DHL 400 - Rookie Qualifying Quotes

Where the Raybestos Rookies will start:
B. Vickers 2nd
B. Gaughan 6th
S. Riggs 20th
S. Wimmer 29th
K. Kahne 34th

SCOTT RIGGS, #10 VALVOLINE CHEVROLET: "We were a little bit different that we were in practice this morning. All the guys on the Valvoline Chevrolet did a good job and gave me a great car. And we've got a good car for the race, for sure. I thought we could run a little quicker than that. It seemed like the sun and the temperature and the Hoosier rubber out there made a little difference. Goodyears are just a little too slick out there and the car is a little loose getting in the corner so I had to sort of slow down and that sort of hurt our time a little bit." WAS THAT A CASE OF GOING OUT TOO EARLY? "You'd love to always blame it on going out so early and we'd always like to have a later draw. I think it's going to get cooler and cooler as qualifying goes on so I wish I had a later draw. I think if we had a later draw we'd have a chance to really look at how some of the other guys run and what they were doing and probably make a little better judgment call on what kind of adjustments we can make to help us out. We'll take what it gives us and try to make a good racecar out of it this weekend. We just need to qualify good. We feel like we've got a pretty good idea of what we need to be as far as race mode. We ran some race runs this morning and feel good about the car. With the early draw, the heat and stuff really changed us and made us a lot freer than we were this morning. Hopefully we'll still be somewhere in the top-15 and have a good starting spot and work our way to the front."

SCOTT WIMMER, #22 CATERPILLAR DODGE: "We unloaded and felt pretty comfortable with the car and just went the wrong way. Toward the end of practice we were really bad, we were terrible and kind of went back to where we were at the start of practice and then changed some other stuff. It's kind of my fault. We went round and round today and never went anywhere and just should have went in a little different direction. We got the car a lot better. We closed up with Nemechek and those guys. They were quite a bit ahead of us and now they're only a little bit. When I got here I was a little tight and then I went to real loose and we could never get it back. We changed some shocks and springs and things like that. We get caught up sometimes trying to run what a lot of other teams we think are running. We've got to concentrate on our racecar a little more and I think we'll be all right. We picked up a lot there. If we could pick up a little more in practice we'll be fine."

BRENDAN GAUGHAN, #77 KODAK/JASPER DODGE: "With any luck this thing will stay top-10 and we'll get a decent starting spot out of this. At Dover we had a pretty decent racecar just got in a racing deal that you couldn't miss. But here at Michigan there's a lot of room to miss things and if you stay up front for most of the day you can miss a lot more just by being up front. We're starting off good, we'll see if we can't finish it. We're looking for a good run for the Jasper yellow color. The Jasper Engines Dodge hasn't done quite as well as we have in the Kodak Dodge. We want to look good for the Jasper folks." IS THIS THE SAME CAR YOU RAN AT CALFORNIA? "We couldn't bring the California car; that's the one that crashed in happy hour at Charlotte. It was painted up with the Kodak Easy Share colors and I think it's already done but we had to go with the Jasper paint scheme this weekend so we went with car 25." YOU STRUGGLED LAST WEEKEND AT POCONO BUT BOUNCED BACK STRONG HERE TODAY. "This is a great race team. We've got a lot of great people, lot of good help with Rusty and Ryan's teams. Matt Lukas and Shane Wilson, my engineer and crew chief, Roy McCauley, the other engineers, have done a great job of putting this thing together. Michigan was good to me last year in the trucks and we'll see if we can't make it good to us in the cars." YOU WON THE TRUCK RACE LAST YEAR. HOW MUCH DO YOU LIKE THIS TRACK? "It's a fun place. It's close to Mr. Penske's home and also close to our Jasper Engines home in Jasper, Indiana. The Midwest is a big market for both of those guys; they both like to race here. Roger has done very well here in the past. Ryan and I would love to continue that work and I wouldn't mind putting my name in the hat with it. Our truck was really dominant here last year. We had a great Dodge and it really kicked butt around this place. Right now, I'd just like to have the Jasper Engines car be as balanced. That's what made it so nice last year: it was balanced. It had nothing to do with being a Raybestos Rookie or not being a rookie. It was balanced and when racecars are good, the balance comes easy. This is a good racecar here. We're pretty happy. The car feels fairly good. We've got a little quirkiness in it that I'm unhappy with but as a driver we're always unhappy. That Orleans Dodge that I won Texas with four times [in the truck series] I was never happy with [smiles]. I'm never going to be happy until we've got a lead like Jimmie or Ryan and then I'll say maybe it's OK." YOU PICKED UP TWO-TENTHS FROM PRACTICE. "Some guys are picking up, some guys are slowing down. This year as a Raybestos Rookie I'm the only guy that can gain a second in qualifying and four-tenths on his second lap. Roy McCauley our engineer says 'OK, look: the second lap thing I can do but when you change three springs and four shocks right before you go qualify you're got to feel it out the first lap.' We showed up here pretty close and had a good practice. It only took two-tenths to get where we needed to be and I do still like qualifying." ARE YOU SURPRISED TO RUN SO WELL WITH THIS CAR? "We only ran this Dodge once before this year and it was when we were struggling with a lot of other issues. The guys at the shop did a great job putting it together. Took that extra fine tune massage and put into it and when it rolls off at the racetrack it's so much easier to be decent and make it better than to be out to lunch and try to just get it in the ballgame. This one was decent at the start. We were able to get it in the ballgame pretty easy. I'm pretty fired up."

