Banquet 400 presented by ConAgra Foods - Rookie Qualifying Quotes

Where the Raybestos Rookies will start at Kansas:
Kasey Kahne, 2nd
B. Gaughan, 13th
S. Riggs, 14th
B. Vickers, 25th
S. Wimmer, 37th

RAYBESTOS® ROOKIE CONTENDER QUALIFYING QUOTES FOR THE BANQUET 400 NASCAR NEXTEL CUP SERIES RACE AT KANSAS SPEEDWAY, OCTOBER 8, 2004.

KASEY KAHNE IN THE No. 9 DODGE DEALERS/UAW DODGE WAS THE TOP RAYBESTOS ROOKIE QUALIFIER AT KANSAS. HE WILL START SECOND IN SUNDAY'S RACE. "There's still some good cars to go but if that can hold up and we can get our fifth pole of the season it would be pretty awesome. I've been looking forward to coming to this racetrack for a while and we qualified second here in the Busch car last year and second again this year. It's definitely a great racetrack. I can't wait for Sunday. I watched the race in review last Thursday and watched Bill Elliott kick ass all day long and end up running second. I'm really excited to go racing here." IS THIS THE SAME CAR THAT BILL ELLIOTT HAD HERE LAST YEAR? "Bill kept a couple of his cars from last year and that was one of them. That was his favorite car. It's his Brickyard car and he loved that thing. It's a different car but it's the same car that we came close with at the Michigans, the Californias, Vegas, and Texas. It's a good one." THIS STRETCH OF RACES MIGHT BE YOUR BEST CHANCE TO WIN A RACE. "I think if we're going to get one it's going to be in the next eight races. I think we have a great shot in every one of them. We have to work hard to run good at Martinsville [laughs], that's for sure. But the other tracks, we definitely should be a lot of fun going to those tracks. We'll just have to see what happens. The team and everybody is doing an awesome job."

BRIAN VICKERS, No. 25 GMAC CHEVROLET: "We were just too loose. We made a bunch of changes after practice and we felt like we went in the right direction and some of them may have been and some of them weren't. It was just too loose. Coming to the green, it really got out from under me and I chased it up the track quite a bit and I did the rest of the lap, too. But coming to the green hurt it, and turn one hurt it. Three and four wasn't too bad."

BRENDAN GAUGHAN, No. 77 KODAK EASY SHARE/JASPER ENGINES AND TRANSMISSIONS DODGE: "We were a lot better than that. The racecar was awesome. We had a shot at the pole today. That's a bummer because every time we have something good we end up blowing it. It ran out of gas. We had some sort of carburetor issue or something. We get to the end of the straightaways and it would lean out and kind of bobble. Looking at the fuel pressure gauge it was down to 4, so maybe we got a piece of gunk caught in the carburetor and starved our engine for fuel. The Penske Jasper horsepower is normally pretty good. Bob Dodge, our engine tuner, is back this week and he'll fix 'er up and we'll be fine for happy hour tomorrow. Maybe that will end up 15th or so which won't be bad. Not great, not what we wanted, we felt we did a 23 in the heat, right at the end of practice when it was hot, whenever everybody else was slowing down. We felt we had at least a .10 in it. It ran out of gas every straightaway going into every corner at the end. Who knows what the Kodak Dodge would have done today. The car is driving really good. We think it's going to be a really good Dodge for the race."

SCOTT RIGGS, No. 10 ZEREX CHEVROLET: "We picked up a little bit there. We came and tested a couple weeks ago. We had two days of testing and really feel like we brought our best racecar that we have. And it performed like the best one that we've got. It made great changes and adapted to all the changes that we made. It showed improvement for both of those two days. We got back here and of course the track is faster. We have a race motor in, not our practice motor, and track conditions are a lot cooler so the speeds are a lot faster. We couldn't seem to really make that much of a speed gain as these other people. We were hunting around all day trying to figure out where the speed was. We feel like we hit on it pretty big right before qualifying. The bad part about it was that I just didn't know what to expect. I feel like I left a little bit on the table that first lap. I got every bit of it that second lap, just left a little bit on the table that first lap. It probably cost us a little bit. I'm pretty happy with it. I know that it would probably be somewhere between 15th and 20th, somewhere in there. I didn't think this car was going to be sitting on the pole, but I think it's going to be a great racecar. I think we'll be good in the race." ON QUALIFYING GOOD TWO CONSECUTIVE RACES. "At least we're being consistent so that gives you something to measure. You're not all over the board so that gives us something to shoot for and make some gains."

SCOTT WIMMER, No. 22 CATERPILLAR DODGE: "The car was a little free. It slowed down a little bit from practice. I think the track just hurt us, the track temperature or something like that. We just didn't really pick up a lot. We'll work on it in race trim and hopefully get it better." YOU WENT FROM THE BACK TO THE FRONT LAST WEEK AT TALLADEGA. IS THAT A CONFIDENCE BUILDER? "We had a real good car and unfortunately ran out of fuel and couldn't get the car fired up again and we ended up a lap down. But that will happen. Overall, I think we're getting better. We've been running pretty strong. We'll keep working at it and hopefully get up toward the front these last few races."