Pepsi 400 - Rookie Qualifying Quotes

JAMIE MCMURRAY, NO. 42 HAVOLINE DODGE:

YOU SLOWED DOWN FROM PRACTICE. "Typically you pick up at a speedway when it comes time to qualify with the oils and everything. We were third in practice or fifth in practice. I thought we had run quite a bit better than that but I'm hoping that everybody slowed down." HAS THIS CAR RAN AT A RESTRICTOR PLATE RACE BEFORE THIS WEEKEND? "This is the car that Casey (Mears, his teammate) wrecked at Daytona in 'Happy Hour.' They blew a right front tire and hit the wall. The guys went back and put a body on it and did a really good job. We didn't test this car and it's probably the best speedway car of our three. The guys at the shop have done a really good job with the speedway program." IS THE TRACK GREASIER IN JULY THAN IN FEBRURAY? "My Busch car is bad. I mean, they said time wise it's pretty good but as far as the way it drives, it doesn't feel very good. It felt a lot better in February. They told me that last year. It's just so hot down here but it was hot here in February, I thought. When we were here in February I thought it was pretty hot. It probably does get a little greasier, like everywhere else, but they make you race at night, so I think that helps a lot. I would hate to race here in the daytime." WAS THE HEAT A FACTOR IN WHY YOU SLOWED DOWN? "It's cooler now than it was this afternoon. We all had very legitimate timed laps. A lot of guys will get help or whatever but our laps were very legitimate. I guess just the wind dying down makes such a big difference. You can't feel it in the car. I thought I ran a pretty good lap. The wind makes a huge difference." WHAT HAVE YOU LEARNED IN THE TWO PREVIOUS PLATE RACES THAT WILL HELP YOU SATURDAY NIGHT? "We struggled here in Daytona. We finished 31st but we ran 18th to 25th, somewhere in there. We just weren't very good. At Talladega, our car was really good, I thought and got took out in that big wreck. So we didn't learn anything there. People have told me that handling is so much more important here than it is at Talladega, especially in the July race." HOW HARD IS IT TO GET THE CAR DRIVING WELL HERE IN JULY? "I think pretty hard because I haven't got it yet (laughs). We just fight tight. You fight tight and then you get behind somebody and you are really tight. My Busch car, we got it freed up to where it would turn and then when I get by myself I'm spinning out loose. You've got to find a happy medium." DOES THE DRIVER PLAY A BIGGER ROLE HERE THAN AT TALLADGA? "I don't know. I think the car is more important. You have to be a good driver anywhere, but probably driver makes a bigger difference here. It just takes the whole package here."

CASEY MEARS, NO. 41 TARGET DODGE:

"It just says a lot for the guys back at the shop and Ernie Elliott engines. We came here out of the box and ran real good. I was disappointed with the time. I was thinking 'Oh no, what are we going to have' but fortunately now that I see all of the these guys slowing down hopefully it's still going to put us in a good spot here for the race. Anytime you come out of the box and run good it's a positive. It gets us fired up, gets us excited, and everybody ov er at Target/Chip Ganassi Racing is excited about this weekend. I am too. Daytona, last time, at the beginning of the year it rained out and we didn't get to run the whole thing. I'm looking forward to running here under the lights. It should be a lot of fun." HAS RUNNING THE ARCA RACES AND BUSCH RACES GIVEN YOU CONFIDENCE? "It's just given me more seat time and that's really what we're trying to do. I'm fortunate that I'm with a team; Chip and Felix (Sabates) are giving me a lot of time. They are making this stuff happen. They've giving me a Busch ride, they're getting me this ARCA ride, and it's been helping a lot. It's been helping a ton just getting more comfortable with these kinds of cars. A lot of times I have to hit myself and go 'Man, you haven't driven these cars for very long', meaning stock cars. That's what we are doing. We are getting seat time under my belt and it's getting better all the time." ARE YOU HAPPY WITH THAT LAP? "When I first saw the time I wasn't happy with it at all. We lost two tenths from practice. Fortunately there have been only a few guys that have increased; most everybody has lost. I'll tell you at the end if I'm happy with it or not. This is one of those places where, as a driver, you don't really have a lot of control over what you do. And when the time goes down and you know you didn't have any control of it, it just upsets you right off the bat. Considering that everybody is slowing down, I think we still have a good shot at a good qualifying effort, whether it's top-10 or top-15. If we're in the top half of the field here, that's saying a lot." HOW BIG OF AN ADJUSTMENT FOR A DRIVER IS IT GOING FROM QUALIFYING TO RACE SETUP? "Well, definitely, when you pull tape off the front end of these cars, you loose your front end quite a bit and as tightly as you run in these packs here at Daytona, it's so tight you have very little clean air to make your car work properly. Any time you pull tape off the front of the nose it just hurts you. You can't stand it; you just get tighter and tighter. That's definitely something that they're going to have to work around but we will definitely have to change our setup just a little bit to compensate for that." YOUR CAR RAN VERY HOT DURING THE DAYTONA 500. WHAT CAN YOU DO TO PREVENT THAT? "I think our guys back at the shop worked really hard on the ductwork on these cars. They've done a lot in the wind tunnels as far as trying to feed it cleaner and cooler air. That's all we can really do. Maybe run a little bit less tape on it at the beginning of the race to start and then be ready to put some on if we need it. But that's really all you can do."

