Nextel All-Star Challenge - Rookie Friday Quotes

Raybestos Rookie Eric McClure will attempt to make his second NEXTEL Cup start of the 2005 season Saturday night in the NEXTEL Open.

ERIC MCCLURE, No. 92 TBA CHEVROLET: “We’re back in the Cup car. We’re having a lot of fun this weekend. Bob Jenkins called and asked me since I was eligible to drive his Cup car. He’s partners with Jimmy Means and I’ve been running his Busch car so it was definitely an opportunity I couldn’t pass up. Anytime I can get in a car at a place that I haven’t tested at is good.” IS THERE A CHANCE YOU COULD RUN MORE RACES IN THIS CAR? “I certainly don’t know that. I know that Stanton [Barrett] has been driving for them and doing a good job. I’m at the point now where I can say that I’m open to anything and if any opportunity comes along I’m definitely able to jump to it. I’ve had an opportunity to run the 52 Busch car [owned by Jimmy Means] and I’ll run that as long as they’ll let me and if anything else comes along we’ll look at each opportunity and we’ll see what happens. Fred Wanke [crew chief] has got us a pretty good car here and I really enjoy working with these guys.” WHAT IS THE GOAL FOR THIS WEEKEND? “The goal this weekend is to use this as a test. It’s going to be a great test for me since I didn’t test the Busch car here and it’s going to be a good test for them for the 600. We need to run all the laps, communicate well, let them know how the car is responding in different situations and it will help all of us out come next week.” COMMENT ON THE RACETRACK. “I love it. It’s definitely a lot different when I came last year to test a Busch car. They’ve done a really good job with the track. It’s so fast it’s almost like playing a video game. The car is doing everything and you don’t have time to feel it. They’ve done a good job and it’s going to make for a good race.” IS THE TRACK BUMPY? “Not if you hit the groove right. If you jump back down to the bottom, which I did once, it’s still the same ol’ Charlotte. They’ve done a fabulous job with this and it’s going to put on a good show.” DOES THE TEAM PLAN TO USE THIS CAR IN THE 600? “I think this is the same car they’re planning on using. Everything is working out according to plan so far. We didn’t get as much practice as we would have liked; only about five laps. We had some difficulties with some things and didn’t get out until the very end. Other than that, everything’s a good as could be expected.” ARE YOU IN THE 52 BUSCH CAR FOR THE REST OF THE YEAR? “I don’t know; I think it’s a rest of the year, week-to-week kind of thing [smiles]. They don’t have a sponsor and it’s tough for them to compete. We’ve overachieved in that car. I think they have it rented out a few more times this year with somebody bringing some sponsorship and I certainly understand that: you have to survive in this business. They’ve given me the opportunity to drive it and as long as anybody will let me drive anything, I’m happy.” IS THERE MORE PRESSURE TO GO TO A TEAM WITH LIMITED RESOURCES? “It’s really a good situation. It’s probably one of the better situations that I’ve been in because it gives me seat time. We had good equipment when we came with our Busch car last year but we had only one person working on it. Morgan-McClure didn’t have time to fool with it and we didn’t have the resources to run. It’s actually less pressure because if you make the race everybody is happy because they need somebody to drive the car and make races for them. It’s giving me a chance to get to the track every week, go to new places for the first time and get a lot more racing experience. It can’t do anything but help me.” DOES DOING WELL IN A SITUATION LIKE THAT BOOST YOUR STOCK AS A DRIVER? “A lot of people have told me that, that people are looking at you and you’re doing an excellent job. The list is unbelievably long but I don’t look at it like that. It’s still disappointing missing a race like we did last week. Even though we made it run faster than the year before, we still missed a race. It’s still disappointing because even though you’re learning and you’re in a situation that you’re probably not going to win races, you’re still a competitive person. Jimmy Means is a competitive person. The way I look at is you come in and you get seat time and you know what you’re working with and your job as a team is to make it go as fast as it possibly can and we’ve been able to do that every week. Three weeks we got in races really good, two weeks we went home. There’s no pressure to me. If I was driving a Hendrick car or something then you’ve got pressure to run top-five or top-10 or win. This is the first “full time” chance that I’ve had so I’m loving every second of it.”

