Sirius at the Glen - Rookie Qualifying Quotes

Bud Pole qualifying for the Sirius at The Glen was cancelled due to wet track conditions. The starting field was determined by car owner point standings

SCOTT RIGGS, #10 VALVOLINE CHEVROLT (STARTS 31ST): ARE YOU CONCERNED ABOUT THE LACK OF TRACK TIME THIS WEEKEND? "Any time that I get on the racetrack will better myself. We seem to get faster and faster every time that we got on the racetrack [in testing] and the more laps we made the better we were. We came up here two times to try to test. We got rained out the first time and came back the second time and had a left front tire blow out after about 35 laps. I really thought that hurt me, missing those last few critical hours to really pick up the pace. I'm actually glad that we didn't have to qualify today because that give me more time thinking about our race runs, how I need to position the car on the racetrack and how to be fast. I've been wearing out the Playstation games and the computer games just trying to get a better feel. I think we're going to start a little better than we would have if we had to qualify today. This weekend is a survival race. The last four or five weeks we've got better and better and had cars that have been on the offense. We've been passing cars constantly and not defense, getting passed. I feel good about the way things are getting turned around for the team and look forward to getting back to somewhere I'm familiar with and I can get 110 percent out of the car. This weekend is going to be a survival race for us to try and stay on the racetrack." IS THIS THE SAME CAR YOU HAD HERE AT THE TEST? "Because I've been known to be so difficult on road course cars in testing, we actually had an old Pontiac that the team had from last year that we had been using and that's the one that we blew the left front tire out and pretty much killed, put it in the weeds. It was a pretty hard lick so I'm glad I got out of there without getting hurt. I hate that we wadded that car up but thank goodness it wasn't our primary car. The car we brought here is not the car that we ran at Sonoma. We felt like we didn't have very good luck there so for no reason at all we decided to use the other road course car that we have, the backup car, and made the other one the backup car. We're just trying to change our luck around."

KASEY KAHNE, #9 DODGE DEALERS/UAW DODGE (STARTS 11TH ): DOES THE LACK OF PRACTICE TIME TODAY PUT YOU BEHIND PREPARING FOR THE RACE? "I don't think so. It probably puts us ahead a little bit. We got to test for five or six hours here and starting 11th is really going to be a pretty darn good starting spot for us on a road course. I'm looking forward to getting some laps tomorrow and just being ready for the race on Sunday." IS WATKINS GLEN COMPLETELY DIFFERENT FROM SONOMA? "It's definitely different. The tracks are way different. I learned a lot at Sonoma that I can bring here and hopefully make for a better race here and make for less mistakes and be able to be there at the end of the race. I really enjoy this track." FOR A RAYBESTOS ROOKIE, IS IMPROVEMENT ON A ROAD COURSE JUST A MATTER OF GETTING MORE AND MORE LAPS? "On any track, the more laps I get the better we go, but at a track like this, the more time I have on the racetrack the fast we'll be on Sunday. The longer we stay in the race on Sunday the faster we should be at the end. You keep on learning and these are tracks that I need to focus on and try to learn a lot from." IS WATKINS GLEN MORE FORGIVING THAN INFINEON RACEWAY? "I think at Sonoma if you make a mistake you're going a lot slower in a lot of the corners and you get off track and get right back on. Here you might hit one of those blue walls pretty hard."

BRENDAN GAUGHAN, #77 KODAK/ JASPER ENGINES AND TRANSMISSIONS DODGE (STARTS 30TH): "We wanted to start a little further up because this is Kodak's headquarters. We have a lot of Kodak guys here and we would have loved to qualify. We came here and tested. This is an old Penske car, one of Rusty's that does pretty good. We would have liked to have had a shot at something but no big deal. We'll go to practice tomorrow and get it as good as we can in race trim and see how many guys we can pass." SINCE THIS IS KODAK'S HOME AREA, HAVE YOU BEEN BUSY THIS WEEK? "We were at the Rochester Red Wings all day yesterday. We did a little deal with Rusty and I because Rusty is running a Kodak Dodge this weekend. This is the first time in over 14 years that Rusty doesn't have his familiar #2 Miller Lite Dodge colors. We're starting the rumors that a) Miller Lite dropped Rusty and he lost his sponsor or b) Brendan Gaughan is being replaced by Rusty Wallace in the 77. Those are our two big rumors that we're giving around. Rusty is stepping up to the 77 team because the 2 team couldn't cut it. Miller Lite said that they couldn't handle Rusty anymore so Kodak picked him up. Those are our two big rumors that I'm looking for Mulhern to start printing because I'm sure that he'll print it. [laughs]." IT WOULD BE SPECIAL TO RUN WELL HERE. "It would be very good to have a good run here, just as good as last week with Jasper. Being in the top-15, making our way to the front, which is what we knew we could do, and getting there and proving that we could do it, at least we showed the Jasper folks [at Indy] that all we've been talking is coming true. Unfortunately, that was our only new Penske chassis which is now gone. This week we are in an old Penske which at least we're apples to apples when I compare notes with Rusty and Ryan. We're in Kodak's back door. I have 300 people that we're going to meet and greet with on Sunday. We spent all yesterday with probably 500 to 1,000 Kodak employees in a parking lot doing pit stops at the Rochester Red Wings game, then did autographs for folks at the game and threw out the first pitch. I've been having a lot of fun lately and it's amazing how many of Kodak's employees are pumped up about this deal. With a Raybestos Rookie driver and a brand new program and all these things, they are just excited that it's a new day and they can tell things are getting better. They are really pumped to see us do well here."

