Aaron's 312 - Rookie Final Practice Quotes

Raybestos Rookie Mark McFarland was posted the eighth best overall speed during the final practice session for the Aaron’s 312 at Talladega.

The rest of the class: Tracy Hines (18th), Burney Lamar (22nd), John Andretti (26th), Todd Kluever (33rd) and Danny O’Quinn Jr. (38th).

MARK MCFARLAND, No. 88 NAVY CHEVROLET: “The car is real good, a lot better than Daytona. We were able to pass people and that’s kind of how we judge how good our car is: how well and how easy we can pass people. It’s passing pretty good. We went to the back a couple of times and came to the front. We’re excited and looking forward to the race.” DALE EARNHARDT JR. HAS BEEN VERY GOOD AT THE RESTRICTOR PLATE TRACKS. DOES THAT PUT PRESSURE ON YOU GUYS TO PERFORM WELL? “The knowledge that he brings as an owner definitely helps. He knows some of the little tricks and stuff that we can use over here always helps. It’s one thing for him to tell me what’s going on out there and how to do it, but he’s told me too that until I get out there and do it myself that I’ll never really fully understand it. It’s just getting laps and experience out there drafting and that’s what we tried to do out there today is run as many laps as we can and as much drafting as we can to get ready for Saturday.” IS THIS THE SAME CAR YOU RACED AT DAYTONA? “Yes. It’s been to the wind tunnel probably twice since we ran it at Daytona. We fine-tuned it. At Daytona we were there to just qualify. Now we have a few points to fall back on so we can concentrate more on the race and get it to handle and think about other things than just speed.” IS THIS PLACE A LOT DIFFERENT THAN DAYTONA? “Yeah it is. It’s really wide open and a lot more room. I’m having more fun here than I did at Daytona, that’s for sure. Daytona is real treacherous when you’re running three-wide and hopefully you don’t go four-wide. But here, four-wide is not that bad. You just hope you don’t go five-wide [laughs]. It’s a lot wider and a lot more forgiving, not that it’s any easier but it’s a lot wider and a lot more room out there to maneuver.” IS THIS TYPE RACING THE BIGGEST CHALLENGE YOU’VE HAD? “Definitely. The bigger tracks, the two-mile and these big superspeedways is definitely the challenge. We get to Bristol and we run real good there and we’ll run good next weekend at Richmond. I can’t wait to get to some tracks where people will maybe be watching us.” DOES IT JUST BOIL DOWN TO PEOPLE DRAFTING WITH YOU? “That’s about all it is. Out there today you can have a fast car but get hung out and go right straight to the back. It’s a lot of key people that will draft with you and luckily the 8 car is running this race so we have Martin that could help us and we have our ties with Richard Childress Racing. Hopefully some of those guys will give us a hand.”

DANNY O’QUINN JR., No. 50 STONEBRIDGE LIFE FORD: “We’re definitely happy with the car. We went out there and made a few laps in the draft and made sure the car was good. It drove really well. We made some mock-up runs and ran really good. We’re probably one of the faster cars here. I could pretty much put it anywhere I wanted to in the draft. We feel like we have a really good starting point. We took more of where we ended Daytona to start with here and I’ve been happy with the car. I think we got a good shot of, who knows, maybe even getting the pole. I think we’ve got a good enough car to do that. The guys have worked really hard and got me a good piece to come back here. I’ve still got a lot to learn when it comes to drafting but I definitely think I learned a lot from Daytona that I can apply here.”

BURNEY LAMAR, No. 77 DOLLAR GENERAL CHEVROLET: YOU RAN SECOND AT DAYTONA SO YOU MUST HAVE BEEN LOOKING FORWARD TO THIS RACE FOR A LONG TIME. “We did that and most importantly we have our confidence here. At Daytona and the rest of the places we didn’t really know what to expect. The thing about it is that KHI builds great restrictor plate cars and I think we’re going to be pretty good. We went out in practice and actually had a chance to get the car good, not the driver good, so that was cool. I think we’re handling pretty good right now.” WHAT IS THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN TALLADEGA AND DAYTONA? “It’s a little bit easier here because you go through the tri oval a little bit slower. At Daytona it’s like a sharper transition. But that’s about it. It’s a bigger track so instead of being three-wide, we’ll be four and five-wide. That really doesn’t make a difference. We have a good spotter, Bob Jeffreys. He’s been around for years and years. We’ll be fine in that department and we’re looking forward to the race.”