Brickyard 400 - Rookie Post-Race Quotes

Where the Raybestos Rookies finished at Indy:
K. kahne (4th)
B. Vickers (29th)
S. Wimmer (32nd)
B. Gaughan (35th)
S. Riggs (37th)

UNOFFICIAL Raybestos Rookie points after Indy:
K. Kahne 250
B. Vickers 185
S. Wimmer 183
B. Gaughan 168
S. Riggs 161

SCOTT RIGGS, #10 VALVOLINE CHEVROLET: "Everybody started trying to jockey around, trying to get an edge on the guy in front of them. I saw the 2 car get turned and into the wall and I checked up a little bit and turned down low. I think the 22 just didn't see it and he just drilled me from behind and turned us around. We slid around and here come so more cars and just piled into us. The number 2 car got turned around. Somebody got into him and he got turned up into the wall. I checked up a little bit and the 22 car got me from behind. I spun around and hit the inside wall and then back up into the track and here come some more cars to cream into us. That's the kind of luck we've been having. We've not been qualifying where we want to but the last two weeks we've worked our way up to the front and made great adjustments. We stopped a couple times early in the race and got some serious adjustments done to the car. I know that everybody says that they were good but every time you dropped the green flag I was passing four or five cars every time. That was feeling pretty good to me I wish we could see it to the checkered flag." THE CAR WAS COMING TO YOU. "We were really tight at the beginning of the race and we felt like it was going to be, but we had a lot of adjustability in the car. We could really free it up pretty quick. We took advantage of that very first caution and came in and made an adjustment and then we pitted two more times and made two more pretty big adjustments and man, the car was right there. That last stop we didn't make any adjustments and felt really good about it. The guys were doing a great job on pit road for us. That's the way our luck has been going. The whole seemed to close up for us and things seem to happen and can't get to the checkered flag. I saw the 16 pull down and get really low on the frontstretch. I don't know if he was trying to miss it or if he was just trying to get by someone. The biggest thing was that I saw the 2 car get turned up into the wall and when he did that I checked up a little bit and turn down low and the car behind me didn't check up and just turned us around and killed our day." WERE THE RESTARTS PRETTY CLEAN ALL DAY OR COULD YOU SEE THIS COMING? "There was a lot of brake checks up there. Everybody is trying to get a run on the guy in front of you and doing all kind of things to get an edge getting into the first corner. We were just trying to take our time. We had a good enough car that we could take our time and wait until things got through the first corner or two and then start making our way. When I saw the 2 car get turned into the wall, I was just trying to be careful and make sure that we didn't do anything stupid and push anybody into a wreck and instead somebody pushed me into the wreck."

BRENDAN GAUGHAN, #77 JASPER ENGINES AND TRANSMISSIONS DODGE: "I'm OK. Thanks to NASCAR and the SAFER walls. They still hurt when you hit 'em but it does take some impact out. I feel bad for the Jasper guys. We're at the Brickyard, their home track. We had our first Penske chassis. Shane Wilson [crew chief] made a great call to give us two tires and get us up there. Kahne came up there with all that metal sticking out of the edge of it and just left rear tired us and gave us a flat right before we could do anything. We got lucky to come out OK. Thanks to the rest of the field for missing me as I came back across the track with no steering." IT LOOKED LIKE A HARD HIT. "It didn't hurt. Like I said, with all the safety stuff that NASCAR has done recently and if you use that stuff correctly, it all works pretty well. I've had some of the harder hits in NASCAR and you always walk away when you end up working out, going to the gym and using the stuff correctly. I feel bad for the boys. That was our first Penske chassis. The car just came by us and it doesn't look very good so thanks to Kasey for ruining our racecar and just getting impatient." YOU HAD A PRETTY GOOD CAR TODAY. "The car was getting better. We were a little loose for a few laps. Shane and the guys made an adjustment and got it to where it was just fantastic. We passed about six guys and we were faster than guys but this is just a tough place to pass on. We made the call of the day: two tires. I passed a couple of guys on the restart and we were quick, man. We were going to be fine and we bunched up with everybody. It was just impatience." WERE YOU SURPRISED HOW WELL THE CAR RAN WITH TWO TIRES? "We knew that we were a little free before. Two tires normally helps and we had just snugged it up and Shane made a track bar adjustment and two tires and I said 'You know, I think that might not be bad.' We only had about three laps on it but we were fast enough to stay up there."

