Sam’s Town 300 - Rookie Qualifying Quotes

Where the Raybestos Rookie qualified at Las Vegas:
Ambrose 14th
Coleman 27th
Keselowski 31st
Montoya 35th
Krisiloff 39th
Ragan 41st
Diercks 42nd

MARCOS AMBROSE IN THE No. 59 KINGSFORD/BUSH’S FORD WAS THE TOP RAYBESTOS ROOKIE QUALIFIER AT LAS VEGAS. “I’ll take that. After qualifying I was literally spooked and after watching all those guys crash this afternoon didn’t help matters. I under drove it but we’ve got a great racecar and we’ll probably start in the middle of the field and have a strong day. I’m worried about the temperature because as the track got hot, it got really slick out there. I know other guys did too. We’ve just got to think about it overnight and try to make some adjustments for that heat. We ran this morning and we’re really happy with the car and we do all that practice and we’re really unhappy with the handling on the vehicle so we basically went back to how we started and it’s going to be fine. We’re fine in these conditions where it’s nice and cool and the track is cold but as the track heats up we’ve got to do a bit of homework overnight.”

BRAD COLEMAN, No. 18 Z-LINE DESIGNS CHEVROLET: “We picked up a lot since qualifying. It’s dark and cold out here so there’s a lot more grip, but man, you don’t realize how fast this track is until you do a qualifying run. This is my first time to ever do a qualifying run here so I think we did good. We’ll have a good race car.” YOU QUALIFY AT NIGHT AND RACE IN THE HEAT OF THE DAY ON SATURDAY. “It’s going to be a big difference. There’s going to be a lot less grip out there. It’s going to be hot and greasy and I think the car’s going to be real tight, which is good because it was really loose this morning in practice. I’m interested to find out what it’ll be like. I’m excited.”

BRAD KESELOWSKI, No. 23 OKLAHOMA CENTENNIAL CHEVROLET: “There’s a lot of Cup guys here so even if I run 100 percent my odds of beating them are about two percent [laughs]. I felt like I ran a really good lap. I’m very happy with the way the car drove and hopefully we’ll get in the race and I can make something happen with it then. I think the car is going to drive 100 percent different tomorrow in the heat of the day. I’m really confused at why we’re qualifying at night. I expect it to be a lot slicker and a lot less grip during the day tomorrow. I think handling will be more important tomorrow than it is right now. Right now with it being no sun and cool and all that it’s all about power and I think that’s where we got hurt quite a bit here. But come race time we’ll get out there and wheel ‘er and see what we can do.”

JUAN PABLO MONTOYA, No. 42 TEXACO/HAVOLINE DODGE: “Same thing, it hasn’t changed. It just doesn’t have any grip.” YOU QUALIFIED AT NIGHT AND WILL RACE TOMORROW AFTERNOON. WILL THAT BE A BIG ADJUSTMENT? “If the car is bad at night, it’ll be worse tomorrow so we’ll see.”

KYLE KRISILOFF, No. 14 CLABBER GIRL FORD: “We wrecked a car right at the end of practice so we had no time in this car. We were guaranteed in the show so we just made two laps. I don’t know if it’ll drive good or not in the race but it didn’t feel that great. We’ll work on it. We’ve got a lot of pit stops to make tomorrow. We’ll make a lot of adjustments and hopefully we can get a nice, solid top-20 finish.” WHAT HAPPENED IN PRACTICE? “We worked all day on race runs and then we packed it full of fuel and it just got really loose. The left side tire that they made, it’s probably the worst tire I’ve ever been on. We had a really good car, our first car and I was trying to get all I could and it just wasn’t there. It’s just unfortunate because when we came to the test Goodyear really had a good tire.”

DAVID RAGAN, No. 6 AMERICA’S TIRE FORD: “I wasn’t going to wreck another car but super, super loose. It’s as bad as having a flat right rear tire, just crazy loose. We were going to be back in the back anyway so with a backup car and no practice, no need to take a risk on wrecking something again. We’ve got plenty of laps in the race and we’ll work on it some and never give up.”

JUSTIN DIERCKS, No. 70 FORETRAVEL/BIOMET CHEVROLET: “We never made a qualifying run today. We knew we were in the show and just worked on race setup. I’m glad we didn’t have to worry about qualifying because it wasn’t very good. We’re learning a lot but we’ve got a long way to go to get ourselves competitive. It’s pretty tough for a team that’s not in Charlotte. We’ve only got seven or eight races under our belts. We’ll keep digging. We’re going to keep coming to the races and work this thing out. It’s kind of frustrating. You’ll have your good days and bad days.”