Banquet 400 presented by ConAgra Foods - Rookie Post-Race Quotes

Where the Raybestos Rookies finished at Kansas:
B. Gaughan, 10th
K. Kahne, 12th
B. Vickers, 19th
S. Riggs, 26th
S. Wimmer, 36th (overheating)

Unofficial Raybestos Rookie Points after Kansas:
Kahne, 293
Gaughan, 202
Vickers, 200
Wimmer, 198
Riggs, 190

RAYBESTOS® ROOKIE CONTENDER QUOTES FOR THE BANQUET 400 NASCAR NEXTEL CUP SERIES RACE AT KANSAS SPEEDWAY, OCTOBER 10, 2004.

SCOTT WIMMER, No. 22 CATERPILLAR DODGE: "A piece of brake rotor came through the front of the car. We took the radiator out and it ended our day. It's a shame. The Caterpillar guys did a great job. We had a good car. It was my own fault right at the beginning of the race getting us a lap down. We had a flat tire. I thought it was flat and I just didn't duck onto pit road. I probably should have used a little better judgment. But overall we were fast. We were running pretty decent. It looked like we had a chance maybe to get our lap back there but we picked up a piece of brake rotor. It went through the front grill, through all the screens, and it ended up going through the radiator and it ended our day." IS THIS THE CAR YOU ARE GOING TO TAKE TO CHARLOTTE? "I'm not sure. It ran real well here today. We were real happy with it in the race. We just needed a few more adjustments and I think we would have been pretty close. We've got a couple new cars that we built in the shop that are pretty good."

BRENDAN GAUGHAN IN THE No. 77 KODAK EASY SHARE/JASPER ENGINES AND TRANSMISSIONS DODGE WAS THE RAYBESTOS ROOKIE OF THE RACE AT KANSAS. Notes: Gaughan finished 10th, his third top-10 finish of the 2004 season. He took Raybestos Rookie of the Race honors for the third consecutive race and for the fifth time this season. A Raybestos® Rookie has now finished in the top-10 in all four races at Kansas Speedway: Kurt Busch (ninth) in 2001, Ryan Newman (second) and Jimmie Johnson (10th) in 2002, and Jamie McMurray (eighth) in 2003. GAUGHAN: "These are the tracks that I have always said that I liked, the mile-and-a-halves, just like my home track in Vegas. This was not the greatest racecar on the track. It probably wasn't even a 10th-place car. But we had great strategy and drove the wheels off the thing. I passed Matt Kenseth and Dale Jarrett there right before that one caution on the outside and kinda pinched a little bit and Baker came on the radio and Roger Penske said 'Nice move.' I said 'Hey, I'm not in the chase for the championship. They've got to be conservative I don't.' I'm trying to get top-10s and we squeaked to that by one spot." WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO YOU WHEN ROGER PENSKE COMES OVER THE RADIO AND TELLS YOU THAT YOU'VE DONE A GOOD JOB? "I said it early in the season: to be able to drive for Roger Penske and Doug Bawel is awesome. At the end of a race, when you can drive the wheels off the thing like that, that's awesome. Buddy Baker was screaming into the radio. You've got RP up there and he says 'Great job, kid' and Doug Bawel said the same thing. It does do something. I can only imagine what he used to say to Ricky Mears back in the old Indy 500 days. It is pretty cool to know that a guy with that much power in the sport and to have the level of integrity and everything else, that's neat to have that said about you." DOES THIS HELP YOUR CAUSE WITH SOME OF THE RECENT RUMORS GOING AROUND? "Rumors are just that, guys. That's something that you guys like to write about and something that I'd love to get more Kodak press for. So keep on writing 'em. That gets us in the papers." COMMENTS ON THE TOP THREE DRIVERS TODAY ARE NOT IN THE CHASE FOR THE NEXTEL CUP. "First of all, I want to say great job by the armed forces. Army, Air Force, National Guard, they were all represented in the top-three. You guys are making the big bally-hoo about the Chase for the Cup and it's supposed to. It's doesn't mean that they are going to win every race, guys. Doesn't mean that they are going to be top-10 every race. There's 43 teams out there and we're all racing. The Chase for the Nextel Cup guys are there, but that's what we've been saying all along. They're not the only ones there. It's good that it gets extra press. It's going to try to compete with the NFL at the end of this year and I think we all know why it's there. I think it's a great deal. But there's more than just those teams out there. Don't be surprised when somebody else wins a race. There are great race teams all throughout the field." COMMENTS ON TURN TWO AND ALL THE SPINS. "Goodyear does a great job with their engineering but I flat out hate this tire, man. I'd love to go back to last year's Goodyear tire. I was actually sponsored by Goodyear in the off road days with Walker Evans. They've been my sponsor and I did testing for 'em and I love Goodyear. But, man, I just hate the tire that we have now. It reminds me of that Goodyear that we had from 2000, 2001; the one that we used to call the 'Death-twitcher.' That's what it has. I went into turn two and one time in particular I was heading toward the wall. A lot of guys were doing and some guys get a better handle on it and some guys don't and we're a team that's still trying to get a handle on this tire. You've just got to drive it. Everybody else has to. You've got to drive it."

