAR? “We broke the oil cooler near the radiator there and we had to bypass the oil lines and fix the right front and put some more oil in it. These guys are on top of things. You can’t beat them.” WERE YOU LUCKY TO FINISH? “All things considered this is a great run for us. You can’t say enough for everything that Jon’s done. We’re real thankful for the support from Ford and Clorox and everything that Fatback and the Wood Brothers have done and Tad and Jodi. It’s been great working here. They provide us with all the tools and somehow we’ve just got to make it happen for them every week.” DID YOU HAVE ANY TIRE PROBLEMS? “We had one right rear that started to blister up a little bit. But the car just wasn’t handling right. It wasn’t a problem with Goodyear; it was a problem with our setup and it just wasn’t working right. After we got that working we never had a problem again.”

EDWARDS PRESS CONFERENCE
“We started off and I could kind of go as hard as I wanted but it didn’t feel quite right. I thought ‘Man this is pretty fast’ and we fortunately got a caution early enough to find out that we were blistering the right rear and the right front. The whole night we just tried to run a few laps on the tires and take them off and save them for late and not go too hard on them. There at the end we ended up running fourth, which is awesome, but for me it was a night of just trying to cruise around trying not to be too hard on those tires.” A LOT OF THE DRIVERS ARE TALKING ABOUT GOING INTO TURN 1 REALLY HARD AND NOT LIFTING BETWEEN 1 AND 2. IS THAT REALLY HAPPENING? “My left side door panel is all smashed up from hitting the ground from going in there so hard [smiles] so we were going real fast.” WHAT DO YOU EXPECT IN THE CUP RACE HERE TOMMOROW NIGHT? “To me, I think the Cup cars go a little slower through the corners but I think the tires will probably be okay tomorrow night. I think they’ll be better. I don’t think we’ll have the troubles that we had tonight. That’s what I’m hoping for but I do appreciate the opportunity to drive this Charter Ford tonight to get a feel for it and not have tire troubles tomorrow.” NOBODY ANTICIPATED THE BUSCH SERIES HAVING TROUBLE TONIGHT. IS THERE ANYTHING YOU CAN DO FOR THE CUP RACE? “Not really and that’s one of the things that I was frustrated with tonight. People tested out here and I didn’t test out here but I don’t think there was a tire issue really present. We didn’t see it in practice. I think the Busch cars have a little more downforce and go a little bit faster through the corners and there’s more force on the tire. I’m more throttle down in the Busch car, more g-forces in the corner, and that twists the carcass and puts more heat in that contact patch. I just hope that if it does turn out to be a situation tomorrow night where we’re running along saving tires and people are blowing them and hitting the fence that maybe we can come up with some sort of plan where maybe we come up with red flags and we’re allowed to look at our tires. That was a little bit frustrating for me tonight to watch the 21 go headlong into the wall and then be sitting there under and ask ‘Hey, is it okay if we just look at our right side tires and we weren’t allowed to do that. I don’t point the finger at anyone for the problem. I think it’s just a circumstance, but if there is one we have to be able to quickly do whatever we can to prevent someone from getting hurt.”