Daytona 500 - Rookie Qualifying Quotes

JAMIE MCMURRAY IN THE NO. 42 HAVOLINE DODGE WAS THE HIGHEST QUALIFYING RAYBESTOS® ROOKIE DURING TIME TRIALS FOR THE DAYTONA 500. MCMURRAY WAS 10TH OF THE 50 CARS THAT TOOK A TIME MONDAY AFTERNOON. "I think that's better than what we expected. I said a flat yesterday is what we would be happy with. I think the racetrack has picked up a little bit but they must have found a little bit today and made the car better. I think that's a time that if we do get in trouble in the 125 it might stand up. I think what helped us helped everybody. A lot of guys picked up a lot that we were trying to figure out what they did and I think just the fact that the wind changed directions today from where it was when we practiced the other day. When we tested here, that's more of what we tested with. I guess that's what helped." HOW IMPORTANT IS IT TO BE THE HIGHEST QUALIFYING RAYBESTOS ROOKIE FOR THE DAYTONA 500? 'That's pretty cool. I didn't think we were going to be all that good. I guess the guys did a good job. It's pretty neat to be in the Daytona 500 as the fastest Raybestos® Rookie. Of all the races, this is probably the coolest one to do that." IS IT A RELIEF TO RUN THIS WELL? "Yeah, it's a relief just because if we get in wreck in the 125 we have something to go off of now and to definitely be in the show. That's pretty neat."

GREG BIFFLE, NO. 16 GRAINGER FORD, QUALIFIED 21ST. ARE YOU HAPPY WITH THAT LAP? "I am. Normally you always say restrictor plate racing is all about the team and the car and the engine and the body and the drives can't do anything about getting any speed out of it. I don't know if it's the wind or what. I look at the flag and I might feel a little bit better but I lost about 250 rpm going across turns three and four. I'm not sure why, if I got the wheel turned down too much or got the car kind of bouncing around a little bit with the steering wheel. I think I cost myself at least a tenth over there if not more. That's pretty disappointing to me as a driver. The guys got the Grainger Ford going really good and I think I cut a little speed off it coming off of four over there. I'm not sure why. I just don't have enough restrictor plate time under my belt yet but I feel pretty good about the lap." ARE YOU SURPRISED THAT YOU RAN SO WELL? "Yes and no. I figured we're going to be about right there. I thought some other cars would pick up some more than they had. NASCAR changed the rule that helped us, that got us speed. They are going to check us through the height sticks every car after qualifying and we probably beat 10 cars right there because we didn't have the trick springs that got the car to sag down and stay down and got those quick laps. We have legal stuff so that's probably what picked us up and didn't pick up some of these other cars that should have been faster than us."

TONY RAINES, NO. 74 STAFF AMERICA CHEVROLET, QUALIFIED 22ND. ARE YOU DISAPPOINTED WITH THE LAP? "Sure we're disappointed a little bit. I think going earlier with the wind blowing a little bit harder might have been a little bit of a help. We didn't quite see the rpm that we were looking for but that's our fastest lap of the past two months. I don't think you can be unhappy about that. The team keeps chipping away at it. We're getting better and better. This is our first year down here and our first try at the Daytona 500. It's not as good as we'd like but it's a whole lot better than we tested."

CASEY MEARS, NO. 41 TARGET DODGE, QUALIFIED 23RD. "I know it's been kind of drawn out but it's nice to finally get it over with. You do the same thing you do every time you go around this place. The guys got a little more speed out of it for qualifying which was good. We told ourselves that if we got a flat or a .90 we would be pretty happy. We ended up there and the other two guys (his teammates) ended up in the .70s so we'd like to be where they are. We're happy. We're solid in, as far as getting a qualifying spot for the 125. I'm looking forward to that."

JACK SPRAGUE, NO. 0 NETZERO PONTIAC, QUALIFIED 28TH. "After the day we had a couple of days ago, I'll live with that. That's what we ran here testing. I really thought the car should run a .60 or .70, knowing that we were coming back here with more horsepower. But we got a little messed up a couple of days ago. We ran a .07 testing and it was legit, like I've been saying we weren't cheating, we just backed it up, but it should have ran faster. Due to t4e circumstances that we were messing around with two days ago and the stuff that we had wrong we didn't know, we never got to find the extra speed and we basically wasted a whole day of practice. To back up what we ran testing, I don't think that's a terrible thing but I wish it would have run at least an .80 and I think the car is capable of running a .70 or .60 had we been able to tune on it in the right condition and not messed up." DID CHANGE IN WEATHER CONDITONS HELP YOU? "I think it's going to help everybody. You saw Craven run faster, like four tenths faster, Kenseth picked up a half a second, and we picked up four tenths. I think the reason being is the wind is blowing at your tail down the back and the grandstands are blocking it from hitting you head on in the front. It's going to help everybody, not just us. I'm praying that gets us in the top-20. It may not; it probably won't but if it does then I can breathe a little easier."

LARRY FOYT, NO. 14 HARRAH'S DODGE, QUALIFIED 33RD. "I'm glad that's over. The rain and having to wait made me a little nervous. I'm glad we picked up. We came down here and we hadn't been able to reach what we even tested at. We were about a couple of tenths off. I'm glad we picked up. The guys did a good job on the changes and the car drove great. That's about all we have right now so we'll probably have to race our way in. I think we can do it." HOW BIG OF A BOOST IS A GOOD QUALIFYING RUN FOR YOUR TEAM? "For us that's good. You can tell that everybody is excited. This is guys putting in a lot of labor and a lot of long hours out of the goodness of their heart because they want to see this race team do well. It's neat and great for all of us. Being a smaller team we're a real tight knit team. It's good to come down here and not have any problems and beat a lot of good cars."

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