Dodge/Save Mart 350 - Rookie Qualifying Quotes

TONY RAINES, NO. 74 BACE MOTORSPORTS CHEVROLET:

"It wasn't bad. We picked up a lot of time, but I messed up two corners pretty bad so I'm kind of thinking that we could have run a little faster. I don't know if that will hold up to get us in the top-36. Hopefully it will and we can work on the race setup. You just never know. Some guys will mess up, some will pick up. Hopefully it will work out for us."

JAMIE MCMURRAY IN THE NO. 42 HAVOLINE DODGE WAS THE HIGHEST QUALIFYING RAYBESTOS® ROOKIE AT SONOMA. MCMURRAY HAS BEEN THE TOP QUALIFYING ROOKIE IN FIVE RACES THIS SEASON.

"I didn't feel like I had a very good lap there. One lap of qualifying at a place like this is tough. I don't think I paid enough attention there. I overdrove each corner, which they kept telling me not to do but it's real easy to do here. WHAT IS THE MOST DIFFICULT PART OF THE TRACK? "I don't know that there is anything hard about the racetrack, it's trying to get grip compared to what we tested here. It was a lot cooler and the track had a lot more grip. Casey (Mears) and I were talking about that earlier. It's just so much slicker right now than what it was when we tested. We're fighting that quite a bit." DOES THAT MEAN YOU HAVE TO START ALL OVER? "We needed to come here because I had never seen the racetrack, so we had to come test here. No. our test was still really important and we still had pretty much the same setup in it, it's just not good." WAS THE TRACK DIFFERENT FROM PRACTICE TO QUALIFYING? "No, my car was a lot better in qualifying. I just overdrove it. I thought we should have run in the 70's just then and it ended up like an 18-something. The track was good, I thought."

GREG BIFFLE, NO. 16 GRAINGER FORD:

"We figured we were going to pick up some because we never really had a good run with tires on it. But the problem with that is, then you go and do a run like that and you don't know what to expect. It turned a lot better than I expected but it didn't have as much rear grip as I expected. I got loose a couple of times out there and I kind of paid for it. It cost me probably three or four tenths which got me right down there where I needed to be, really. We're still learning. We're making mistakes every race as a new team and we'll probably continue to make them until we start doing stuff different. DO YOU HAVE TO BE AWARE AND NOT OVERDRIVE THE CAR HERE? "Yeah, and I probably left a little bit out there by not overdriving it because getting off the racetrack by overdriving it or skidding the tire you are going to suffer a lot worse than just maybe a little under driving it. I was conservative and got sideways on some of the slow, slow loose stuff. Overall, I'm pretty happy."

JACK SPRAGUE, NO. O NETZERO PONTIAC

"I picked up a tenth. I'm just glad I could repeat what I did in practice. The NetZero Pontiac was tight early and then we got it loose and right there it was pretty good. I just gingered it though the esses because that's where I've been having the most trouble and where I spun out earlier. There's probably four or five tenths left in the car but I can't take a chance. There's too much at stake and we just need the NetZero Pontiac in the show solid. The guys have worked their asses off so I needed to get it in good." AT LEAST YOU KNOW THIS CAR IS CAPABLE TO GOING FASTER. "Race stetup is going to be a lot different because even in practice it got so slippery it was hard to stay on the racetrack. Tony (Furr, his crew chief) has been here before. We'll work on it tomorrow and see what we can get. I'm proud of the guys and we'll see what that gets us." WHAT IS GOING TO BE THE KEY TO RUNNING WELL HERE SUNDAY? "Stay on the racetrack."

CASEY MEARS, NO. 41 TARGET DODGE:

"It didn't seem to be better. It felt really bad to me. The car just doesn't feel good and I don't know if it's just the way these cars are and I need to get used to it; that's probably some of it. It just feels horrible. It's not a direct relation to the car. Scott (Pruett) put in a pretty good lap so it's not the car. It's something that I have to learn. Anything else that I have ever driven works better. It's like I'm all over the place. It (the track) was pretty slick. We changed the setup for qualifying and I was quite a bit tighter that run. I knew I could get more out of it because we never got a clean lap. I just didn't know where we were at, time wise. I'm happy that we improved but I wanted to do better than that." DO YOU THINK LAPS ON THE TRACK WILL HELP SOLVE THE PROBLEM? "I don't know, to be honest. I don't feel real good about the car, either. I feel like I have a lot to learn, but I've had cars that drive good and cars that don't drive good and I haven't been on road courses before but we're just not right. It's not knocking the team at all because I don't really have good feedback to tell them how to make it right so it's a combination of everything but we're definitely not right with the car. I've got some more to learn."

DONNIE WINGO, CREW CHIEF, NO. 42 HAVOLINE DODGE:

"I thought we'd run a little better than that and Jamie did too. He said he messed up a little bit. We actually made several changes to the car before we went out to qualify and he said that the car was a lot better. I feel pretty good about it. We're going to be about mid-pack, I think." HOW BIG OF A FACTOR FOR MCMURRAY IS LAPS ON THE TRACK? "I think it's pretty big. The biggest thing is that we hadn't got a lot of laps since we've been here. We did come and test, which I think, has helped us a lot. But I think the more he runs I think the more comfortable he'll get. We're basically going to go back to the way that we tested out here and try to put a little more grip in the car because the track is a lot freer than what it was when we tested. DOES THE TRACK GET SLICKER HERE THROUGHOUT THE WEEKEND? "Most definitely. It's just like when we were out here testing. On a scale from one to 10, it's probably a nine slicker than what it was when we tested. We've had to change a good bit from the test. We're just trying to catch up on it a little bit. The car has just been a little bit free off. We're just trying to get a little bit more grip. WHAT CAN YOU DO TO HELP MCMURRAY NOT TO OVERDRIVE THE CORNERS HERE IN THE RACE? "I think that's something that the spotter is going to have to stay on him about pretty much the whole weekend and he kind of knows that. He's a pretty smart guy. He catches on pretty quick. When he sees how he's beating people or somebody is beating him in front of him or behind him or whatever, he catches on pretty quick."

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