Pepsi 300 - Rookie Practice Quotes

Raybestos Rookie Final Practice speeds:
Kauffman 8th
Lamar 11th
O’Quinn Jr. 14th
Kluever 16th
McFarland 29th
Andretti 32nd
Wimmer 38th
Goeters 44th

Raybestos Rookie Joel Kauffman posted the eighth-best overall speed in the final practice session for Saturday’s Pepsi 300 at Nashville. Kauffman was the only Raybestos Rookie to log a time in the top-10.

JOEL KAUFFMAN, No. 12 SUPERCUTS/ST. JUDE CHILDREN’S HOSPITAL DODGE: “We worked on it and worked on it in race runs and finally got it to where we were top-15 in race runs on old tires and felt pretty decent. We know the car’s got more than that. I kind of screwed up and we got rushed getting the water temperature down and getting the fuel in the car and everything to go out and make a real true mock run. We feel like we’ve got a couple more tenths in the car, which we think will easily put us in the top-five as far as a qualifying run. We just need a good solid points day. It’s nice to come to a track once without all the Cup drivers and not having a companion race we can kind of show more so where we stack up with the Busch regulars. We’ve made some changes here in the last couple of weeks and so far we’re very happy with them.” HOW DIFFICULT WILL IT BE TO RACE ON YOUR QUALIFYING SETUP? “Actually, we feel better about the race setup right now than we do about the qualifying setup. It was a little tight qualifying and we’re still going to adjust on it a little bit. We’re still not happy, but it definitely makes it a lot easier when you’re out here like I said with most of these Busch regulars. We feel real happy. This is the best car that we brought. If we could qualify in the top-10 and race in the top-10 or 15 all day we’d be pretty happy with that considering our season.” YOU HAVE HAD A TOUGH START TO THE 2006 SEASON. HOW IMPORTANT IS IT TO HAVE SOMETHING POSITIVE HAPPEN TO YOU? “Confidence is everything in this sport and that’s what we need to build back up right now. We know we have the people and the stuff that we need to at least run like we did today. We need to concentrate and stay on top of it and we’ll be like this every weekend.” WHAT WOULD BE A GOOD DAY FOR YOU ON SATURDAY? “Like I said, if we could repeat that qualifying I would be happy, as far as stacked up against the other guys. Time-wise, I think we’re going to pick up a lot and maybe some of those other guys felt really good about their lap and we could be a little better. All season long we’ve been saying that this is a track that we want to prove a point at and I think we’re on track for doing that.”

BURNEY LAMAR, No. 77 DOLLAR GENERAL CHEVROLET: “We’re real happy. We’re just happy to be a lot better than we were last weekend. We knew we would be. We unloaded the car and Gene [Nead] and the boys had the No. 77 Dollar General car really good off the trailer and that helps a lot, as far as confidence goes. I feel it was a real good day for us all day today in practice. I think we have a good qualifying piece as well as a good race piece so we’re looking forward to tomorrow.” WHAT WOULD BE A GOOD DAY FOR YOU IN THE RACE? “We always want to win. A good, solid top-10 run would be a good day for us tomorrow. I think we have a good enough car to be in the top-15 for sure. I think top-10 would be good for us.”

DANNY O’QUINN JR., No. 50 STONEBRIDGE LIFE FORD: “We’re really good. We didn’t get a good run in the second practice but we run really good in the Raybestos Rookie practice. If we had backed that up, that would have put us there top-five or six in the final practice so we’re definitely happy. We’ve been really good since we unloaded here. This is one of my favorite tracks that I’ve ran on so far. Hopefully we’ll get things turned around this week. Everything seems to be going smooth right now. We’ve got a few things that we’re trying to work on to hopefully make the car better. Everybody is really pumped up right now after the way practice went.” PRIOR TO TODAY, DID YOU HAVE ANY LAPS HERE? “Actually, I ran the ARCA race here last year. That made a big difference, having some extra laps on the track before I got here. I think it showed. Like our first few laps on the racetrack we jumped right up there and got going. It definitely was a big addition to the day, just having a little experience here.”

TODD KLUEVER, No. 06 3M FORD: “We’re okay, but I think we could always be a little bit better. Our 3M car is pretty decent. Driver error on our bonsai run and didn’t really get anywhere near what it’s capable of out of it. I think it will run somewhere in the upper 50s or low 60s which will put us somewhere in the top-10. I think it will be decent.” IS THIS PLACE A LOT DIFFERENT IN THE BUSCH CAR VERSUS THE TRUCK? “Yes, a lot. In the trucks you don’t use near as much brakes because they slow down a lot and the trucks make more downforce so they feel like they’re a lot more like a slot car and these slide around more on the track. I remember with the trucks you couldn’t get into the corner near as hard to get them to get off the corner. If you drove them in real hard they would just bind up in the center of the corner. You could never get them to rotate enough and get off the corner right and the Busch cars is not that way. It seems like you can drive them in pretty far and they’ll still turn. It actually took me a lot of the first practice session to figure out the difference because I came out just so used to how I drove it in the truck here last year and it drives quite a bit different.”