Daytona 500 - Rookie Sunday Quotes

TIME TRIALS FOR THE DAYTONA 500 WERE RAINED OUT SUNDAY AFTERNOON. QUALIFYING HAS BEEN RESCHEDULED FOR MONDAY AFTERNOON AT 1:00 P.M.

TONY RAINES, NO. 74 STAFF AMERICA CHEVROLET. RAINES WAS THE QUICKEST RAYBESTOS® ROOKIE IN THE FINAL PRACTICE SESSION SATRUDAY AFTERNOON PRIOR TO FIRST ROUND QUALIFYING. HE WAS 10TH OVERALL WITH A SPEED OF 183.460 MPH.

"It's like the worst thing in the world to be at a racetrack while it's raining because you can't do anything but eat and we don't need to eat anymore. They've got a lot of days here to burn up or to use, I guess. It's supposed to rain all day tomorrow so we might be qualifying Tuesday and it's just cutting into some 'Happy Hour' practice and stuff for the 125. We'll bide our time and wait until it quits raining and they get the track dry. Everybody is kind of one the same schedule. It will definitely make it a quicker pace."

BECAUSE YOU ARE A NEW TEAM WITH NO OWNER POINTS, DOES THE RAIN MAKE YOU MORE NERVOUS THAN NORMAL? "I would be surprised that it would rain out qualifying all together because you still have to run the 125s so in that case it's better than a normal race weekend where you don't have the 125s. Qualifying could get rained out and we start by points from last year and we'd probably be going home. We're going to race the 125s there's no doubt. Whether we qualify or not before that remains to be seen. We're feeling pretty good. I'm pretty excited. It's just tough to be this bored with the rain. It's like we're running out of food and we have to make more trips to the grocery store."

DO YOU THINK QUALIFYING WILL BE ANY DIFFERENT DUE TO TODAY'S HEAVY RAIN? "I don't think it will be a whole lot different. It just depends if somehow we got in towards qualifying when the sun had set or later at night it might make a little bit of difference but I don't think it's going to be huge. If you are at one end of the qualifying order or the other, it might help you or hurt you. It just depends if they go early or late but their goal I'm sure is to get qualifying in so they can line up the 125s. They're doing a good job of making tech pretty fair to everybody. It's taking about two or three hours to get everybody through tech and they're going to impound them so we won't see it until we get to make our two laps under the clock. It's going to be interesting."

AS WELL AS YOU RAN IN PRACTICE ON SATURDAY, HAS IT BEEN HARD TO SIT AROUND AND WATCH IT RAIN ALL DAY? "It's wasn't too bad because we drew a late number so we had a little bit more time to get ready. We are like five from the end in qualifying order so you don't have to hustle. If you are early in the qualifying order you have to really work fast to get your stuff done, get into tech line, so we've been able to have a nice steady pace which is kind of helping to keep the nerves down. And with the rain it kind of makes everybody stand around and do nothing. Maybe it will work in our favor, who knows. You never can tell."

JACK SPRAGUE, NO. 0 NETZERO PONTIAC. SPRAGUE STOOD 34TH ON THE SPEED CHART FOLLOWING SATURDAY'S FINAL PRACTICE SESSION PRIOR TO QUALIFYING.

HOW HARD HAS IT BEEN TO SIT AND WATCH IT RAIN TODAY? "It doesn't really matter I don't think. We are going to qualify sooner or later. I don't think they are going to scrub qualifying and if they do they'll just start the qualifiers by points which put us in the back anyway. If we were sitting here with the NetZero Pontiac top five fastest it might be bothering me a little more but we're not. We tested good here but we can't back it up. We were legal when we tested and we had to do very little work on the car going through tech. We're about four tenths off and I don't know where it went. We'll just wait it out and qualify and do the best we can, run the 125 and try to get in this thing."

HOW FRUSTRATING HAS IT BEEN TO NOT BE AS FAST AS YOU WOULD LIKE? "It's frustrating because you can't figure out what's wrong, what went astray from testing. Like I said, we were legal; we went through the height sticks. I don't know where it's at. We painted the car and we're slower. It's a new team and we're trying to get everything going in the right direction and that's been difficult. We're building cars and that's been difficult. We come down here and are slower than what we tested and that's been difficult. We're certainly not giving up. I can race my way into this thing as well as anybody else can, hopefully."

ARE YOU LOOKING FORWARD TO GETTING QUALIYFING BEHIND YOU AND MOVING ON TO RACE SETUP? "I'm looking forward to getting this race over with. Hopefully, like I said, we make it. To get past here then it's qualifying and straight up normal stuff. It's a little bit different here. I'm just not going to get worked up about it. We're going to do the best that we can do and see what happens."