ALAN GUSTAFSON, CREW CHIEF, No. 5 KELLOGG’S CHEVROLET: WHAT IS THE BEST WAY TO DETERMINE WHO HAS THE BEST PIT CREW? “I think the race situations are so much better. The Union 76 style, old pit crew competition, was good. I think when you vary it and put in pushing buzzers and pushing the car, that’s cool and I guess it’s a good show for the fans but when is that representative. The race is so different. They’re coming in hard or they’re having to angle in and the car is moving and you’re having to get around the car. You’ve got probably 50,000 fans out here tonight, a lot of people, a lot of pressure, that’s more representative and I like that type situation.” YOU’VE GOT TO BE HAPPY WITH THE LAST THREE OR FOUR RACES WITH KYLE. “I’m real happy with the team. We’ve run well all year long. At the beginning of the year, we just had problems finishing races and putting it all together. At Darlington I know we cut that tire but that wasn’t due to our fault; it was circumstantial. At Richmond, we were solid there all day long. Actually, if you back it up past Talladega at Phoenix we were solid all day long. The team is coming together. We came here and tested great. We’re really coming to win this race. We want to be in the all-star race. Kellogg’s belongs in that all-star and I think the 5 belongs in that all-star so we need to get it in there.” WHAT CAN BE DONE TO MAKE PIT ROAD SAFER? “The biggest thing I think that you could potentially do is widen it out. We pitted in pit stall number 5 and you’re going around the bin there and they’re three-wide and somebody gets spun out and slams into a car that would stop. Sometimes you see guys blow their pit stall but those usually don’t relate to huge injuries. Head injuries usually come from a guy who’s wrecked. Ward [Burton] was turned at Homestead three or four years ago and got into the 28 and caused some serious injuries there and kind of started the whole helmet thing. The Richmonds, the Indys, the Martinsvilles are so tight everybody is trying to take off and it’s that funnel effect and somebody gets turned sideways and gets spun into a guy doing a pit stop.” DO YOU THINK A DRIVER WHO HIT S A CREWMEMBER SHOULD BE PENALIZED? “It’s really the crew chief’s fault, or the spotter’s fault, because they go on the faith that we’re giving them the right decision. It’s not their fault. Their paid to fast, they’re paid to go through the gears aggressively and get to the pit road speed. That’s their job, so I don’t think you can really blame them for that. We just need more room. Obviously, we’ve got to make good decisions and say ‘Hey, they’re two-wide, either you can’t beat them or you’ve got to go behind them.’ There were a couple of situations at Richmond where they were two-wide and we just kind of eased out, you snuck out in front of them but we knew there were only four pit stalls and we had to be cleared by the time there was a problem. If you look at the wider pit roads, the Charlottes where there’s places to go off in the grass, you don’t see as many issues.” CAN YOU TELL THAT PIT ROAD HAS BECOME MORE DANGEROUS IN THE LAST FEW YEARS? “I think it has gotten more dangerous but one reason I think that’s happened is everybody is so close. Pit stops are important. You’re trying to get on pit road hard and you’re trying to get off pit road hard and we all come together nose to tail and there’s not many lap cars breaking it up. If you look at Darlington, where you’ve got a big pit road, and you get 10 lead lap cars, no problem. There’s no issues. Nobody is knocking fenders off the tires. But you go to the Bristols, Indys, Richmonds-type places and it’s a mess.” COMMENT ON YOUR FIRST SEASON AS A CREW CHIEF. “I’m a little disappointed in our points position but in our performance I’m not. We’ve performed well. We’ve run well. We’ve been in contention to run top 10 week in and week out and we’ve put ourselves in positions to be in contention for top-fives and hopefully be in contention for wins here in the near future. Performance wise we’ve been there. We just haven’t finished out and to be a championship team, which we eventually want to be, you’ve got to be solid and finish those races out so we’ve got to work on that.” WHAT HAS SURPRISED YOU ABOUT BEING A CREW CHIEF IN NEXTEL CUP? “Just how busy you really are. I was in a position as close as you could be to a crew chief and you just don’t understand how you’re pulled in a million directions. I’ve got great people at Hendrick Motorsports and on the Kellogg’s team so that helps. Every day you’ve got deal with this guy or that guy or this guy’s got a problem. That’s tough and it’s taxing and you don’t get to work on the racecars as much as you want to.” ARE YOU SURPRISED THAT YOU ARE NOT IN THE SHOP WORKING ON THE CARS? “I was surprised. The year before I could really look at the racecars, analyze racecars. I still do that, but now I’m doing it until 8 at night instead of 5 at night. You have to put in that extra time to get there.”