Bashas’ Supermarkets 200 - Rookie Post-Race Quotes

Where the Raybestos Rookies finished at Phoenix:
Montoya 21st
Ambrose 22nd
Krisiloff 23rd
Keselowski 32nd
Ragan 35th

UNOFFICIAL Raybestos Rookie standings (top-five):
Ambrose 88
Montoya 86
Ragan 83
Krisiloff 73
Keselowski 53

DAVID RAGAN, No. 6 DISCOUNT TIRE FORD: “It all started off as a bad night for us. We had a fuel pump problem, a line was loose or something, so we never should have been back there where we were at. Our Discount Tire Ford was pretty decent after that. The 5 and whoever got in the wall there coming out of 4 there and I went low and the 5 came right across the track before I could get up any. I ran into him, busted the radiator. A brake line or something must have been cut because coming back through I’m sorry I got into the back of the 24 of Casey. I’d never do anything like that under caution. I hate I got in with him but we were going to rebound for a decent night. We’ll get it fixed and try to get back out and make a few more laps.”

JUAN PABLO MONTOYA IN THE No. 42 TEXACO/HAVOLINE DODGE WAS THE RAYBESTOS ROOKIE OF THE RACE IN TONIGHT’S RACE AT PHOENIX. “I was completely clear and Steven [Wallace] just tried to out brake myself, out brake himself and wrecked everybody like he always does. And he just keeps doing it. Every time he’s around somebody there’s always a wreck. You know, lucky enough I didn’t lose the car there and he did. That is funny. It’s been a couple of races where it’s been like that, that I should have been the guy getting spin and I’m not. At least I’m happy about that.” WERE YOU LUCKY TO FINISH? “Yeah, finished, scored more points, learned a little bit, I guess.” HOW WAS YOUR CAR BEFORE THAT? “It was really bad to start with. But after like 20 laps it got going and it was fast. It was as fast as the leaders but the first few laps it was horrible.”

MARCOS AMBROSE, No. 59 KINGSFORD/BUSH’S FORD: “We finished. We put ourselves in good position there throughout the race and we should have made the most of it, you know. We just didn’t have the car speed. It was just a long night fighting it. I guess we’re making headway. We qualified well and ran in the top-15 there for a little while. We’re chipping away.” COMMENT ON RACING MONTOYA FOR POSITION AT THE END OF THE RACE. “It would have been more enjoyable if it had been for first and second, not 21st and 22nd [smiles].”

KYLE KRISILOFF, No. 14 CLABBER GIRL FORD: “We came out here and we struggled a bunch in practice and we made some changes. I think we got the car better. Still, we’re not where we want to be but the car is in one piece and it’s a lead lap finish. At the end there we came in and put on some used tires and we thought we could get by a couple of guys. I was actually surprised we weren’t better because the second to last run I was behind Denny Hamlin and them for a while and we were actually running fairly decent. It’s encouraging that we at least finished the race on the lead lap and hopefully we’ll just keep getting better. It looks like it’s getting better.” IT LOOKED LIKE YOU WERE ABLE TOP RACE HARD TONIGHT. “We’ve been taking steps in a bunch of different directions. Some weeks we’ll get the car pretty decent in qualifying and it’ll be really bad in the race. This week we weren’t very good in qualifying but it was a better racecar. I think all of us are kind of learning what we need to do to make these things race good. We haven’t really gotten it to where we can do both; qualify good and race good. We’re working on it, we’re learning every week and hopefully in a few weeks we’ll be a lot better.”

BRAD KESELOWSKI, No. 23 AMERICAN CAPITAL/OKLAHOMA CENTENNIAL CHEVROLET: “That’s not a decent finish. We weren’t really strong all weekend. We had a little bit of mechanical trouble. We got it fixed and got back out and got a finish out of it. We’ll try to do better next time. I’m not very happy with the finish but that’s the way it goes.”