Samsung/Radio Shack 500 - Rookie Post-Race Quotes

JAMIE MCMURRAY IN THE NO.42 HAVOLINE DODGE WAS THE RAYBESTOS® ROOKIE OF THE RACE AT TEXAS. MCMURRAY FINISHED 10TH, HIS SECOND TOP-10 OF THE 2003 WINSTON CUP SEASON AND THE FOURTH OF HIS WINSTON CUP CAREER.

"Track position was big and we had a bad pit stop at the end. They said a lug nut fell off or something. We went back to like 15th and we came back to finish 10th. We probably had a little bit better car than that. I think we had about a fifth place car today. I'm pretty happy with it. We struggled at Atlanta so to be able to run that well at Texas, that's good. That's the same car that we finished fifth with a Rockingham so more than likely we'll be taking it a lot more (laughs)."

YOU HAD A STRETCH OF SOME BAD RACES IN RECENT WEEKS. ARE YOU BACK ON TRACK NOW? "Our qualifying is still a little weak I think but we're racing well and it seems like we can adjust on the car. Really, today, we didn't change anything. I think a half-pound out of the front tires is all we changed all day. That's pretty good when you can end 'Happy Hour' and have a car that good. Everything kind of seems to be going our way. Once again Sterling and I ended up with pretty much the same setup. I think that's good so we can feed off each other."

ONCE YOU GOT BACK IN TRAFFIC HOW HARD WAS IT TO PASS? "The second groove worked at the beginning. I was amazed; I could pass cars out there. But longer in the race I kept moving up and track position with those guys running so much faster up there you just couldn't do anything on the top side. You get so tight here. It's just so hard to pass. You just have to try and set the guy up and fortunately for us we weren't very good at the beginning but we were real good at the end and it's easier for me to pass at the end."

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

"You are going to have that stuff to happen. It happens to the best of you. We worked all day, kind of started back toward the back, and worked all day and finally worked our way up. We got the track position we needed and stayed there until the last stop. We had a little trouble; had a lug nut to come off and I guess when that happens there isn't anything that you can do. We're still a young team but I think that we are pretty well competitive."

HAVE BIG OF A JOB TO YOU HAVE TO KEEP YOUR CREW PUMPED UP? "They are going to feel bad or they wouldn't be human. The biggest thing, just like I told them, is that this one is over with. We're going to Talladega this week. It's time to forget this one and go to Talladega and we'll worry about what we do down there."

WERE YOU SURPRISED HOW WELL YOU RAN TODAY? "I thought the car was pretty good in practice, I really did. We were pretty good in 'Happy Hour', real consistent. We just weren't as fast as some of the other guys, kind of like it was today. We were real consistent on the long run. We could actually run just about what the leaders could at the end of a run and that's what really helped us out today. But it's just so hard to pass. You would loose so much time. Track position just kind of killed us there at the end."

DID YOU GO INTO THE RACE THINKING THAT YOU WOULD HAVE TO DO SOMETHING DIFFERENT ON PIT STRATEGY TO GET TRACK POSITION? "We were looking at that before the race. That's the only way you could get caught up here. It's so just so hard to pass here that you've got to do something different or oddball or whatever to get caught up. We were kind of toward the back on the lead lap that one time there and we pitted and got gas and we were able to run a little bit longer than some of the other guys were. That's what got us the track position and we got where we needed to be and then we kind of lost it there at the end. Jamie and everybody did a great job all week. We just had that on bad stop that kind of hurt the whole day."

IS THIS A STEP IN THE RIGHT DIRECTION FOR THE TEAM? "I think so. I don't know that we've really been that far off track or whatever. Atlanta we were junk so we came here and brought a different car and it seemed to pay off for us. We changed the setup around a little bit. We changed everything we did from there. I think we are on track. At Bristol, we had a good car and got wrecked and at Darlington we got in the middle of a wreck on the fifth lap. I don't know if you can do much about stuff like that. I think we've been on track the whole time. We just have to build our consistency up kind of like what we have this week."