LARRY FOYT, NO. 14 HARRAH'S DODGE:

"I'm racing at Daytona! It's really exciting for me. It was so heartbreaking, probably the worst day of my life, when we didn't make the race here. We really wanted to make it this time. Ray Evernham gave us a really good motor for here and we worked on our car and everything worked out so we're going to be in the race. I was nervous because everybody was slowing down and we weren't as great in practice as I wanted to be. I think we are plenty good to be in now." HOW REWARDING IS IT TO BE IN THE RACE BECAUSE YOU HAD A GOOD CAR HERE FOR THE 500. "That's true, we did have a good race car here and we ran out of gas in the 125. Like I said, just heartbreaking. I hated it for Harrah's because that is the biggest race of the year and the Pepsi 400 is a really big race, too. I'm glad to be in this race for Harrah's. Everybody knows the struggle we're fighting. It's a tough one but you've got to take these little victories I think and really celebrate them." HOW REWARDING IS IT FOR YOUR RACE TEAM TO QUALIFY WELL HERE AT DAYTONA? "That was just qualifying but that's the biggest battle so far lately. Once we get in the races we learn a lot but you've got to qualify to be in the race. I think everybody will be really happy. I mean, they should be because they are really working hard. We've only got about 13 guys that work on the race car. They've been killing themselves lately so I hope that this is at least a little rewarding for them." WERE YOU ABLE TO GO TO THE WIND TUNNEL? We were able to go to the wind tunnel and learn a few things there. We learned that we were pretty far off (laughs). We were able to gain on that a little bit and then we went to Talladega last week and shook down and learned a couple of things to come here with. I think everything together got us in the show. WHAT ARE YOUR GOALS FOR THE RACE SATURDAY NIGHT? "Anything can happen at these places. First and foremost is miss the big one. I'd like to get our best finish of the year and I don't think that's something that's impossible. I think that's really possible, to run in the draft all day and miss the big one and be there at the end. I'm a little bit worried about pit stops. We lost one of our tire carriers so we have someone filling in who hasn't done it in about a year. That could be tough. You just don't want to loose the draft here. If we could at least stay with the draft or the second pack draft all day I'd be happy."

GREG BIFFLE, NO. 16 GRAINGER FORD:

"The guys worked really hard. We're working so hard on all the other racetracks; we can't spend enough time and effort on the restrictor plate program to make it what it needs to be. We're not sure if the early or late draw hurt us. The guys that got the pole late but that's a little bit faster than we ran in practice so it's kind of hard to say. We know our car drafts pretty well so we're looking forward to it." ARE YOU SURPRISED HOW MANY PEOPLE DIDN'T PICK UP FROM PRACTICE TO QUALIFYING? "Yes I am. To me, and maybe it's because I just got out of the car, but the air feels different than it was earlier when the guys weren't going fast. I don't know if it was just me or what. It seemed like the air was real dense and heavy and humid. A little bit of it is starting to go away. These tracks are so aerodynamic sensitive after the air turns heavier for a period of time it will slow the car down versus making the engine run better. All kinds of weird things can happen here."

JACK SPRAGUE, NO. 0 NETZERO PONTIAC:

"I'm telling you, I was worried. It's kind of amazing because the NetZero Pontiac qualified 28th here in February and 20th at Talladega. Granted, it got tore up pretty bad on the second lap at Talladega but went back to the tunnel after it was fixed it and it was actually a tick better than it was at Talladega so I thought I'd be in great shape. We unloaded today and I was having a heck of a time. The car was all over the place, darting real bad. We only got three runs and the last run it drove good but we had no time to work on it. The guys are working their guts out. I've got a great motor from Hendrick Motorsports. You've got to look at it like this: this field is six tenths. It's never been that before. It's been a second or more; it's a six tenth field from first to 36th. It's unbelievable. I can't even believe it. We're six-tenths off the pole and we're 35th and that's unheard of. That's just doesn't happen here. The guys are working hard and we are really trying to get this deal headed in the right direction. It's just difficult and to be six tenths of a second off and be 35th at Daytona again is unbelievable. The car drove good and I actually thought I was a little faster than what I ran because the RPMs were up a little bit and I thought 'Well, good, we've got a little something here.' But again we're one of the few that picked up any time qualifying. I'd say 75 percent of them lost time and we picked up two-and-a-half tenths. The guys did a great job and Tony (Furr, his crew chief) made some great calls and we are in without using a provisional."

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