KASEY KAHNE IN THE #9 DODGE DEALERS/UAW DODGE WAS THE RAYBESTOS ROOKIE OF THE RACE. Notes: Kahne finished fourth, his seventh top-five and eighth top-10 finish of the 2004 season. Even more impressive was the fact that Kahne rallied from TWO laps down to post the good finish. He took Raybestos Rookie of the Race honors for the 10th time this season. A Raybestos® Rookie has now finished in the top-five in each of the last FOUR consecutive Brickyard 400 races: Kurt Busch (fifth in 2001), Ryan Newman (fourth in 2002), and Jamie McMurray (third in 2003). No other Raybestos® Rookie driver has scored a top-five finish at Indianapolis. Busch was the first Raybestos® Rookie to score a top-five finish at the historic 2.5-mile speedway. Other Raybestos Rookies that have logged top-five finishes in the Brickyard 400:
1996: Johnny Benson, eighth
1997: Mike Skinner, ninth
1999: Tony Stewart, seventh
2000: Scott Pruett, 10th
2001: Kurt Busch, fifth
2002: Ryan Newman, fourth
2002: Jimmie Johnson, ninth
2003: Jamie McMurray, third

KAHNE: "I think we probably had the best car here. This thing was awesome early in the race. We were coming through the field and just blew a left front and got into the wall and destroyed the left side of the car. We had to fix it and went a lap down and we still ran in the top-five which is pretty good." DOES THIS RUN MEAN EVEN MORE CONSIDERING YOUR OPEN WHEEL BACKGROUND? "To run top-five here our first time here, that's a great finish. You wonder what could have been if we didn't have that front tire." DID YOU THINK YOUR DAY WAS DOOMED WHEN YOU HIT THE FENCE EARLY IN THE RACE? "I thought it was over with. It about ticks you off. I just had a tire go down on the left front and I was trying to stay out there. I thought I just had stuff on my tires and then I was like 'Man, it might be a tire' so I started hitting my brakes at the same time I pushed up and hit the wall and I tore the right side up." IT SEEMED LIKE THERE WERE A LOT OF CUT TIRES TODAY. WHAT WAS THE PROBLEM? "I don't know if there was debris out there or what. Ours was popped; it had a leak so we hit something. I don't know what it was. I was kind of going all over the racetrack there trying to pass a couple of cars there so it could have been anything." YOU SCORED A TOP-FIVE IN YOUR FIRST RACE HERE. "I'm happy. It's a great finish for our Dodge Dealers Dodge. I had a left front go down early in the race and hit the wall and I destroyed the right side of the car. We had to keep working on it to try to get it freed up to get back to the top-five. Without that, who knows what would have happened?" TO RUN SO WELL AFTER THAT IS QUITE AN ACCOMPLISHMENT. "It is. I've always wanted to race here in Indy. It's an unbelievable facility and to run top-five here the first time, it's pretty neat." WHAT ARE YOUR THOUGHTS ABOUT THE TRACK AFTER YOUR FIRST RACE HERE? "I really like this place. I enjoyed it and it was a lot of fun to race here all day. The groove moved around. You could go top or bottom. Evernham Engines ran awesome and it felt good. We just needed to be a little bit better through the center of the corner." DO YOU NEED EXPERIENCE TO DO WELL HERE? "I think the experience definitely helps. Having a great racecar like we did today, that helps, too. Tommy Baldwin [crew chief] and whole Dodge Dealers team gave me a great car." HOW BIG OF A BOOST IS IT TO COME HERE AND MAKE A BIG GAIN IN THE POINTS? "I'm not sure how big of gain we made in the points, but hopefully it's pretty good. It's a good boost. We had a great, great car. Our car was really fast. Tommy and guys made great changes, great pit stops to get us back in there after we had the left front go down. We kind of destroyed the left side of the car." HOW MUCH ANXIETY WAS THERE KNOWING THAT THE RACE WAS GOING INTO "OVERTIME"? "There was a little bit. Junior got a real good start there at the end and I tried to hold him off on the outside through one and two and it actually worked out pretty good for us. We got a good boost down the backstretch and ended up fourth. It was a lot of fun. I've always wanted to race here and to finally get to race here and run in the top-five was a great day for us. I wish we wouldn't have had that flat left front and went a lap down and kind of killed the right side of the car. But that's part of racing and we still got a top-five out of it. This is real big. I'm not sure what it did for us but I know we probably gained some points today and this definitely boosts us up in the points for the end of the year. We've got to stay on it. We've got to get in that top-10." YOU FINISHED IN THE TOP-FIVE IN YOUR FIRST RACE HERE. "It was an up and down day. At one point when my left front went down, we had the best car on the track. It was unbelievable how fast our car was. It tore the right side up when I hit the wall and went a lap down. We got that back and Tommy and guys made great pit stops and great calls to get us back to where we ended up. We were just too tight with that right front fender bashed in." YOU ACTUALLY SLAPPED THE RIGHT FRONT FENDER AFTER YOU GOT OUT OF THE CAR. "It means a lot. I've always wanted to race at Indianapolis and to get a top-five the first time here is really cool. Evernham Engines were awesome. That kind of brought that fender back to life, having a good engine under the hood. YOU JUST COULDN'T CATCH THOSE TOP THREE GUYS? "I was doing all I could. I had my hands full with Mark Martin. This is two weeks in a row that he was right in front of us. I think he may have had a problem there at the end. It was a great feeling to finish in the top-five here at Indianapolis."