LARRY FOYT, NO. 14 HARRAH'S DODGE, FINISHED 30TH:

"We had our own excitement all day. We just fought tight all day and then in the middle of the race the shifter fell off so I was in high gear. It was killing us on restarts just having high gear so we came in and unfortunately we lost a couple of laps but we fixed it so I could have my gear selector back. With that big wreck off of two, I think in all the smoke and stuff Sterling and I kind of got together and it tore the left side of the car up. After that we were just trying to survive and hanging on. Not a terrible day but not a great day."

YOU QUALIFIED FOR TH RACE ON YOUR SPEED AND WERE RUNNING AT THE FINISH. IS THIS A STEP IN THE RIGHT DIRECTION FOR YOUR TEAM? "I guess. We keep getting laps and we keep learning. We keep learning a lot and I think that's what we've got to do."

JACK SPRAGUE, NO. 0 NETZERO PONTIAC, FINISHED 22ND:

"The car wasn't perfect. It wasn't great but it was better than where we finished. It should have been on the lead lap. We just had a rough pit stop and I was real tight off all day and they tried to get me loosened up and man, he made me sideways then and I couldn't drive it. I lost a lap that stretch there and then pretty much held my own the rest of the day. The NetZero Pontiac wasn't bad. It was probably one of the best driving cars that I've had so far this year and it wasn't great. Baby steps, man. We're working on it and we'll get there. Every week is important. I'm down. The team's down. What do you have to do to go fast? I figured the trucks out instantly, Dennis (Connor, his crew chief) and myself and the Busch car came along rather quickly and this is a son of a gun. This car here, these Cup cars, man, all these guys are good. I haven't figured it out yet, I can tell you that, but when I do we'll be all right."

GREG BIFFLE, NO. 16 GRAINGER FORD, FINISHED 28TH:

"I'm feeling good. It seems like these things keep going wrong, simple things. You go in the grass maybe to avoid an accident. The 1 car is spinning off of turn four, one of the four times he spun out and I guess it tore the bottom of the sheet metal loose or something and they couldn't get it fixed the first time so we had to stop under green and fix it right. We just tried to put tape on it the first time and going 200 miles per hour I don't think tape is going to hold a fender in. We stopped under green and put some screws in it and fixed it and we were done for the rest of the day, being that many laps down."

BEFORE ALL THAT, HOW GOOD WAS YOUR RACE CAR? "It was fair. I had a top-15 car, I'm pretty confident of that. We could have finished 12th or 13th, 14th, 15th, somewhere in there. I thought we would be able to stay on the lead lap but once the valence got shoved up we weren't really able to fix it right, that pretty much hurt us right there."

CASEY MEARS, NO. 41 TARGET DODGE, FINISHED 27TH:

"We ran out of gas about 10 laps earlier than we thought that we were going to and that put us two laps down. And then we pitted again and the caution came out. It seems like it happens every weekend, I don't know why. We got three laps down there. We ran good and had a good car things just didn't work out for us."

HOW CRITICAL IS TRACK POSITION HERE? "Huge. You can be two, three, four tenths faster than somebody and not pass them because you loose so much of your front grip in the corner you are riding nose to tail. Until this place gets a second groove it's going to be tough to pass."

WHAT DID YOU LEARN TODAY? "You learn something from every race with the car and I do. It was good to get to run all the laps today. This place is working in, as far as the second groove goes. It was getting better and better. On the restarts I could really pass a lot of guys up high so it's getting better. As of right now, it's a tough place to pass because you loose your nose so bad."

UNOFFICIAL Raybestos Rookie standings after Texas:

Jamie McMurray       73
Greg Biffle          68
Casey Mears          65
Jack Sprague         60
Tony Raines          51
Larry Foyt           37
Hideo Fukuyama        7

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