SCOTT WIMMER, #22 CATERPILLAR DODGE (STARTS 26TH): "We were lucky because we came up here and tested for a day. We got four or five hours on the track so I got a pretty good feel for the place with the new tires and everything. I don't know if it's really going to hurt anybody other that the guys that didn't make the race. We're going to have two pretty good practice sessions here tomorrow and everybody really concentrates on qualifying today. We didn't lose a whole lot unless it rains tomorrow because we tested up here." IS THIS TRACK MORE FORGIVING THAN SONOMA? "I had a lot easier time getting around here than I did Sears Point. It's not nearly as technical. It's a lot faster and the corners aren't as slow. It doesn't mean quite as much to hit your marks and get off the corner. With the engines and everything we've got we can usually pick it up if we miss a corner here. With the higher speed, shifting is a little tougher and getting into the corner is a little tougher because you're going a little faster. I had a real good time testing out here. We logged some good, competitive laps and I feel real good with what we're coming back with." HOW DIFFICULT IS PASSING GOING TO BE HERE? "I think it's going to be tough. You're really going to have to have good brakes underneath the car and really, there's only two or three spots that you can pass. You're going to have use a whole lap to set somebody up to make a pass and if you can get that done. Hopefully you can get that done smooth and be able to pull away from 'em. Track position is going to be key, just like it is at every track. The racetrack seems to be a lot easier than Sonoma and I think it will help all us Raybestos Rookies out a little bit."

NEXTEL Cup Series teams will not use wet weather tires this weekend at Watkins Glen. Crew chiefs Tommy Baldwin, Frank Stoddard, and Peter Sospenzo give their comments on the issue.

FRANK STODDARD, CREW CHIEF, #22 CATERPILLAR DODGE: "It's probably the right thing to do. It's just too hard to pass out there. There's too much spray and it would be very much a track position race. If I'm a fan paying $65, $55, or if I'm paying $25 coming to a race I don't want to sit there in the rain. I'd rather wait until the weather was clear and I think the majority would rather do that. Generally we'll see that when we have a Monday race, I'd say 75 to 80 percent of the fans are back for a Monday race. Twenty percent of them maybe had rather sit in the rain but I don't it. I think that 20 percent that went home still would say 'I'd rather go home and miss the race than sit in the rain.' I think it's a moot point. I don't know why would have ever had rain tires. I think it was somebody's brilliant idea that really wasn't as brilliant as it turned out to be." DID YOU EVER GET A CAR ON THE TRACK IN WET CONDITIONS? "I actually ran up here with Jeff [Burton] in about '99 or 2000. It rained up here on a Saturday I think in practice and we went out and ran pretty good, actually. But again, it's too many things: too many variables and stuff. The way NASCAR was going to do it was they were going to tell everybody when to come down pit road. If you're going to do it, do it all out. Let the strategy come into play. Let me make the decision to when I want to come in and get my tires versus when somebody else does."

TOMMY BALDWIN, CREW CHIEF, #9 DODGE DEALERS/UAW DODGE: "The cars aren't fully equipped with running in the rain. It would be just too much of a mess. We've tried it here in the past and tested with it and the way we run week in and week out, there's a lot more money involved in trying to get these cars sealed up and built right so the rain doesn't hurt anything. I'm glad that we don't have to take any chances running in the rain." DID THAT MAKE PREPEARING THE CAR FOR THIS RACE LESS DIFFICULT? "We just took out everything that we had in it. It's just one less thing that we have to worry about, especially throwing that in the mix for that championship run here. It's better off that they didn't do it."

PETER SOSPENZO, CREW CHIEF, #25 GMAC CHEVROLET: "These guys aren't used to running in the rain and we're not used to getting the car prepared for the rain, either, so there's a lot of things that go on that you have to do to get the car prepared to run in the rain. And it's just too dangerous for the guys that haven't been running 'em. Obviously, the road race ringers would love that because they would probably win every race in the rain because they're used to it. We're definitely in favor of not running in the rain. We don't do it anywhere else so there's no sense in doing it at the road courses." DID THAT MAKE PREPARING THE CARS FOR THIS RACE LESS DIFFICULT? "It was already on the cars so we just took it off. It took some weight out of the cars but other than that we already had it implemented in our cars and what we do is just took the stuff off." WOULD YOU HAVE BEEN ABLE TO RUN IN FALLING RAIN WITH THE TIRES? "I don't think you would have been able to run in a downpour. In other forms of racing when it's raining really bad they stop the race. What it all boils down to is that it was mostly for a wet track."