Dodge/Save Mart 350 - Rookie Post-Race Quotes

SCOTT RIGGS, #10 VALVOLINE CHEVROLET: "It's been a learning experience all weekend this weekend. The Valvoline Chevrolet was better than the driver this weekend. I have a big learning curve in front of me trying to get this road course experience. Racing here is like trying to tip toe a dinosaur through a glass maze. I was trying to get a pretty good, pretty hard lap there in qualifying and I spun it around and cost us a good starting position. Then we were just trying to stay out of the way and some of those guys who were a little faster once they pitted and came out with tires. I got a little loose off turn four and when I did that the 8 car just decided to push me on around. It got pretty loose. I guess he didn't have time to check up or didn't car to check up. It got us around and got us a lap down so then I was really trying to stay out of the way and just get some laps in and learn as much as I can. We broke a rear end gear. We just wanted to run all day and not get off course and not break anything and we sort of ruined all those goals. We broke a rear end gear and got off course with a little help there. We'll keep on learning and chalk it up to experience and maybe one day pay everybody back for all their help and hard work."

BRIAN VICKERS, #25 GMAC CHEVROLET: NOTES: Vickers finished 22nd and took Raybestos Rookie of the Race honors for the fourth time this season. WHAT WAS TONY STEWART SO UPSET ABOUT? "To be honest with you, I have no idea why he is upset. He hit me earlier in the race and then he wrecked us in turn 11 and that's why we spun there. Then after the race he came over to the car and then it just went from there." YOU WERE STILL SITTING IN THE CAR? "I was still strapped in the car with my helmet off." WAS HE YELLING AT YOU? "At first it was a discussion about why he hit me and I thought it was kind of funny. I was trying to figure out why he was coming to me, mad at me, when he hit me. I was a little confused there and I thought it was kind of funny and that's when he came in the car after me." WHAT DID NASCAR SAY ABOUT ALL THAT? "You'll have to ask them for that. That's a question that you will have to ask NASCAR." WHAT PREVENTED IT FROM GETTING OUT OF HAND? "My team grabbed him off and pulled him off of me. He came after me in the car. He reached for me and knocked the breath out of me. Here's the deal: it was not a fist and he did not hit me in the face. He hit the armrest and he reached in the car and he grabbed me in the chest and when he did he hit me. It was kind of open-palm, grabbed my shirt. It was hard enough to knock the breath out of me and then he tried to pull me out of the car and that's when my guys grabbed me." DID STEWART APOLOGIZE WHEN YOU GUYS MET WITH NASCAR AFTER THE RACE? "He said that I laughed about the situation and when I laughed it pissed him off and that's why he did it. I said 'Yeah, I did laugh. I thought it was funny that you were mad at me because you wrecked me.' I thought it was funny. I'm not going to lie to him and say that I didn't smile about it. That's how I was raised. This is not a situation that I'm going to make a big deal out of. Somebody is upset at me because they wrecked me and I thought it was funny. He was always behind me. I never passed him, I was never behind him." HAVE YOU EVER HAD A SIMILAR PHYSICAL SITUATION? "I would say that that incident is pretty uncommon. I mean, yeah, I've had feuds with guys and I've had problems with them but we worked them out and I've definitely never had anybody get mad at me for hitting me. That just kind of baffled me." YOU DON'T HAVE A JIMMY SPENCER TYPE REPUTATION FOR BEING AGGRESSIVE. "I've never had any kind of a problem like this before." HAVE YOU EVER HAD A PROBLEM WITH TONY BEFORE TODAY? "No, actually Tony I get along. Well, we used to [laughs]. We used to get along fine, actually, I guess as well as can be." ARE YOU OPTIMISTIC THAT THINGS WILL SORT THEMSELVES OUT? "I'm sure NASCAR will do the right thing. I'm sure they will handle the situation. They'll take care of it. If this happened at a restaurant, it would be my problem to handle. This happened at their racetrack and they're running the deal. It's their problem to handle and I'm sure they'll do the right thing. Right now, I'm looking forward to next weekend. What happens down the road happens. Am I happy with the guy right now? No, not really but I'm not going to make a big deal out of it. That's NASCAR's job to penalize people for things like that, not mine. Whatever NASCAR decides is their decision and I' support them in whatever they do." ARE YOU SURPRISED HOW MUCH CONTACT THERE WAS IN THE RACE? "I was. It was a pretty eventful race, my first on a road course. It was very surprising at how much contact there was but I guess a road course is a combination of high-speed tracks where you've got the high-speed corners and he short tracks where you have the low speed corners. You're going to get a little bit of all of it and we did today."

BRENDAN GAUGHAN, #77 KODAK/JASPER DODGE: "Once again, I'm a little too nice. I was the fastest Raybestos Rookie out there, too. I was a little too nice. I let guys push me around too much. I went off the course once, as far as I'm concerned, once. I blew turn one and went flying off the track. I got beat off the course into four, beat off the course in 1. I just got beat everywhere. It upsets me a little bit but we were the fastest Raybestos Rookie. I am a road racer and we will come back in the end at Watkins Glen and we're going to show them at Kodak's hometown. I'm going to be a little meaner next time on a road course."

Unofficial Raybestos Rookie Standings after Sonoma:
K. Kahne (finished 31st) 204
B. Vickers (finished 22nd) 156
S. Wimmer (finished 25th) 156
B. Gaughan (finished 26th) 145
S. Riggs (finished 42nd) 135
J. Sauter 117