SHANE WILSON, CREW CHIEF, No. 77 KODAK EASY SHARE/JASPER ENGINES AND TRANSMISSIONS DODGE: "We are definitely on a roll. Everything is coming together. When we were getting beat, I think everyone got down a little bit in the middle of the year. We were able to turn it around and I feel lucky that we have. It's just a lot of good teamwork and everyone is sticking together. We're working hard trying to fix our problems and not point fingers. I think that we are getting there I think everyone is starting to believe now." ARE YOU GOING TO USE THIS CAR AT CHARLOTTE? "We're thinking about it. We have a lot of good cars. It's not just the cars. Our team is getting better. The driver is getting better. The crew chief is getting better. Everything is getting better so we're not going to change what we've been doing. This car is a good car but we have another good one back at the shop, ready to go to Charlotte. That's been some of our success. We're prepared now. We're three or four cars ahead. We're setting stuff up for Martinsville and that's been the big difference. I don't know if I'll change up and get out of the routine. It's starting to pay dividends now." YOU RAN WELL ALL DAY HERE. "It was great. Even in qualifying, we were kind of let down with 13th. We thought we were better. It's just all coming around. It's just a lot of little things and it adds up to a big thing and that's where we're at right now."

KASEY KAHNE, No. 9 DODGE DEALERS/UAW DODGE: "I had a good car all day, just went back and forth. We got so loose there at the end trying to get the front to cut; we were still going as fast as we could. We just couldn't get the front to cut as good as we wanted all day. And then spinning out there at the end, I got under the 15 and just spun out." WHAT HAPPENED WITH THE FLAT TIRE? "We just pitted and came back on the track and it was flat. I went to turn left and scrub my tires in and just about spun out so it just popped on something. I think that was the time that Newman hit the wall over here and I was right behind him and maybe I hit something off his car going by that lap or something like that." ONCE AGAIN YOU GET BEHIND BUT YOU SCRAMBLE BACK TO THE FRONT. "That's now what we wanted. We get behind and we don't need to be behind. We need to be up front the whole time. That pit stop where we pitted and nobody else pitted and we did, we came out in 15th and it was a battle after that. It was an uphill battle and we just never got back. I had to drive as hard as you possibly can and just wear your tires out and spin out and all kinds of stuff to try to stay in contention there." WHEN YOU ARE BACK IN TRAFFIC, HOW BIG OF A FACTOR IS AERO PUSH? "It was really about the same for us all day. In the front or in the back, it didn't matter much. It felt like I had an aero push when I was in the front, too." AS GOOD AS THE CAR WAS EARLY, DID THE TRACK CHANGE? "I think the track changed some and the car changed a little bit. We lost track position that was the main thing. We lost track position and had to fight back to get it."

BRIAN VICKERS, No. 25 GMAC CHEVROLET: "We absolutely didn't start out where we needed to be. We were pretty bad there at the beginning. We went back to just about last and the guys did a good job adjusting the car. We were one of the faster cars at one point in the race. It kind of went away from us there a little bit at the end. We got the car adjusted on those green flag stops for clean air and then when we got in traffic it got pretty tight. We had good pit stops all day and they guys went good. At one point we were several laps down and made 'em back up and got back on the lead lap and finished 19th. Looking at where we started and where we finished, I'm proud of everybody. It turned out to be a good day, considering what it could have been."

SCOTT RIGGS, No. 10 ZEREX CHEVROLET: "We struggled. We struggled all day yesterday in practice. I think Doug [Randolph, crew chief] made a good call to go back to where we were in our test a couple of weeks ago. The only bad thing about that is when you are here testing you are out there on the racetrack testing by yourself. I think it really hurt us, being out there in traffic because the car was way too loose to race anybody. We were loose all day and we kept trying to tighten it up and it still was a handful. I just couldn't race anybody at all. We just missed the combination. We'll try to learn from it and be better next time."