Nextel All-Star Challenge - Rookie Qualifying Quotes

Where the Raybestos Rookies will start in the NEXTEL Open:
Busch 2nd
Kvapil 4th
McClure 23rd

KYLE BUSCH IN THE No. 5 KELLOGG’S CHEVROLET WAS THE TOP RAYBESTOS ROOKIE QUALIFER FOR THE NEXTEL OPEN. HE WILL START SECOND IN SATURDAY NIGHT’S RACE. HOW WAS THE LAP? “That was pretty good. I was hoping that it would stick, kind of like yesterday. The Kellogg’s Chevrolet has been good all day and we’ve been fast. It’s just like the Craftsman Truck. If we can keep it up there and run all night tomorrow night, the first 20 and then the final 10, I think we can be right there with a shot at the win. Practice was really good. We were really strong on the long run and good here in qualifying. It would be pretty cool to sit on the pole here and impress these guys here in the NEXTEL All-Star Challenge Open. It’s going to be a fun event for us all even if we win or lose we’re going to be out here to take it as a test session a little bit and get ready for the 600. This car is second best to our 600 car so I’m looking forward to next weekend.” DID THE TRACK CHANGE A LOT FROM PRACTICE TO QUALIFYING? “Not really, just due to the fact that I think the temperature has been about the same. The only thing that’s happened is that the sun is peeking out a little bit here and there so it’s a good thing that we had a cloud so it was pretty good for us. Overall, just the way that it ran all day long has been pretty swell.” CAN YOU TRANSFER? “I think I can win and I can transfer. I’m not counting on the fan vote. I’m counting on going out there and kicking everybody’s butt to win the race [laughs].” WHAT KIND OF RACE DO YOU THINK WE’LL SEE TOMMOROW NIGHT? “I think it’s going to be a fun, short race. It might be a good race where they’re racing for second.” YOU RAN GOOD ALL DAY IN PRACTICE AND YOU QUALIFIED WELL. “It shows a testament to the team and what we’ve got looking forward to next week in the 600. This is the second best car that we have in the shop. Our first best obviously we’re bringing next weekend and the guys have done a good job on that one and this one preparing it and getting it ready to come out here. Hendrick horsepower has been great under the hood so we’re looking forward to beating all the rest of them out there tomorrow night to get in the big race and just hang out and see what we can do with all the big guys in that show. Our practice speeds showed that we were second quick to Jeremy Mayfield for the guys that are already in the race. We’ve got a really good car here and if we can just finish the deal out and win tomorrow’s race after the final 10.” IS THE TRACK A LOT DIFFERENT AFTER THE GRINDING? “It’s smoother, it’s not smooth. There’s still a lot of bumps around it. It’s still the same ol’ Charlotte. You’ve got to run it a particular way. There’s a few different things. There’s a few different things that you can do to work with it in order to get better for the racetrack itself. I’m running the truck race tonight just to see if I can work a couple little things and see what changes over the long run of a ride and the tires and stuff because it’s the same tire between both series.” HAS RUNNING THE TRUCK HELPED YOU IN THE CUP CAR? “I think it’s going to help more so on the long run, definitely getting into the night on the 30-lap and 40-lap runs that we’re going to have, it’s definitely going to show just how tight and how loose you might go. I know the trucks are way aero different but still I think we can figure out a base plan on what the trucks go off of on the long run. You can listen to everybody else out there as well to kind of get a game plan.”

TRAVIS KVAPIL, No. 77 KODAK/JASPER ENGINES AND TRANSMISSIONS DODGE (WILL START FOURTH): “That’s not shabby. It’s definitely the best we’ve been since we’ve been here in testing and everything. We made some good improvements on the car since we tested and made good adjustments on it today. We’ve been a little bit tight the whole time that we’ve been here. We were just a little bit tight still right there but pretty close. I thought we were pretty fast and consistent in race trim and we only got the chance to make one lap in qualifying trim. So I was pretty happy that we went out and ran a .60. I was going to be tickled with about an .80 so I’m pretty happy with it.” THIS GOOD RUN MUST BOOST YOUR CONFIDENCE. “I feel like we’re kind of turning the corner. We’ve tested pretty decent here last week and we test really good at Dover this last week. We unloaded here and we were fast and things are just kind of working. Hopefully the results will come with it.” CAN YOU TRANSFER? “I think we can. I think the 5 car is the car to beat, if not us, looking at the lap times and the average speeds from practice. I had the fastest average of the whole practice but Kyle was second when had made some long runs. I think we can, no doubt about it.” WAS IT AN ADVANTAGE TO GO OUT LATE? “I’m not sure. I don’t think it really mattered. Track temperature I thought was pretty much the same all day really, from this morning practice until tonight. The sun peeked out a few times there and I was worried about having to go out when the sun was shining and that didn’t seem to hurt anybody. I don’t think it played a factor. Some of the fast cars went out early and Bliss went out right at the end. It definitely didn’t hurt, I don’t think, but I don’t think there was a huge advantage there.” HOW IMPORTANT IS IT TO HAVE A GOOD RUN? “No doubt, we need to have a good run. If this car performs well and it survives tomorrow night, we’re going to plan to bring it back for the 600. We brought our best bullet here; we’re not holding nothing back. We feel like right now this is our best car so we need to run it and hopefully survive tomorrow night and if not we’ve got one back home close to it.” WILL WE SEE A LOT OF PASSING? “I’m not sure. Our race is only 30 laps and 15-20 laps into my run I could still run some pretty fast lap times in the middle of the racetrack. It seems like that is about the preferred line right now. When we get around traffic maybe guys will get a little bit aero-tight and lose some grip. If that’s the case then we need to be able to turn from the middle of the corner off and hopefully we can be able to do that.”

ERIC MCCLURE, No. 92 TBA CHEVROLET (WILL START 23RD): “It wasn’t bad. I’m a little disappointed. We made some changes after practice and to be quite honest with you we made enough changes to make it better but we went a little too far. It wasn’t as good as we needed it to be. I think we’ll race okay. I think the race pace will be a little bit slower. We’re going to end up 25th or something but we’re not as bad as that. This will be the first opportunity for the Cup cars to race on this surface and it will be interesting to see what happens. Our goal tomorrow is to run all the laps and stay out of trouble and race who we can race and get these guys a good test for next week and get me one for the Busch car.”