EA Sports 500 - Rookie Qualifying Quotes

Where the Raybestos Rookies will start at Talladega:
S. Riggs, 4th
B. Vickers, 21st
K. Kahne, 23rd
B. Gaughan, 26th
S. Wimmer, 29th

BRENDAN GAUGHAN, #77 KODAK EASY SHARE/JASPER ENGINES AND TRANSMISSIONS DODGE: ARE YOU HAPPY WITH THAT LAP? "I was. We gained three-tenths. The guys were able to lay the spoiler back a little bit. You go out and run and try to run conservative and NASCAR in the line let us drop it a little bit. We knew we were going to be a little bit quicker. The time was a 50.70 and I called in and go 'Hey, three-tenths. That sounds great' and the Shane [Wilson, crew chief] goes 'Well the bad news is that we were ninth out of nine.' Everything worked great from my end. We nailed the lap. Buddy Baker has us in the right groove and we went everywhere we want. We'll just see how it ends up now." AS A DRIVER, IS THERE ANYTHING YOU CAN DO TO PICK UP SPEED IN QUALIFYING? "If you would have asked me that before I ever worked with Buddy Baker I'd have said 'Oh come on. There's nothing you can do.' Baker has shown me you can do a lot at these places getting up to speed. I'm rooting for Chad Blount. He's in our fourth car this weekend and I really want him to make this show. That would be a big deal for him. We were talking about it and he said 'I've worked with Baker a bunch and there is truth in how you get around this place for qualifying and speed.'

KASEY KAHNE, #9 DODGE DEALERS/UAW DODGE: "It seemed about the same everywhere. We picked up two-tenths from practice. It's not too bad for our Dodge. We didn't expect to qualify really well. We expected to qualify pretty good and have a good race on Sunday. So far we've done that and we'll see about Sunday." BILL ELLIOTT TESTED HERE FOR EVERNHAM MOTORSPORTS. WHAT DID YOU LEARN FROM THAT SESSION? "It was great to have Bill down here. He tested one of our cars and one of Jeremy's. We figured out that ours needed a little more work before we brought it back and the guys did a good job. They picked up a lot of time that we wouldn't have had if they hadn't come tested." WHAT WOULD A GOOD RUN HERE MEAN FOR YOU AND THIS TEAM? "It would be pretty cool to finish a race here. A good run would be a pretty fun race. This place is a lot of fun. If you end up crashing then it's not fun but if you can finish the race and be up front then it would be a great day. There's probably some tricks to running well here. I just need to learn them."

SCOTT RIGGS, #10 ZEREX CHEVROLET: "We pretty much did all we could do in practice. You never know what you're going to fine tweak when you go through the room of doom for the last time. Everything was still OK and we were able to pick up a little bit there from practice time so it's good for us. Hopefully it will be top-five and at least a top-10 starting position for us and I hope we can have that kind of finish this weekend, too." DO YOU ENJOY THE RESTRICTOR PLATE TRACKS? "When you come to the superspeedways and you have a good car it's always fun. When you have a car that won't go, that's never fun and you don't look forward to 'em. Having Hendrick under the hood helps a lot and all the guys at MBV and MB2 give us great cars out of the fab shop. It's always fun to come here. This is a good qualifying effort for us. We've had good superspeedway cars the last couple of races to come here this weekend we knew that we did better fine tuning the car and thought that we'd be even more competitive this weekend and so far we're showing it. We need to get consistent at all the racetracks, not just one or two. We need to get consistent at all the racetracks. We're still in our learning curve, still learning and getting stronger this year. Hopefully when it's all said and done we can look back and see all the things that we've learned and all the things that we don't want to do and things that we want to do better for next year. We want to be able to get out of the gate strong next year and show what we're capable of." WHAT ARE YOUR THOUGHTS ON THE RACE? "You qualified well so hopefully the car will draft well and pull up well in the draft and hopefully be able to stay there all day. Sometimes you have cars that qualify good and don't draft good and then you have cars that are vice versa. Hopefully we have a car that's both, one that can qualify well and stay up front."