LARRY FOYT, NO. 14 HARRAH'S DODGE. FOYT'S BEST LAP IN PRACTICE SATURDAY AFTERNOON WAS 41ST OVERALL.

"I feel pretty relaxed. I know either way, just from practice and everything, I'm probably going to have to race my way in anyway and the way the drafting works whether you start in the front or the back I know there is going to be a cycle. The draft just works that way. It's really not too bad. I feel relaxed, I'm ready to do it but if we have to wait, we have to wait."

PRACTICE HAS NOT BEEN KIND TO YOU GUYS. DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA WHAT THE SITUATION IS? "Not really. You come down here and this isn't a place where you're going to make a huge gain like some of the tracks where maybe you can figure something out to make a huge gain. We're a little disappointed with the speed. We felt like when we tested that we knew what we had to do to come back and run better and we haven't even run the speed that we tested at. That's been disappointing but at the same time we put the car back the way we tested and ran the fastest and we'll just see what we got."

WILL YOU HAVE A COMPLETELY DIFFERENT SET OF CIRCUSMTANCES WHEN YOU DO QUALIFY? WILL THAT THROW YOU A CURVE? "The weather has been so cool here that I don't think it will be such a big change. It all depends on what that weather does. I had a pretty late draw, somewhere in the 30s, and I felt like that would help us out. Hopefully, the way it works out, that will still come into our favor. It's up to luck now."

REALISTICALLY, WHAT WOULD BE A GOOD QUALIFYING SPEED FOR YOU? "I don't know how much those big teams are going to pick up. Sometimes it's like magic the way they pick up speed in qualifying. If we could go out and run a 49-flat I'd be really, really happy. That's kind of being optimistic. If we could run somewhere around a 49.20 I'd be content."

GREG BIFFLE, NO. 16 GRAINGER FORD. BIFFLE WAS 39TH FOLLOWING SATURDAY'S FINAL PRACTICE SESSION PRIOR TO QUALIFYING.

HOW HARD IS IT TO SIT HERE AND WATCH IT RAIN WHEN YOU ARE SUPPOSED TO BE QUALIFYING FOR YOUR FIRST DAYTONA 500? "It's kind of disappointing although our car isn't quite all that fast. I guess I wouldn't be disappointed if they said we'll start all the cars in the race. It's too bad it's raining. We got what we got. We don't have that fast of a car but we're hoping it's fast enough to get in the 500. I wish we had two more days of testing with this car. We didn't get to test this car. If we had got to test this car it would have been a whole different ballgame for us now."

DOES THE RAIN MAKE THE SITUATION THAT YOU ARE IN WORSE? "A little bit, I think. It's kind of a hurry-up-and-wait. Then again, I know that what I'm going to do isn't going to affect the speed of the car so that's a reassuring fact that whenever qualifying gets going we're going to run the speed that we are going to run no matter what and everybody else is going to do the same. That being said, it's not really a lot of pressure. It's kind of a hurry up and wait game. I'd like to get it done with and get on to drafting practice and get the 125s in so we can get on to the 500."

WILL YOU BE GLAD TO MOVE ON TO DRAFTING PRACTICE? "Absolutely, I can't wait until those two laps are over with. It's a lot of anticipation with those two laps coming. Hopefully we can get a good break, maybe a little breeze with the wind down the backstretch and none down the front or something."

JAMIE MCMURRAY, NO. 42 HAVOLINE DODGE. MCMURRAY POSTED THE 23RD QUICKEST SPEED IN PRACTICE.

HOW DIFFICULT IS IT TO SIT HERE AND WATCH IT RAIN? "We are in a little it different situation than most of the Raybestos® Rookies because I won a race last year and I'm pretty sure that if it rains out that last year's previous winners will get in the race. They're telling me right now that if it does rain that we are still going to make the show but I want to go out and qualify and start the 125s and get to race our way in. I want the rain to go away just like everybody else. It's making it a little bit easier on me."

HOW DIFFERENT ARE THE CONDITIONS FOR QUALIFYING GOING TO BE ONCE QUALIFYING STARTS? "We won't change anything. As far as the setups go, you are doing all you can to get the car through the air and chassis and handling will not come into play. Sometimes when it rains and you are the first one to go out you're maybe a little scared but here there would be no reason to be."

HAS THE WAITING BEEN DIFFICULT TODAY? "Yeah, but a just got a motorhome so I'm getting to hang out in it. I've got a big plasma TV so it's not that bad right now. I came over here to the garage area just to hang out with my guys and see what's going on. I'm doing some stuff with Havoline and probably do some stuff with Yellow Transportation for the Busch deal later on so I'm kept pretty busy."

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