Sam's Town 300 - Rookie Practice Quotes

REED SORENSON IN THE No. 41 DISCOUNT TIRE COMPANY DODGE WAS THE FASTEST RAYBESTOS ROOKIE IN THE FIRST PRACTICE FOR THE SAM’S TOWN 300, POSTING THE SECOND BEST SPEED. “We tested out here. I think there were about 20 Busch teams that tested out here and everybody that tested seems to be running pretty well.” YOU HAD A GOOD RUN ALL DAY ON THE ROAD COURSE IN MEXICO CITY. “Going in there I was kind of worried about how fast we were going to be. By the end of the weekend we had the second fastest car there, other than some of the guys who had problems during the race. It was pretty cool. We hung in there with a lot of the road course specialists. They were a lot faster than I thought.” WHAT IS YOUR ROAD RACING BACKGROUND? “I ran one legend car race at Atlanta Motor Speedway. That’s it.” IS LAS VEGAS MOTOR SPEEDWAY THE TYPE TRACK THAT PLAYS TO YOUR ADVANTAGE? “I think the short tracks are because that’s all that I ever ran. I ran Homestead last year and Atlanta last year so really that’s the only big tracks that I’ve ran. I’d like to say the short tracks are, but I’d better get good at places like this because there are so many of them.” WHAT’S THE MAJOR THING THAT YOU’VE LEARNED TO THIS POINT OF THE SEASON? “For us, we’ve still got two more races where we’ve got to qualify in. We’re just being real careful in qualifying. We all take a deep breath after qualifying is over that nothing goes wrong and we’re still in the race to get points. I think it will be a little bit more fun, as far as qualifying goes, once we get past those races. As far as everything else goes, you’ve got to be patient out there and make a top-10 finish out of a day that could have been a 15th-place finish.” WHAT ARE YOUR THOUGHTS ON QUALIFYING AND RACING IN THE SAME DAY? “I kind of like the two-day shows. It’s kind of cool to practice and qualify and then overnight everybody gets their heads together on what they want to do for the race and think up strategies as far as what you’re going to do on pit stops and stuff. Everybody gets a good night’s rest and gets ready for the race. When you do a one-day show, you don’t ever stop. You go from qualifying straight to the race and you are just kind of going crazy there. If you have a good car it’s not that big of a deal [smiles].” YOU HAVE RAN WELL IN THE RACES THIS SEASON DESPITE HAVING TO RUN WELL IN QUALIFYING. “Like I said, we’re being real cautious in qualifying. We’ve got a real good racecar here and if we qualify anywhere in the top-10 we’ll be happy.”

JON WOOD, No. 47 CLOROX/WISK FORD: IS IT A RELIEF TO START THE SEASON WITH A TEAM THAT HAS OWNER POINTS VERSUS A TEAM THAT HAS NONE? “It’s a little bit of a stress reliever because knowing that we’re going to be in the race gives you more of a racy-type feeling in the fact that you don’t have to worry about doing qualifying runs, for example. You can just work on your race package. I think that helped us at California because we pretty much ran in the top-10 all night long. I think if we had to focus on our qualifying stuff to get in the race that would have taken from our race package. As for our Mexico adventure, I had no idea what I was doing down there so knowing that I was going to go to Mexico and make the race it let me focus more on what I was supposed to be doing rather than getting in.” WHEN A FELLOW RAYBESTOS ROOKIE LIKE REED SORENSON DOES SO WELL, DOES THAT PUT A LOT OF PRESSURE ON YOU? “Not really. He’s with his race team and I’m with mine and you don’t know which one is farther along, which driver is farther along. You just know that each week you’re trying to do your best and the best is all you can do. Reed is running with a lot of these guys that have doing this for years and years, as have I. I’m not saying that we’re doing anything wrong. This is a totally different race team than it was last year. We’re running up front and it’s all going to come in small steps. You can’t build an immaculate race team overnight and I think that we’re showing people that we’re doing that.” YOU HAVE BEEN ABLE TO PRACTICE, QUALIFY, AND RACE ON RACE SETUP. DOES THAT HELP THE LEARNING CURVE? “I like this deal a lot better. I don’t really know how to describe what it does but these cars that go out and qualify, if you qualify fifth in a Busch race now, you have a fifth place racecar, not you have a fifth place qualifying effort and you’re going to run 50th in the race. That’s what a lot of people did last year. Half of the experienced guys, all they focused on was their race package. They might not qualify so well but 10 laps into the race they’re running up front. Well that takes all that away now. You’ve got what you’ve got and you just put tape on the grill and qualify.” HOW MUCH HAS YOUR FAMILY BEEN ABLE TO HELP YOU? “A little bit. It’s been difficult because they’ve got their race team and I’ve got mine. They’ve been a big help; they’ve tried to help these guys out a lot but for the most part, you’ve only had three months off season time and that’s not a lot of time to get anything done.” WHAT’S THE MAIN THING YOU’VE LEARNED SO FAR THIS SEASON? “The main that I’ve learned is that I like Busch racing. I’ve been racing trucks for quite some time and there’s nothing wrong with trucks but these Busch cars is where it’s at.” DID YOU LEARN ANYTHING IN THE TRUCKS THAT HAS HELPED YOU IN BUSCH? “There’s a competitive advantage that you gain by racing trucks. Those guys race every lap like it’s the last. The Busch style of racing is a little bit more laid back. Not that it’s not as competitive, but it’s a little bit more respect and a little bit more giving instead of taking.”