MBNA 400: A Salute to Heroes - Rookie Qualifying Quotes

Note: Brian Vickers will start third in Sunday's race. He is joined in the top-five by Brendan Gaughan (fifth). The rest of the class: K.Kahne (12th), S. Wimmer (21st), S. Riggs (23rd) and J. Sauter (37th).

SCOTT RIGGS, #10 VALVOLINE CHEVROLET: "It was pretty good. We only got a chance to make two qualifying runs there in practice and the car was still just too tight. I just had to really wait on it a long time for it to really rotate good through the center of the corner so I could get back to full throttle. That just cost me time and momentum all the way down the straightaway. But I'm proud of all the guys. They did a great job. They gave us a chance to get some race mode under the car today in practice and everyone on the Valvoline Chevrolet is giving 110 percent for sure. I don't know where that time will wind up putting us but I know that it will definitely be better than we are, position-wise, in points. I hope we can get this qualifying in."

SCOTT WIMMER, #22 CATERPILLAR DODGE: "The car felt pretty good. It kind of hurt us a little just sitting there waiting. I don't think we had the oils up to temperature but it was a pretty good run for the Caterpillar car. We struggled real bad in practice and I was glad that we picked up. I think that will put us somewhere in the top-20." WHAT GOES THROUGH YOUR MIND DURING A BRIEF DELAY FOR RAIN? "It drives me nuts [laughs]. I think about all the wrong things. I was glad to get a good solid lap in there but we'll make the car better for the race and hopefully we don't have any rain delays." YOU'VE HAD SOME SUCCESS HERE AT DOVER SO YOU MUST BE LOOKING FORWARD TO SUNDAY'S RACE. "I am. We got here in practice and we were struggling pretty bad and we made the car a lot better. We've gotten a lot of speed out of this car in a very short time. Hopefully we get all qualifying in and that puts us in the top-20 and we get race practice on race setup." WERE YOU CONCERNED THAT QUALIFYING MIGHT BE RAINED OUT? "I thought that we had a car that could have qualified in the top-20 and that's about eight or nine spots better than we are in the points. Those eight or nine spots are hard to make up on the track anything that we can get in qualifying we'll take. We've got a little more left in the car. We've just got to work the bugs out and hopefully by Sunday we'll have that." IF YOU HAVE A GOOD CAR IN THE RACE, CAN YOU GET TO THE FRONT? "All the Busch races that I ran here I started way in the back and always made my way up to the front. It's really critical to have good pit stops and a car that handles good on the bottom and the top. I've been fortunate to have that in the Busch car here and hopefully we can get the same thing in the Cup car."

BRIAN VICKERS IN THE #25 GMAC CHEVROLET WAS THE TOP RAYBESTOS ROOKIE IN QUALIFYING AT DOVER. Note: Vickers will start third in Sunday race. He was one of two Raybestos Rookies that will start inside the top-five: Brendan Gaughan claimed the fifth starting position. "I wanted to be on the pole. I heard that .42 and I went harder the second time. It was definitely better in one and two and it just ran up the racetrack in three and four. What do you do? We made mostly race runs. They guys did a good job with the car." IS DOVER ONE OF YOUR BETTER TRACKS? "I've always loved this racetrack. I have a lot of fun here and it's a really cool, really fast racetrack. I guess you'd say that it's one of my type racetracks. I do enjoy this place but I like a lot of tracks, too." DO YOU HAVE TO HAVE A PERFECT LAP IN QUALIFYING TO WIN THE POLE? "There so many good cars out there to sit on the pole you have to have a perfect lap. We were one-hundredth of a second close to a perfect lap but not perfect. We'll get it. The guys did a good job. We focused mostly on race runs. I think Newman focused on qualifying runs and that probably hurt us some but hopefully it will pay off at the end of 400 miles on Sunday."

JOHNNY SAUTER, #30 AMERICA ONLINE CHEVROLET: "We started out loose when we got here and made a couple adjustments to try and make it better and ended up getting it too tight. The last half of practice we ended up trying to free it up and just could never get it back where it needed to be. Maybe I'm trying to drive it like my Busch car because my Busch car was awesome all day. This thing doesn't quite have the grip that the other car had."

KASEY KAHNE, #9 DODGE DEALERS/UAW DODGE: "It's going to be good. We're going to end up 11th or 12th. It's not quite as good as our teammate. Jeremy put a great of a lap down. The Dodge Dealers/UAW Dodge team did a good job. We're both hopefully starting in the top-15 and have a good race on Sunday." HOW TOUGH IS THIS PLACE IN A CUP CAR? "It's different. You definitely have to drive it different. I drove it the same way I drove my Busch car and ended up 11th. If I would have drove it more like you should a Cup car, more like Jeremy drove it, we might be better." HOW IS IT THAT SOMETIMES ONE TEAMMATE RUNS BETTER THAN THE OTHER? "It's two different race teams come race day. It's one big team throughout the week and building the racecars but in practice and on race day it's two different race teams. We've out qualified them plenty of times this year and they've out qualified us. You can't go the exact same time."

BRENDAN GAUGHAN, #77 JASPER ENGINES AND TRANSMISSIONS/KODAK DODGE: "These Jasper guys don't give up. That's what I love about us. No matter how bad, like last week at Charlotte, or how good it is, they never give up. That's what is great about having teammates. We weren't good when we unloaded and like I said the guys don't quit on this team. They don't give up on me and I don't give up on them. We work hard and when you work hard and believe in each other it will happen. We had an opportunity to go over to Ryan and Rusty and say 'Hey look. We're not working really good now. We got offline somewhere' and took both their deals and they helped us get up to speed and right before the end of practice we gained seven tenths. And right there we gained another six tenths or something. This is just great teamwork by three great teams and I'm just the lucky guy that turns the steering wheel because it stuck. I always like it when we've got the truck guys around. Steve Park qualified third and we ended up fifth. We definitely like it when the truck guys are here because they mean the world to me. To come down pit road with all the guys that mean a lot to me and see them all high-fiving, even the guys that I don't like in that series high-fiving. This is the Punisher car, the same Dodge that was the Punisher paint scheme at Bristol. It's kind of a concrete specialist car. For some reason it works pretty good on these concrete racetracks.