O'Reilly Challenge - Rookie Qualifying Quotes

Where the Raybestos Rookies qualified at Texas:
J. Wood 4th
R. Sorenson 9th
D. Hamlin 14th
C. Edwards 18th
K. Davis 44th
B. Sherman 53rd (DNF)

KERTUS DAVIS, No. 12 HOT TAMALES DODGE: “That wasn’t too bad. We picked up but everybody is going to pick up. The track temperature is a lot cooler. First thing is that we brought the car home in one piece as far as practice and qualifying. We’ve got to complete all the laps tomorrow and be there at the end and hopefully bring her home in one piece and come out of here with a top-20 finish for the Hot Tamales/Supercuts/Goulds Pumps car.”

DENNY HAMLIN, No. 20 ROCKWELL AUTOMATION CHEVROLET: “We picked up a half-second from practice so you can’t be too disappointed. We’re having a little bit of electrical issues. The car is surging down the straightaway and I thought maybe it was wind but it’s doing it getting up to speed. I’m not sure what that is. Hopefully that’s not too big of a concern but I’m pretty happy about it. The car had definitely made some improvements throughout the day so tomorrow will be a whole new ballgame.” HAS THE INTERMEDIATE PROGRAM BETTER THAN WHEN YOU STARTED THE SEASON? “I really can’t say that it is. It looks like the 18 has gotten a little bit better on the bigger tracks. We’re struggling. I don’t know whether I’m not giving them the information that they need to make the car better or my inexperience. But it kind of makes me wonder why I can do it in the Cup car but I can’t do it in the Busch car. Hopefully tomorrow I can have a good run.” ARE THE CUP CARS VERY DIFFERENT THAN THE BUSCH CARS? “Yeah, especially the way the setups are in them right now. Next year, hopefully, we’re going to get them a lot closer but this year they’re two totally different beasts. It kind of throws you a curve ball trying to go from one to the other. I was just in the Cup car qualifying and now you have to put your Busch cap on and think a little bit differently on how you’re going to run it. I’m probably a little bit slower because of that but I’ll get through it.”

JON WOOD, No. 47 CLOROX/WISK/BROOKSHIRE’S FORD: “The track is obviously going to get way faster from here on out. I’m not looking to make excuses. I think we’ve got a really good racecar. If we can just make sure and start the race tomorrow where we should end up qualifying, setup-wise, I think if we can have as good a setup tomorrow as we did in qualifying, I think we’ll be just fine.” YOU ARE QUALIFYING AT NIGHT AND RACING IN THE DAYTIME. DOES THAT THROW YOU OFF A LITTLE BIT? “Yeah it does, not practicing during the race times is going to hurt everybody, really. What’s bad for one is bad for everybody so we’ll just play it by ear and see what we’ve got.” WHAT WOULD IT MEAN TO FINISH THE SEASON STRONG? “That’s what we’ve been doing the last three races. We were running very well at Memphis and blew a tire but beyond that, we’ve had top-10 runs the last four races. We’ve just got to keep that momentum going and carry it on into next year.” HAS THIS SEASON BEEN MORE DIFFICULT THAN YOU THOUGHT? “Compared to my 2003 year in the truck series, it’s been a lot more difficult but last year in the trucks, I wasn’t equipped with what it took to run competitively every week. This year has been easier, to be honest with you.” HAVE YOU ALWAYS LIKE THIS RACETRACK? “I have. I’ve liked it a lot. We’ve always run well here in the trucks and we ran well here in the spring. We should be fine tomorrow.” CAN YOU WIN HERE? “If the planets align [smiles]. It seems like we get snake bit every week by something silly. We’ll have a good car.” WHAT WOULD BE A GOOD DAY FOR YOU? “A top-10, just another top-10. We’ve been doing that, like I said, the past several races anyway, and running well. We didn’t luck up and get them. We’ve had strong cars and we just need to keep doing that.”

REED SORENSON, No. 41 DISCOUNT TIRE COMPANY DODGE: “I was wide open there in qualifying and trail-braked it just a little bit there. I don’t see how we can pick up much more. It was a good, solid lap for us and should be good.” ARE YOU HAPPY WITH THE CAR? “It’s been good all day. We were fast off the truck and this car has always ran in the top-five so I’m pretty impressed with it.” DOES IT THROW YOU FOR A CURVE, QUALIFYING AT NIGHT AND RACING IN THE DAYTIME? “We practiced during the day today and the last race here was during the day so we got notes from that race and from practice earlier this morning. Basically, for tonight it was try to go fast but we got our car ready for the daytime.”

CARL EDWARDS, No. 60 CHARTER COMMUNICATIONS FORD: “We’ve got a great racecar. Holy smoke, it was loose, like crazy loose. I think it’s going to race really well, to be honest with you. We were really fast the last time in practice. I almost wrecked it on the warm-up lap and that was pretty wild. I’m pretty happy with a .70-whatever because a .50 would have been the pole. Even though a .70 is 17th, being only two tenths off is pretty decent.” HAVE LAPS IN THE CUP CAR AND BUSCH CAR HELPED EACH OTHER THIS WEEKEND? “The line is specific here, where you run on the racetrack. That’s going to help a lot.”

BRENT SHERMAN, No. 10 TBA FORD: “We ran pretty well in practice and the car was pretty decent. I wanted to run a good qualifying lap. I didn’t feel like I was taking too many chances or anything. I just drove it in there hard and got in the gas and I had been flat in the gas for a while and it just started coming around on me. I didn’t feel like I got behind on my steering or anything because the car was a little free all day and you just kind of correct and move on. But this one kind of came around and I didn’t feel like there was any way of saving it. I just hate it for the guys. You’ve got to qualify and you don’t want to take too many chances. I didn’t feel like we were taking too big of a chance. It just stinks. We come all the way down here, we put all this work into it, we tested here and we’re not going to race. It’s very frustrating but we’ll move on.”

Raybestos Rookie O’Reilly Challenge Notes