Arizona 200 presented by Walk the Line - Rookie Friday Quotes

RAYBESTOS® ROOKIE CONTENDER FEATURE FOR THE ARIZONA 200 NASCAR BUSCH SERIES RACE AT PHOENIX INTERNATIONAL RACEWAY, NOVEMBER 11, 2005.

Reed Sorenson trials Carl Edwards by just four points (325-321) in the chase for Busch Series Raybestos Rookie of the Year. The battle for the 2005 title is the closest in the history of the program.

REED SORENSON, No. 41 DISCOUNT TIRE COMPANY DODGE: “This is the car that we won with at St. Louis so we feel like we’ll do really good here. We tested Homestead for two days and feel like we’ll do good there as well. We’re prepared as we can be for the next two races so I think we have a good shot at it.”

WHAT DID YOU LEARN HERE IN THE SPRING RACE THAT WILL HELP YOU THIS WEEKEND? “To try and not get in a wreck on a restart there [smiles]. Our car was kind of loose off of 2 the last time in the race but it was fast over in 3 and 4. It should be a little bit different in the sun. I think the track will be a little bit different. We get two practices in the sun so we should get a good idea of what the balance should be like and just go on from there.”

YOU WILL BE A FULL-TIME NEXTEL CUP DRIVER IN 2006. HAS THAT BEEN A DISTRACTION THIS YEAR? “Not really because I didn’t really do much Cup stuff this year so it wasn’t much of a distraction at all. We just kept working about this car and worrying about this deal. We’ll worry about that next year when we come to it.”

WHAT WOULD IT MEAN FOR THIS TEAM TO WIN RAYBESTOS ROOKIE OF THE YEAR? “It means a lot. This is basically our first year for everybody being together. We’d like to do the best we can in points and we’ve had some races where we’ve had some DNFs and that’s what killed us, as far as overall points go. To get Raybestos Rookie of the Year would be nice for us to have that as an accomplishment for this year.”

HAS THIS YEAR BEEN LONGER AND MORE DIFFICULT THAN YOU THOUGHT? “No, not really. We’ve ran good. We’ve never had a car where we’ve ran bad. We’ve just bad luck, where we either blown a motor or got in a wreck or whatever happened. The DNFs are what hurt us overall this year. I look back on the tracks where we never had a 25th-place car. We never had a bad car, just had some deals where we lost a lot of points because we finished 40th to 43rd.”

ARE YOU SURPRISED HOW WELL YOU’VE DONE THIS SEASON? “I think we had a lot of expectations going into this year from last year, because of the way we ran last year. Our goals this year are kind of where we are right now. We’d like to be higher in the overall points but it’s been kind of what we expected. We’ve been good at a lot of places that we went to and that’s what we expected. The new nose and that kind of stuff kind of threw us for a little bit of a change there but everything else has kind of the way we expected it to be.”

RAYBESTOS® ROOKIE CONTENDER HAPPY HOUR QUOTES FOR THE ARIZONA 200 NASCAR BUSCH SERIES RACE AT PHOENIX INTERNATIONAL RACEWAY, NOVEMBER 11, 2005.

CARL EDWARDS, No. 60 WORLD FINANCIAL GROUP FORD: “The World Financial Group Busch car is really good. The Cup car is even better right now so we’ll see how it is here in this last practice. I think both cars are going to be real good.”

YOU ARE GOING TO QUALIFY EARLY IN THE MORNING. “It’ll be a little different than it is now. I think as long as we’ve got it free enough we’ll be OK.”

BRENT SHERMAN, No. 10 CONSORT FORD: YOU IMPROVED GREATLY DURING THE FINAL PRACTICE SESSION. HOW DID YOU DO THAT? “My crew chief [Tim Shutt] hooked me up. We showed up and we were just a little off and we just worked at it all through the first practice. We didn’t bolt stickers on, didn’t get nervous and just worked on it and got faster. We ran out fastest lap on 40-lap tires which was good so now we know we’re going to be pretty decent on a long run. Then we bolted stickers on for a qualifying run because we know that all important in my situation and we run pretty decent on our first qualifying run but thought we could run a little bit better. We made a little change and the car really handled well on the second qualifying run. We’re just doing what we need to do. We’re making the car better, getting me laps, figuring out my line and working together to make the car better. That’s what we need to do.”

QUALIFYING IS SCHEDULED FOR EARLY TOMMOROW MORNING. DOES THAT THROW YOU A CURVE? “I don’t think so. I think this place is just going to pick up speed overall but I don’t really know what it’s going to do. I don’t know what it’s going to do in the morning but we have good balance and I guess that’s all we can ask for. If the car is balanced now, hopefully it will be balanced tomorrow and I have a feeling it’s going to have a little bit more grip tomorrow just because with the sun out it tends to get a little greasy. Hopefully the balance will stay with it overnight and we can back up the lap we run and if we don’t back it up at least get it in the show and have a good race tomorrow.”

ARE YOU CONCERNED WITH THE TRACK CHANGING WITH MORE RUBBER PLUS THE TRUCK RACE TONIGHT? “I really don’t know. If I try to figure it out I’m going to screw myself up. I’m just going to go out there and do what I can. I’ll have a lap to feel it out and normally we run quicker on our second lap. I’ll feel it out on the first lap and go for it on the second lap once I kind of feel what the car’s going to do.”

DO YOU LIKE THIS TRACK? “I have more favorite racetracks than this one but if you run well here, then I like it. You always like the places that you run well at and I didn’t run very well here in the spring, although it my second-best qualifying run was here. I just didn’t feel like we had the car that could run very good in the race. Qualifying is one thing, but I’d really like to run well here in the race. Hopefully we have a good enough car to run good in the race.”

JON WOOD, No. 47 CLOROX/WISK/BASHAS’ FORD: “The track will be different for qualifying but it will be different for everyone, obviously. We’re still just trying to iron out our short-track program. Our mile-and-a-half stuff is real good and we don’t need to work on that area. We still have a lot of room to improve on our short-track stuff.”

DOES THIS TRACK GET SLICKER AND SLICKER WITH MORE RUBBER BEING PUT DOWN? “It will be typical Phoenix. It will be hot tomorrow and a lot more rubber on the racetrack it will be slick.”

WHAT DO YOU NEED TO DO TO MAKE THE CAR BETTER? “That’s a good question. I’m just tight everywhere. I’m just really, really tight and the car is not responding to any changes.”