RAYBESTOS® ROOKIE CONTENDER ADVANCE MATERIAL FOR THE STATER BROS. 300 NASCAR NATIONWIDE SERIES RACE AT AUTO CLUB SPEEDWAY, FEBRUARY 22, 2008.

Bryan Clauson was the top Raybestos Rookie in last week’s race at Daytona, claiming a sixth-place finish, his best effort in six Nationwide Series starts. Clauson holds a six-point lead (16-10) over Dario Franchitti in the Raybestos Rookie standings. The Stater Bros. 300 will be Clauson’s first start at Auto Club Speedway.

BRYAN CLAUSON, No. 41 ENERGIZER DODGE: YOU HAD A GREAT RUN IN DAYTONA. “It was really good for us and really good to kind of kick off the year. We’re really excited about this weekend out here in California with Energizer on the car. We’re really excited about it and hopefully we can keep some of the momentum from last week, roll it into this week and have another good run.” THE FIRST SCHEDULED PRACTICE TODAY WAS RAINED OUT. HOW BIG OF A FACTOR IS A LACK OF PRACTICE TIME HERE THIS WEEKEND? “It kind of depends on how much they limit it. Right now it still looks like we’re going to get a couple of hours so we should be in good shape. If it got down to a deal where we only got an hour or 45 minutes or something it would definitely hurt us a little bit. Just never seeing the place we’d have to kind of learn and get up to speed and try to tune on the car all in a short time. It would make it really tough on us but I think we’ve got a really good baseline setup from last year. Hopefully the car will be pretty close. We had a really good test out in Vegas with the same car and same package so I think we should be pretty good from the get-go.” IS THIS THE FIRST TIME YOU’VE SEEN THIS PLACE? “First time I’ve ever seen the place. We walked in yesterday, came in for tech and watched the trucks a little bit but I had never seen it besides on TV.” WHAT WOULD BE A GOOD FINISH FOR YOU IN THE RACE? “Single digits. Single digits again. That’s kind of our goal. Our goal going into Daytona was single digits and we were able to do it so if we can come out of here with another top-10 and finish in the single digits it would be another great week for us.”