DOUG RANDOLPH, CREW CHIEF, #10 VALVOLINE CHEVROLET: "We wrecked at Daytona first race and then we wrecked here at Talladega first race. At the July 4th race, we had this same car and it was pretty much intact. I think we put a new side on it but that's about it. The guys worked really hard. The fab shop has been working hard. We took it to the chassis dyno and we picked up a little bit, probably picked up our qualifying position two or three spots. I think we had an outside shot at the pole but we knew that in practice we had pretty much given it everything we had and we still weren't top of the board then. A lot of these guys have a couple of tricks up their sleeve that they'll bring out just for their qualifying lap. We're real tickled." HOW BIG OF A BOOST IS IT FOR THE TEAM TO QUALIFY WELL HERE TODAY? "It's big. It has been a roller coaster ride all year. Right now we're concentrating on finishing the season with some momentum and some strong finishes. It could be here and we're going to a couple tracks that I think we're going to be really good at. We're really excited. Hopefully this will be the start of some good momentum towards the end of the year."

BRIAN VICKERS, #25 GMAC CHEVROLET: "I think whether it's here or Bristol, as long as you run faster in qualifying than you do in practice you've done your best. Everybody did their best. I don't know where we're going to end up. It's not quite where we wanted to be because it's not on the pole. If you're not on the pole here it doesn't really matter. This place cycles through front to back so much. It's just part of the game but I can hold it wide open. I don't know it that counts for anything." WHAT HAS YOUR LEARNING CURVE BEEN FOR YOU AT THE RESTRICTOR PLATE TRACKS THIS SEASON? "The learning curve for the whole year for every racetrack has been unbelievable. I've learned so much, especially at the restrictor plate races, I think more so here than anywhere. The reason is that I've been racing going on 13 years but I've only been racing these type races for two years. There's no other place you can go except for NASCAR at this level where you can run this kind of racing. The experience isn't the same here. I've learned a lot at these racetracks but I tell you, I've fell in love with them. I enjoy it. There's nothing like running inches apart, bumping each other at 200 miles per hour four-wide." IS IT FRUSTRATING TO YOU THAT THE DRIVER DOESN'T PLAY A BIGGER ROLE HERE? "It can be, absolutely. There's really nothing you can do but that's just part of it. There's a lot you can do come Sunday, not as much as you can at other places but there's still a lot more come Sunday that you can contribute. But on practice day, first practice and qualifying, there's really not a lot you can do at all." YOU RAN WELL AT DAYTONA IN JULY AND POSTED A TOP-10 FINISH. YOU MUST BE OPTOMISTIC ABOUT THE RACE. "I've really fallen in love with the superspeedway races. Sometimes it can be tough because it can be frustrating. It's easy to get in trouble and it's even easier to get caught up in someone else's trouble because the pack is so deep. But at the same time I'm in this sport and I love it for a lot of reasons and the main reasons are the excitement and the speed. This track has definitely got it, being three and four-wide at times, bumping each other inches apart. We beat the daylights out of each other. The cars here at Talladega look better coming out of Martinsville than they do this place and you're doing it all at 200. What else can I ask for?"

SCOTT WIMMER, #22 CATERPILLAR DODGE: "It's kind of disappointing. We thought that we'd pick up a little bit but ended up not picking up anything. I guess we maintained and that's as good as we had and we'll get it ready for race trim. I think we have a good car for the race. We'll work on it from there." YOU FINISHED THIRD IN THE DAYTONA 500. COULD WE SEE A REPEAT PERFORMANCE HERE ON SUNDAY? "I definitely think so. We've always had really good cars at these tracks. Bill Davis Racing as a whole has been good here at Daytona and Talladega so I'm excited about it. We thought we'd pick up a little more than that but the car just didn't have it in it. Hopefully she'll draft real good and we can put it up front on Sunday. I haven't always qualified real well. We didn't qualify well here in the spring and brought the same car back. We'll work on it a little bit and thought we had it fixed. I had a lot of good drafting partners at Daytona and ran right there at the end with Junior and Tony Stewart and those guys. They are the ones who are always up front at the restrictor plate races so if we can draft good with them. Hopefully with a little luck we can at least try to get the win from 'em this time."