TOMMY BALDWIN, CREW CHIEF, #9 DODGE DEALERS/UAW DODGE: "The car ran good all day. We just run over a piece of debris with the right front and hit the wall and cost us some valuable spots. We were moving on up. I think we were seventh at the time. This car ran good all day and we're just building momentum. We're doing what we need to do right now. A lot of really good race team guys did a really good job preparing this car back at the shop and we'll just continue moving forward." ANY IDEA WHY SO MANY TEAMS CUT TIRES TODAY? "Just a lot of debris and some guys were a little bit on the scary side of some camber stuff. It's real hard to get the car to turn here. We were fighting that yesterday and we had to back off on some things. We had a flat at the end of the race. The left rear tire was flat so we got lucky. Unfortunately the 6 and the 8 car didn't get lucky. They were two solid top 10 cars that ended up in the high 20s." DID YOUR TIRES LOOK GOOD ALL DAY? "Yeah, everything was good except for that piece of metal going through the right front tire and causing a problem [smiles]. We'll take another fourth place finish and we'll get it on in Watkins Glen." YOU GAINED POINTS IN THE RACE FOR THE TOP-10. "I think we're pretty close now. We're probably within 10, 20 points so we'll take it." HOW BIG WOULD THAT BIG FOR THIS TEAM TO RACE FOR THE CHAMPIONSHIP AT THE END OF THE SEASON? "It would be good. We're still not doing anything different: top-15s in qualifying and top-15s in the race and if we do better, we do better. Everything has been good so far. Watkins Glen is probably our last real true test and then we go to racetracks that we've been to already so I'm looking forward to that." HOW WAS THE TEST AT THE GLEN? "We had a real good test there. We're pretty psyched about there. We've just got to keep Kasey mentally fit and physically fit for that place. There is a lot of braking and that's been our weak point this year but we'll take this and hopefully get a top-15 at Watkins Glen and continue on to the rest of the races."

SCOTT WIMMER, #22 CATERPILLAR DODGE: YOU TOOK A HARD HIT BUT YOU ARE OK. "I'm fine. I'm sure glad that they've got the safe walls up here. I blew a tire getting down into one and when I did that I lost all my brakes and kind of went straight for the wall. We were trying to salvage a day out of it. We had a little problem on that restart and banged the left front fender up pretty good and thought we had it all fixed. We kept cutting left fronts but it seems like everybody was having a little problem. It looked like it was going to turn out all right and then it ended pretty poorly." WHAT HAPPENED ON THE RESTART EARLY IN THE RACE WHEN RIGGS WRECKED? "Everybody was checking up in front of us and we just got into everybody. It looked like somebody up in front of the 2 checked up and then somebody got into the 2. It was just one of those chain reaction deals. This track is so narrow that it's hard to get away from trouble. We all got piled up there and wrecked a bunch of good racecars." WERE YOU ABLE TO GET YOUR CAR BETTER AND BETTER TODAY? "Not after that, after we knocked the left front fender off we were really handling poorly. It was all right towards the end but I couldn't keep up with the lead pack at all. During the middle part of the race we felt really comfortable with it. Aero is so big here that when you damage the left front fender it just kills you."