Coca-Cola 600 - Rookie Qualifying Quotes

BRENDAN GAUGHAN, #77 KODAK EASY SHARE DODGE (starts seventh): "We've been trying to smile a lot more as the weeks have been progressing. The guys build good racecars. This is the same Dodge that was at California Speedway. We didn't want to out-trick ourselves with the weather. Last week in the Open we felt like we out-tricked ourselves so Shane [Wilson, crew chief] and Matt Lucas said 'Let's do small things.' They did one little small thing; I don't even know what it was. They talked about what they wanted to do and it stuck. I even called them on the first lap and said 'Geez, it stuck, it stuck.' It hadn't stuck through three and four all day on the bottom. The guys did a hell of a job." HOW MUCH DID THE QUALIFYING DRAW HURT YOU? "Right now we've got all three Penske cars up front which is really neat to look at and I hope they stay that way for a while because Mr. Penske and Mr. Bawel deserve that. That's pretty special to have all three teams up front. I don't think it will end quite that way but if it stays in the top-10 we'll take it. It's going to get faster. Jimmie Johnson is out 52nd. Hopefully we'll be the top Raybestos Rookie and if we can stay in the top-10 that would be pretty nice. We didn't get to practice in the NEXTEL Open. That was going to be a practice session and we didn't get to so we're kind of bummed about that. We would have liked to have made it more than 50 feet past the start-finish line. But we think we'll be okay. We're going to rely a lot on what Rusty and Ryan did. That's why it's great teammates to have and see if we can't have happy hour tomorrow or on Saturday. That sounds so weird, it's two days away and see if we can't do something on our own and then use our teammates help."

BRIAN VICKERS IN THE #25 GMAC CHEVROLET WAS THE TOP RAYBESTOS ROOKIE QUALIFIER. Notes: Vickers will start fifth, his third consecutive top-10 start. He took top Raybestos Rookie qualifier honors for the second consecutive race and for the second time this season. "It wasn't bad. That's going to be a good starting spot. The GMAC Chevy crew did a good job. We were just tight from the center off in turns three and four. We fought some of that in practice. We probably got most of that out but we didn't get all of it." THE HENDRICK CARS ARE VERY STRONG HERE. "Jimmie always seems to run good here. He's going out last and we're pulling for him to get the pole." WAS THERE A BIG DISADVANTAGE GOING OUT SO EARLY? "It definitely didn't help any, I'm sure. We all know that as time goes by the track is going to cool off and it's going to get faster and faster. You've got to do what you've got to do. You've got to work with what you have. We were supposed to go out 13th and that's what we did." DID RUNNING THE CHALLENGE LAST WEEK HELP PREPARE YOU FOR THE 600? "It definitely helped us. We were a little tight off of turn four in practice and we still were in qualifying. That kind of got us a little bit but that's all right."

JOHNNY SAUTER, #30 AMERICA ONLINE CHEVROLET (starts 39th): "We struggled a little bit tight all day long. We freed it up quite a bit for our qualifying run and just didn't get it enough, I guess. How those guys pick up another half-second from what I ran I guess I'll never know but I'd better figure it out real quick. We qualified two tenths faster than we did last week. We've made it better and we've improved but so has everybody else. The moral of the story is that we've got a good racecar here and I'm not worried about that. For the life of me, I don't know how these qualify so fast."

SCOTT WIMMER, #22 CATERPILLAR DODGE (starts 29th): "It was a lot better than it had been all day. We were actually struggling pretty bad. This is a different car than what we had for the all-star race and we thought this car would be a lot better but we struggled in practice quite a bit. We found a little speed right there at the end and threw some stuff at it for qualifying and actually found a little bit more. It bottomed out too hard to make a really good clean lap. Our teammate [Dave Blaney] qualified real well again. We'll keep working at it. At the beginning of the year we were back in the 30's and taking provisionals and now we're up in the middle and hopefully after halfway through the season we can get up toward the front. One of my problems is qualifying. I don't qualify well and I have problems getting a good feel and getting the car setup right for qualifying and Dave is always a great qualifier. We take a lot of that stuff out of his car for qualifying trim and try to use it to our advantage. It's working, we just need a little more time. This is my first time qualifying here under the lights here and I'm sure that experience and testing and all that stuff will really help down the road. I'm pretty happy with that lap. I think we could have had a little more out of the car but we're in it. It's a long race and we'll work our way to the front." DOES THE PRACTICE IN THE DAYLIGHT AND RACING AT NIGHT MAKE THINGS EVEN MORE DIFFICULT HERE? "It does. The car was a lot different during the day than it was in qualifying. You've just go so much more grip and it's something that you're going to have to be adjusting on all day long, with starting during the day and coming in at night. You're going to have to have a lot of adjustability in the car and really have it fast at the end of the race is going to be the key."

KASEY KAHNE, #9 DODGE DEALERS/UAW DODGE (starts19th): "We just drug real bad the whole left and right side. I went into the corner and the whole thing drug the ground. I was surprised that it was dragging and it pushed up the track. I got back to the throttle and it seemed like I got back to the throttle real quick but we were dragging so it slowed us up. It makes the front push when you drag and it slowed our lap down. We're going to qualify in the top-20 but I would have thought that we would have been better than that. I thought we were going to haul ass. Nothing broke. We were going that much faster it buried it. I don't really know why. It's going to be a long race, a long night. The track is going to keep changing and changing."

SCOTT RIGGS, #10 VALVOLINE CHEROLET (starts 28th): "We've been struggling. We struggled all day in practice today in qualifying trim. We picked up a lot but we were still way off. We picked up eight-tenths or something like that and we still needed three or four tenths to really be where we needed to be and good and competitive. We were fighting loose in all day. I was trying all kinds of things on the racetrack, different lines trying to help it. We changed some stuff and I think the combination of things that we changed and plus the temperature getting so cooler made us really tight from the center off and that's where we just killed our speed." DID THE QUALIFYING DRAW HELP YOU? "I think the later the better no matter what but it all depends on how your car is setup versus what the track temperature is. Newman went out pretty early and he's pretty good. It's a combination of whatever the track temperature is. The track being cooler is better no matter what if you've got free enough to do it. We just didn't."