Virginia 500 - Rookie Qualifying Quotes

CASEY MEARS IN THE NO. 41 TARGET DODGE, QUALIFIED 22ND:

"We ran a .39 and that's the fastest that I've ever ran here. We didn't run that fast in testing and I didn't run that fast in practice and to be honest, we were real worried that we were going to run like a .50 or .60 because this place is just tough. I've never been to a track that's this hard to get a hold of, especially in qualifying runs going out on cold tires. The things don't work the whole time. If you had two more laps you'd be better. We're happy with it. To get inside the .30s was more than we expected, I think, after practice. It's not a blazing fast time but we're happy with it." HOW BIG OF AN ADVANTAGE WAS IT TO COME AND TEST HERE? "Huge, absolutely huge. To be honest, when I first came here, my first few laps around this place, I was absolutely horrible. From the first time I set foot on this track until now, we've made a lot of progress and I'm happy with what I've learned."

JAMIE MCMURRAY, NO. 42 HAVOLINE DODGE, QUALIFIED 11TH. MCMURRAY TOOK TOP QUALIFYING RAYBESTOS® ROOKIE HONORS FOR THE FOURTH TIME THIS SEASON.

"That was pretty ugly. I don't know how we ran that. At most racetracks you couldn't be that far out of the groove and still run a good lap. We changed some stuff and the car was better but we had no clue that we would run that good. We were horrible in practice and didn't test here. In the rookie meeting, every other Raybestos® Rookie tested here except for me. I was a little bit nervous after that but it was a pretty good lap for us. YOU PICKED UP ALMOST TWO TENTHS. WHERE DID THE SPEED COME FROM? "I don't know. Like I said we made some changes and that was one of the things that I talked with Casey (Mears) about earlier is that when we made changes we couldn't really tell where we picked it up at or where the car wasn't good where we needed to help it at. You're going so slow here you can't really tell. Wow, I don't know where we picked it up at." WHAT IS SUCH A CHALLENGE HERE? "The whole place is a challenge. For as slow of a place as it is, it's very extremely technical. Whether you drive it in and get on the brakes hard and then off of them or if you drag your foot (on the brake pedal), there are so many things that happen here. If we could get a top-10 I'd be thrilled."

GREG BIFFLE IN NO. 16 GRAINGER FORD, QUALIFIED 20TH:

HOW WAS THAT LAP? "Not very good. We couldn't get the power down it. We didn't really have that much trouble in practice getting forward grip. That time I put the power down coming up off the corner and just spun the tires and couldn't get going. I thought I could have a really good lap if I could have got the power down. That will put us in the top-25, it looks like. That would be good enough." HOW HARD IS IT TO RUN A WINSTON CUP CAR HERE? It's pretty tough. It's one of the tougher places that we come to. It's real demanding. I came here and tested and it seems to be harder than Bristol. Here's it just hitting your marks and being right on every single lap and not making mistakes. It seems to be a very tough place." DID THE WEATHER THROW YOU A CURVE? "I think it has a little bit. We tested here and it was warmer than that but we weren't near as good testing as we are now so we're pretty happy."

©Copyright 2003 Race 2 Win