Chevy Rock and Roll 400 - Raybestos Rookie Notes

Raybestos Rookie Johnny Sauter will be attempting to qualify for Saturday's Chevy Rock and Roll 400 at Richmond. Sauter will make his first NEXTEL Cup Series start since the June 6 MBNA 400 at Dover International Speedway. The team plans to announce sponsorship for the Richmond race September 7.

JOHNNY SAUTER, #33 CHEVROLET: "It's a Richard Childress car. I'm still under contract to Richard. It's an off-site car, I guess, car though. We're building it ourselves at Curb-Agajanian in Mooresville. It's a Childress effort kind of our way." HOW MUCH IMPUT HAVE YOU HAD WITH THE BUILDING OF THIS CAR AND HOW INVOLVED HAVE YOU BEEN WITH IT FROM DAY ONE? "Everything. It was a car that I drove when I was at the 30 car and it was my favorite car. It was a little bit different type of chassis and Richard said go ahead and take that. We brought it home and we put a body on it. We've done a lot of things to it. It's almost like an R&D piece and that's kind of the way I like to do it. It makes it a lot of fun for me to know that I've got some stuff that's maybe a little bit different than the ordinary. I've had a ton of input and we've put a lot of effort into this thing. We tested at Richmond last week and it was awesome. The car was really good, responded really well and I'm just looking forward to it." YOU RAN WELL AT INDIANAPOLIS RACEWAY PARK IN BOTH THE TRUCK AND THE BUSCH CAR. ARE THERE ANY SIMILIARIES BETWEEN RICHMOND AND IRP? "It's got nothing to do with the racetracks. It's got a lot to do with something to drive. When the stuff is right, it makes my job a lot easier. It seems to be harder and harder to find that every week but I'd say what I had in my truck is going to be a lot of what we put up in the Cup car for the race. It's some stuff that's a little bit different. It seemed to work pretty good in the truck. The truck was fast enough to win the Busch race, lap time wise. I'm just looking forward to it." COULD THIS OPPORTUNITY GROW INTO TWO OR THREE MORE RACES THIS SEASON? "I'm definitely looking at Loudon, if we get through Richmond unscathed, and then Phoenix. There are a couple more races left after Richmond." ASIDE FROM COMPETING IN THE BUSCH SERIES, WHAT ELSE HAVE YOU BEEN DOING SINCE YOUR LAST CUP START? "Just working. We built that truck and got that thing where it needs to be. I have a lot of fun with that truck because it's essentially my own deal. If I want to cut the front clip off and put it on upside down, I can do it. I have a lot of fun with stuff like that. The Cup car has been kind of the same thing. We've really spent a lot of time on that truck and that Cup car and hopefully it pays big dividends for us. It not every day that you get the opportunity to do that kind of stuff. It's great that Richard and everybody at RCR believes in me enough to give me that opportunity and hopefully I can make good on it." ARE YOU PLANNING TO RUN ALL THREE RACES AT RICHMOND? "Not hopefully, we will. It sounds crazy, but you can take a lot of the stuff that you learn from the truck and put it in that Cup car. The Busch car doesn't correlate so much. I don't know if it's the wheel base or what it is, but everything that we've run in that truck that we put in the Cup car has helped it a bunch." WHAT HAVE YOU LEARNED ON THE CUP SIDE THAT HAS HELPED YOU IN BUSCH? "It's amazing after running all those 500 mile races, these Busch races don't seem like they take long at all. The next time you look over at the scoreboard the race is almost over and it's like 'Damn I wish I had more time to get my car right.' It's just a whole different world over there. It's so competitive and it's so hard. It's the best of the best as far as drivers, teams, and sponsors. When you go over there, you've got to make sure that it's right." IT MUST MEAN A LOT TO YOU THAT RICHARD CHILDRESS STILL BELIEVES IN YOU AS A DRIVER AND IS TRYING TO HELP YOU. "Like I said, for him to give me the opportunity to bring a car of his home and let me do the things that I think would help me. Not that what they do is wrong because every driver wants something different. For him to think enough of me as a driver to let me take a car of his and cut it up, that's a class act."

NEWS AND NOTES FROM THE RAYBESTOS ROOKIE CONTENDERS - NASCAR NEXTEL CUP SERIES