KASEY KAHNE, #9 DODGE DEALERS/UAW DODGE: "We're just real loose. We tried to get the car better and we actually got too loose in. I couldn't turn the wheel getting into the corner so that slowed us up a lot." DID THE TRACK CHANGE FROM PRACTICE TO QUALIFYING? "It's tough to say, but I doubt it. When I went out I doubt it would be any different. It's obviously hotter, the track is hotter, but that's just part of it. We were just too free in." WHAT'S THE GAMEPLAN TO MAKE THE CAR BETTER? "Take the tape off the front and change from qualifying setup to race setup. We just got a lot too loose. I couldn't turn the wheel. We needed to do something to go for the pole and we just missed it."

BRIAN VICKERS IN THE #25 GMAC CHEVROLET WAS THE TOP RAYBESTOS ROOKIE QUALIFIER AT MICHIGAN. Notes: Vickers will start second in Sunday's DHL 400. This is the sixth consecutive race where he has started sixth or better and the second consecutive race where he has started on the front row. The only Raybestos® Rookie to win a pole for the June race at Michigan is Loy Allen. Allen grabbed the top starting position for 1994 race. "That was pretty good. I don't know how many cars are left but hopefully it will end 1-2-3 Hendrick Motorsports. I wanted that pole pretty bad but it's a great starting spot for the GMAC Chevy. I happy to be here at Michigan and happy to have that 1-2-3 for General Motors and Chevrolet. Congratulations to Jeff and I want to thank all the fans for coming out today. I hope they enjoyed qualifying." YOU SPOKE WITH JEFF GORDON EARLIER TODAY. DID YOU GET ANY ADVICE FOR QUALIFYING HERE? "I'm always seeking advice when I go up to Jeff Gordon. I talked to him about this and he told me one thing not to do: to ask too much out of the car and go to the gas too soon and it will get tight. I did that anyway in three and four and that's probably what cost us the pole. The car was good and obviously he applied that a little bit better than I did so maybe next time."

