UAW-GM Quality 500 - Rookie Qualifying Quotes

K. Kahne, 2nd S. Riggs, 4th B. Gaughan, 16th B. Vickers, 17th J. Sauter, 29th S. Wimmer, 42nd (provisional)

RAYBESTOS® ROOKIE CONTENDER QUALIFYING QUOTES FOR THE UAW-GM QUALITY 500 NEXTEL CUP SERIES RACE AT LOWE'S MOTOR SPEEDWAY, OCTOBER 14, 2004.

KASEY KAHNE IN THE No. 9 DODGE DEALERS/UAW DODGE WAS THE TOP RAYBESTOS ROOKIE QUALIFIER AT LOWE'S MOTOR SPEEDWAY. KAHNE WILL START SECOND IN SATURDAY NIGHT'S RACE. YOU HAVE BEEN A CONSISTENTLY GOOD QUALIFIER THIS SEASON. "I just love qualifying. I love trying to go as fast as possible and having the car a little crazy for a couple of laps. Ryan Newman is the master of it. It's fun to try to keep up with him sometimes." HOW DIFFICULT IS IT TO QUALIFY HERE AT CHARLOTTE? "This is a tough track. It's a rough track, the car's bouncing around a lot and moving around a lot and it's real easy to get tight or loose or your run, no matter how your car is. You have to run a good line and carry a lot of speed." WAS THAT A PERFECT LAP? "It was close. We worked on some things. I got a little bit tight off and a little bit free in a couple times. It wasn't perfect but I'm real happy with it. I wasn't sure if it would bounce up. When I crossed the line the second time I looked at the board and we were fourth and I was like 'go, go' and it didn't bounce up. I'm pretty excited about that lap. Hopefully it will hold up and we will be able to have an all Dodge front row on Saturday night. It will be fun." ON WHAT IT WOULD MEAN TO POSSIBLY WIN HIS FIRST RACE AT CHARLOTTE. "I would definitely love to do that. Charlotte would be about the coolest place to do it at. But you never know. We just keep working hard. These guys are doing a great job on the Dodge Dealers car and hopefully someday it will happen."

SCOTT RIGGS, No. 10 VALVOLINE CHEVROLET. Note: Riggs equaled his best start of the 2004 season during time trials tonight. He will start fourth in Saturday night's race at Lowe's Motor Speedway. "Everybody is doing a great job. Everyone at Valvoline has had a great attitude this entire year letting us have our times and moments to fail and learn from our failures and come back and be better. I just can't be happy enough for all these guys on the Valvoline Chevrolet. They have fought tooth and nail. They believe in each other, they believe in me, and I believe in them. It's just taking some time. We had to fall down a couple of times to keep getting back up and brushing ourselves off. We had a big talk this week, my crew chief and I about positive thoughts. Positive thoughts produce positive results. You've got to put last week behind us and know that we are a good enough team to be there and be up front and be competitive. So far, that's what we're showing right now. To go last week to Kansas City and test and work so hard and then come back to the race and run so poorly it was awful disgusting for us. We needed to come back and have a good week this week." YOUR BEST QUALIFYING RUN CAME AT A RESTRICTOR PLATE TRACK. THIS WEEK THE DRIVER PLAYED A MAJOR ROLE IN GOING FAST. "I feel like I was a piece of the puzzle this week [smiles]." HOW MUCH DIFFERENT IS KANSAS VERSUS CHARLOTTE? "They are totally different. We were pretty aggressive last week on some things that we tried and it didn't work out for us. It just bit us when we got in race trim and got in the race. It was too free for us. We came back this week and this is a place that you can't be too aggressive. It's a pretty rough place. We didn't make a lot of changes in practice. I kept fine-tuning my line more than anything else." WHAT WOULD BE A GOOD NIGHT FOR YOU IN THE RACE? "We're still shooting for those top-10s and top-fives. A top-five would feel like a win to us. A top-10 would be satisfactory. That's what we need. We're hunting for that every single week."

BRENDAN GAUGHAN, No. 77 JASPER ENGINES AND TRANSMISSIONS DODGE/KODAK DODGE: "We gained a little over six-tenths. I don't we're ever going to be as quick as Ryan Newman doing that stuff but we gained six-tenths and that will probably put us 16th, 17th. That was a heck of a lap. The guys worked hard to get it back to there and we'll take it. We're running the Jasper scheme tonight, the big bright yellow one." THIS IS ANOTHER GOOD POSITIVE THING THAT HAS HAPPENED TO YOU IN RECENT WEEKS (GAUGHAN HAS BEEN RAYBESTOS ROOKIE OF THE RACE THE LAST THREE CONSECUTIVE RACES). "It is. Ryan Newman is just. We'll take it. We're right behind Rusty, right where we should be in qualifying trim. We'd always like to be better but the Jasper guys are taking it one step at a time and our finishes are a lot better so I'll start 16th and finish 10th." WHAT WOULD BE A GOOD NIGHT FOR YOU IN THE RACE? "I'd love to get a top-10. A line from the movie Major League said 'You win won more it's a winning streak.' Well, in our business, we get another top-10 we'll call that the winning streak."

BRIAN VICKERS, No. 25 GMAC CHEVROLET. VICKERS WAS THE FIRST CAR TO MAKE HIS QUALIFYING ATTEMPT TONIGHT. "Coming to the green the car kind of got out from under me a pretty good bit down in 3 and 4 and that hurt the first lap. On the second lap, it wasn't bad. The track had a pretty good bit more grip than even I realized. It was still a little slick. Being the first car out, usually the track is pretty slick and it wasn't quite as bad as I thought it would be but it was still a little dirty. This track is affected a lot by temperature. It always has been, as long as I've been running here anyway. It's always been affected quite a bit by cooler temperatures, hotter temperatures, and it gets a lot more grip at night. I think it's always a disadvantage to go out first."

JOHNNY SAUTER, No. 09 MICCOSUKEE RESORTS DODGE: "I think that lap was good enough to make the race. I'm pretty happy with it. We only got about an hour of practice. We had some trouble with some electrical stuff today. Just to show up and make my debut with James Finch, I'm pretty stoked about it. I think that's good enough to get in. Things are good for Johnny Sauter. Stay tuned. I think in the next week or so we should be able to make a report on what I'm doing and where I'm going for next year." WHAT WAS THE PROBLEM IN PRACTICE? "We lost about an hour of practice, got about six laps of practice. I knew I could have gone faster but we were just too tight and we found out why. It's going to be good enough I think to get in the show and that's all I care about." WHAT ARE YOUR NEXTEL CUP PLANS FOR THE REST OF THE 2004 SEASON? "We're going to run the rest of the races this year, with the exception of Martinsville."

SCOTT WIMMER, No. 22 CATERPILLAR DODGE: "It didn't feel that bad. I don't know why we didn't have any speed in it. I've kind of been struggling all day just getting speed out of the car. It felt pretty decent. I thought it was a better lap than that. I was kind of surprised. We'll work hard and get it right in race trim. We'll have a long ways to come but hopefully we'll be alright."