Gatorade 125s - Rookie Post-Race Quotes

JAMIE MCMURRAY IN THE NO. 42 HAVOLINE DODGE WAS THE HIGHEST FINISHING RAYBESTOS® ROOKIE IN THE FIRST GATORADE TWIN 125.

"We had a really good car. We tried some stuff today, Sterling (Marlin) and I both did. The car was really tight in traffic. We made some adjustments on the pit stop and it got better but still it was extremely tight."

HOW CONCERNED WERE YOU WHEN YOU WERE OUTSIDE THE TOP-15?

"I wasn't really worried about that. I was more worried about just catching the pack in front of me. I wasn't even thinking about the top-15. We were pretty much guaranteed in with our time. We were just trying to pass as many cars as we could.

THE LAST FEW LAPS OF THE RACE LOOKED FRANTIC. "When we caught that pack in front of us, I was hoping that we were going to have enough momentum that we could get by them. Nobody wanted to play with me today (laughs). Ricky Craven helped me out at the beginning. Everyone cuts everyone off, you know. I went over and practiced my Busch car this morning and those guys are quite that aggressive yet. I have a lot to learn. I didn't wreck it and we have our same car for the 500 so hopefully we'll learn something today and take it into Sunday."

DID YOU HAVE ANY IDEA WHAT MOVES TO MAKE AT THE END OF THE RACE? "I tried to get in a line that looked like had the most momentum. Our car was so tight that anytime you had to get out of the gas a little bit you loose so much momentum. I tried to keep that up all day."

CASEY MEARS, NO. 41 TARGET DODGE, FINISHED 15TH:

"We really thought we had a good car after yesterday morning but the temperatures are quite a bit higher now than yesterday morning. It affected the handling of the car quite a bit. You run harder when you are in a big pack like that and the car slides around a lot more so the handling went off a lot worse than I thought it was going to. After that first pit stop the car came back and was a little bit better and I was able to come back there at the end. I didn't get any drafting help at all. That's the hard thing about being a rookie. You have to qualify to make the 500 and there isn't one guy out there who wants to help you. We were sitting pretty good there at the beginning and Kenny Wallace pulled out and made it three wide and everybody dumped me all the way to the back. It's a fight just to make it in the Daytona 500 being a rookie like this. You saw that Sterling was up there all day long and it was all Jamie and I could do to make it in the show. I'm real happy for Jamie, too with that car not having any provisionals. I'm real happy for them. We got the whole team in the 500 and now we can work off some strategy to get together and run up front."

GREG BIFFLE, NO.16 GRAINER FORD, FINISHED 14TH:

"We were going to be fourth and I tried that move with (Jeff) Gordon on the outside at the end and it just didn't work out. The outside hadn't worked for me that much that well so far; I should have stayed at the bottom. That's the way it goes."

THE LAST LAPS OF THE RACE LOOKED CRAZY. "Oh gosh, it was. That's the most times I've been sideways and everything else. I tell what, it was pretty hairy at times."

WHAT DID YOU LEARN THAT YOU CAN TRANSFER INTO THE DAYTONA 500? "I learned a little bit about who your drafting partners are and what lane really to be in and who you can race around and who you can't. There are some guys who will ram you in the right front fender because they don't want to pass you on the bottom and run you off into the white line."

HOW FRUSTRATING IS IT TO FIGURE OUT WHO TO DRAFT WITH? "It is frustrating. My strong point was I had a teammate behind me and I didn't know that his car wasn't handing in the top groove and he wasn't that good up there. I assumed that he was going to go with me. I think we could have made a run at the leaders, definitely, with the 88, the 40, the 99, and me and the 24. The outside row would have been tough."

LARRY FOYT, NO. 14 HARRAH'S DODGE, FINISHED 22ND: "We were getting up there right where we wanted to be, just wanted to ride up there and then we started getting tight. Some guys were really helping me. Jeff Burton was helping me but I was getting so tight that I think I was holding him up and got caught in the middle a little bit. I think we still would have had a chance but we ran out of gas. We just missed on fuel mileage. That hurts us pretty bad. Mike (Skinner) and I just kind of got together and rode around but there wasn't much we could do, already pretty far out of it unless something big was to happen. It's a bummer because it looked like we were going to make it there for a little bit. It's a shame. We're about a half-mile too short."

JACK SPRAGUE IN THE NO. 0 NETZERO PONTIAC WAS THE HIGHEST FINISHING RAYBESTOS® ROOKIE IN THE SECOND GATORADE 125 AT DAYTONA. HE FINISHED 13TH AND WILL START HIS FIRST DAYTONA 500 ON SUNDAY.

YOU ARE IN THE DAYTONA 500. HOW DO YOU FEEL? "Whew, like the whole world fell off my shoulders, man. The guys did a great job in the pits. We had a decent car, just a little tight off but man I needed to stay out of trouble after what happened a few days ago and I needed to try and get in the top-15. The pit stop was awesome. They guys did a great job. I passed a lot of cars coming in to the pits. Not by design, I was smoking all four tires but I didn't tell Dennis (Conner, his crew chief). I didn't want him to change all four. I just wanted him to change the outside ones and hope that the left side ones lasted and they did. We gained a lot of it there and it seemed like the farther it went out the cars were losing the handle worse than I was. I was just tight off but I think we'll have a good car for the 500."

DID YOU HAVE A HARD TIME GETTING SOMEONE TO DRAFT WITH YOU? "You are going to have a hard time. It's not going to be any different when I'm not a rookie and I see that stripe, even if the guys is King Kong, best in the world, he's going to go through the same stuff that I'm going through so I'm not going to give him a break either."

TONY RAINES, NO. 74 STAFF AMERICA CHEVROLET, FINISHED 17TH: "It was a hard day of racing. Right now, it's more nerve racking waiting to find out if we get in on time. All my sources are saying that we will but until I hear it I'm pretty nervous. I learned a lot out there. The car is a little tight. I was helping Mark and I was getting him up there and we were going through the field and he was towing me pretty good. All of a sudden, I don't know how, somebody got underneath me, put me in the middle and that's not the place to draft and back to the back I went. It wasn't my best day."

HOW DOES IT FEEL TO QUALIFY FOR THE DAYTONA 500? "It feels good because that was the goal. We're in the race. Now I want to do better than what I did today. We finished 17th out of 25 cars and I learned a lot. Maybe Sunday with the race being a little longer we can pace ourselves and be a little smarter. I think for the most part it was pretty good out there. I didn't have a lot of help today but I didn't expect any so like I say we're trying to play it conservative. We'll race ourselves into the end of that race and we won't let anybody in if we can keep from it."

DID YOU HAVE A SMOOTH PIT STOP? "We didn't have any trouble but I was just following the guy in front of me. There was a lot of smoke. I figured somebody was going to wreck so I just tried to make no mistakes."

DID YOU HAVE ANY CLOSE CALLS? "No, not really, just three wide a couple of times for a while in the middle of the corners the car was a little uneasy but I never lifted. It's musical chairs: sometimes you're in and sometimes you're out."

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