VICKERS PRESS CONFERENCE

THERE HAS BEEN TALK ABOUT A GREEN FLAG FINISH IN ALL CUP RACES. HOW DO YOU FEEL ABOUT THAT? "I think that one thing NASCAR has done over the years to make the sport so popular is the combination of keeping in mind the entertainment side and the competition. There's got to be a balance. The entertainment has obviously got to be there or the fans won't be there but at the same time the competition has got to be there which goes along with entertainment and also keeps everybody in the garage happy. As long as that balance stays the same the sport will continue to grow. If one starts out weighing the other, if competition starts out weighing entertainment, like maybe you see in open wheel racing, you're going to lose some of the excitement and maybe some of the fans will go away. If the entertainment outweighs the competition, you're going to see the fan base go up like wrestling did and then also it's going to go back down. By no means are we like that but that's two extreme examples. The main thing that NASCAR has been so good at in the past is finding that combination and that balance and I'm sure they will continue to find that balance which is what they've got to do. As far as finishing under green, like Jimmie said, we build these cars and engines to go a certain number of miles and they've got to keep that in mind but at the same time, we've got to keep the fans in mind. They've been really speaking their mind lately and they should." YOU HAVE HAD SIX CONSECUTIVE STARTS OF SIXTH OR BETTER. "I think the whole team is just starting to come together. I've said all year long that I personally and Hendrick Motorsports as an organization that builds a team slowly but solidly. We may not always come out of the box like a blazing bullet but in the long run we're going to build a solid team that going to be more competitive week in and week out and that's what we've been trying to do. It's taking time. Last year it took time but when it finally came it was there and it stayed there and that's what we're trying to do here. Hopefully we're starting to see the beginnings of that and it will continue to grow and get better. The 25 team as a whole has always qualified well: we had two seconds last year. It was weird. We qualified good at the beginning of the season and then we kind of lost that a little bit when we concentrated on and focused on our race stuff, which needed a lot of improvement. Once we've stepped that up and we kind of know where we need to go there, we've come back and said 'OK, now we need to get back to qualifying.' That's what we've kind of done the past couple weeks without losing the race. You've got to find that balance and sometimes you're looking for one and lose a little bit of the other then you've got to step it back up." WHAT IS THE KEY TO SUCCESS ON SUNDAY? "There's so many things. Track position is going to be one of them. This is a big fast racetrack. Aero is a large part of it. And I'll say this like I've said it before: the aero push was there 50 years ago; they just didn't know what to call it. Air has always been there and it's always affected the way cars handle. It's just now that we know how to utilize it and now we understand what happens when we lose it. So that's part of racing; it's not going to go away. It's not like you can make air disappear. You've got to accept it, move on, and quite complaining about it. Track position is key to that. For us we're starting up front and hopefully we can stay there so we won't have to worry so much about the aero push. If we do lose track position we're going to have to concentrate on making big changes on the pit stops to get the car freed up to get back to the front and then get it back where it needs to be once we get up there. Track position is going to be key. Keeping the engine under it is important. We saw a lot of engines blow last week and we don't need to do that. More than anything just stay out of trouble and be there at the end." WHAT HAVE YOU LEARNED FROM RUNNING CONSISTENTLY WELL? "The same thing I learned the most last year and the same thing I learned 10 years ago: patience. I'm still learning more and more. Last year I thought I learned a lot and this year I think 'Man I didn't learn nearly enough last year.' Patience in myself, patience in the team. Things take time sometimes and you've got to accept that. I try to rush stuff; I guess that comes along with being 20 and wide open. The whole team has really come together but we've all got to have patience in each other and work together as best as possible and work through the problems and get better. That's the biggest thing, along with many other things obviously. Things on the racetrack, off the racetrack, behind the scenes, just everything but that's the biggest." YOU WOULD LIKE FOR YOUR FINISHES TO MATCH YOUR QUALIFYING EFFORTS. WHAT DO YOU LOOK AT TO GET THE FINISHES BETTER? "We've got our qualifying efforts where they need to be. When we started in the process of building our races up at the beginning of the year, we were qualifying top-five and falling back to 30th. Then we started falling back to 20th and then we started falling back to 15th. Last week we fell back to second, third. We led for a little while and stayed in the top-three most of the day until pit stops and all that mess started. That's where we kind of got off-track but as far as the racecar and the handling of the car throughout a race it really stayed with us. It didn't stay with us as far as being able to challenge for the win because we probably didn't adjust enough. We're learning what those adjustments are. Peter [Sospenzo, crew chief] is learning what I need out of the car and I'm learning what I need out of the car. These races are very different from a Busch race as far as how they need to handle at the beginning of the race versus the end of the race versus happy hour and I'm learning all that. The team is learning what I need out of that and we are just continually trying to build on that. I feel like we've stepped it up every week. Our qualifying has been there. We're trying not to loose that along the way because that can happen very easily. At the beginning of the year we started up front and fell back to the 30s and then the 20s and 15s and then last week we ran top three most of the day. We've got to continue that momentum and be patient, be patient and support each other. Peter had got to learn more and more every week what I need and I've got to learn what he needs to figure that out." DO YOU FEEL CLOSE TO REACHING THAT CONSISTENCY ON RACE DAY? "I feel like we're getting there. We're definitely making progress and that's what I told all the guys on the team. As long as I see forward progress, I'll be happy. I'm never going to be ecstatic until we win but as long as we're making improvements and not going backwards I'm happy. As long as you keep making improvements, no matter how small, you give it enough time you'll win a race. We're seeing that now. We've just got to continue that. We can't slack off. We've got to continue to just help each other grow, learn, and work on these cars and try to become better as a team and get the cars better, get everything better. The past couple of weeks, we've seen some of that. We get up in the top-five and now that we're there, now that we've got the car there, now what do we have to do pit strategy-wise to stay there?"