Sirius at the Glen - Rookie Post-Race Quotes

Where the Raybestos Rookies finished at The Glen
K. Kahne 14th
S. Wimmer 19th
S. Riggs 24th
B. Vickers 30th
B. Gaughan 34th

KASEY KAHNE IN THE #9 DODGE DEALERS/UAW DODGE WAS THE RAYBESTOS® ROOKIE OF THE RACE AT WATKINS GLEN. HE FINISHED 14TH AND TOOK TOP ROOKIE HONORS FOR THE 11TH TIME IN 2004 AND FOR THE FOURTH CONSECUTIVE RACE: KAHNE SCORED THE BEST FINISH BY A ROOKIE ON A ROAD COURSE THIS SEASON. YOU HAD A BIG SMILE ON YOUR FACE WHEN YOU GOT OUT THE CAR. "I had a great racecar. The engine, the transmission, the brakes, everything about it was awesome. These guys did a great job in the pits. We got trapped in a couple times and got out slow but they did a good job. As a driver, if I get much more aggressive than I am I feel like I'm going to crash just with the little experience that I have on these tracks. I think 14th is an awesome run for us. We need to keep testing at these tracks to get better and better." HOW BIG IS THIS RUN FOR YOU TO TRY TO QUALIFY FOR THE CHASE? "I think it's really good. I don't know if we gained ground, lost ground or what happened, but we can in here and got a top-15 and that was our goal. I'm going out smiling so it's a good day." YOUR TEAMMATE JEREMY MAYFIELD IS 10TH IN POINTS. "That's awesome for him and the whole Evernham Motorsports Dodge Dealers team. It's great to get in the top-10. We're still 11th and we'll just keep on working on it." DID YOU HAVE FUN TODAY? "Oh yeah, lots of fun and lots of learning. It just takes a little time." ANY CLOSE CALLS? "I had a couple close calls but that's a part of it, I guess."

SCOTT WIMMER, #22 CATERPILLAR DODGE: "It was a tough day. We had track position that one time and I went down in turn one and spun the car out and I spun out through the inner loop in the back. It was a tough day. I couldn't get the car through the gears real good. Other than that, the guys kept digging all day and gave me a great racecar. I need a little more time on these places. It was real rough. I couldn't get a groove and keep consistent lap times." YOU OVERCAME TWO SPINS TO POST A DECENT FINISH. "Any time you come out of a road race with a top-20 without being here before is pretty good. I was excited. We stayed out of the sand trap but just didn't have any luck with me getting through the gears real well." HOW EASY IS IT TO MISS A SHIFT AND HAVE ENGINE TROUBLE? "It's real hard. I thought I over revved it a couple times but I was fortunate enough that I didn't blow it up. We put a pretty low-rev chip in it. I was real fortunate because there were a lot of times that I buzzed the motor up. I'm pretty sure I did the same thing that Jimmie [Johnson] did. I just got lucky and it didn't blow."

TOMMY BALDWIN, CREW CHIEF, #9 DODGE DEALERS/UAW DODGE: "Those were our goals entering the race, to run in the top-15. That's what we needed to do today. We needed to maintain and get to these last four races where we can do some racing. We've been real strong at Michigan and ran good at Bristol, just got taken out running second there. At California we were running fourth with a lap to go and ran out of fuel after running in the top-five all day there. We'll go test at Richmond. I think we're looking forward to these next four races. I'm excited." DO YOU GUYS THINK YOU DODGED A BULLET HERE TODAY IN THE POINTS RACE? "It was not that we dodged a bullet. We just accomplished what we wanted to accomplish today."

SCOTT RIGGS, #10 VALVOLINE CHEVROLT: "I had to get a little bit different game plan after the Sonoma finish. My game plan to day was to try and learn as much as we can. We came up here twice to try some testing in. It rained us out the first time, we came back and we lost the car: a left front tire blew out and we lost the car the second time we came up here to test. We got very limited time up here to test up here. We just wanted to use this as a test. It rained out testing and qualifying so that limited it even more so. My game plan here was to stay on the blacktop all day and just hang in there and learn and try to get faster as the day went on and have us a pretty solid finish. We did what we said we were going to do. We stayed on the track and finished."

BRIAN VICKERS, #25 GMAC CHEVROLET: "I messed up. I feel bad but I guess you learn. I hate that it had to involve somebody else but I just messed up. We had a great car. I just got impatient in the inner loop there. I got in there a little too hot and when I got into the curve the car just kind of jumped up into the air and the brakes didn't work too well after that." YOU HAD A GOOD CAR IN BOTH PRACTICE SESSIONS YESTERDAY. THAT MUST ADD THE FRUSTRATIONS. "It really does. I hate because we had a good car. We were going to have a really good day. We had a fast car all day. I didn't want to force any issues because we were already a lap down so there wasn't any real need to. All the Hendrick cars had some transmission trouble. I know the 24 and 48 did and we did, too, there at the end of the race. We lost our transmission but we were trying some stuff there but that's part it of it. I hate it for the GMAC Chevy team. These guys have done such a good job this weekend. It was a learning experience and I hate it more for Dale Jarrett than anybody. He's a friend of mine and probably pretty mad at me right now."

STAT OF THE DAY: Raybestos Rookie Brendan Gaughan led the Sirius at The Glen once for seven laps and was the only rookie to lead a lap at The Glen. A Raybestos® Rookie has led a lap in each of the past two consecutive races at Watkins Glen. McMurray led once for one lap in 2003 while Ryan Newman led twice for 11 laps in 2002.