Auto Club 500 - Rookie Saturday Quotes

RAYBESTOS® ROOKIE CONTENDER FEATURE FOR THE AUTO CLUB 500 NASCAR NEXTEL CUP SERIES RACE AT CALIFORNIA SPEEDWAY, FEBRUARY 26, 2005.

Raybestos Rookies Eric McClure, Kyle Busch, and Travis Kvapil met with members of the media prior to pole qualifying Saturday at California Speedway.

ERIC MCCLURE, No. 73 ARC DEHOOKER CHEVROLET: “It’s been difficult, not really because of the impound rule. We knew coming in what we had to do and we’re fighting against the other new teams and the small teams. The biggest problem that we’ve had is where has our speed gone. We were fantastic out here testing. We were really good and we can’t back it up and now we’re a borderline team again. So that’s the biggest thing. With the inspection procedures, we’re the last one to go through. We missed the entire first practice so those are our biggest concerns. We’ve got a great, great engine and a great opportunity here. We’ve just got to make the most of it.” WOULD IT BE POSSIBLE TO OPEN INSPECTION EARLIER OR PUSH THE START OF PRACTICE BACK? “There’s a lot of things you can do. I’m not in a position to make suggestions. It’s obviously NASCAR’s show and certainly they are going to do it their way and we’ve got to abide by it. At the same time, they don’t need to be in a hurry because Eric McClure doesn’t make them money. Raabe Racing doesn’t make them money. We’re not the big names. I don’t say this as a negative thing, but they don’t really care about us so if we get through great and if we don’t, great. We had a little error in inspection that turned out to be a NASCAR error that even cost us more practice. It’s disappointing in that aspect but at the same time it’s consistent because it’s been that way forever. If you’re back in the points you’re going to go last and that’s fine and understandable. You have to reward the teams that are here every week and have the big sponsors. As a race team we’ve got to work smarter and we’ve got to work better to be on top of our game to overcome it.” DOES THE INTERMEDIATE TRACKS SHORTEN THE GAP BETWEEN THE LARGE AND SMALL TEAMS? “To a point it does. They are still going to be superior because of their research and their manpower and their finances. That’s just part of the game, that’s part of being a democratic sport. At the same time the impound rule does help us a little bit. In reality it helps the small team because these other guys are worried about race setup and we have the option of one or the other and we don’t have the super shocks and whatever to waste on a two-lap run. From a driver’s standpoint, it’s just another deal. We understand it and we accept it and that’s the best thing to do and then build from it.” WITH THE LIMITED AMOUNT OF TRACK TIME YOU HAVE EACH WEEKEND, WHAT IS YOUR MAIN FOCUS? “For Eric McClure, it’s to overcome his inexperience. When we first started testing I said good, we’ll go to Daytona. I know how to get around that place. I was hesitant about these places because I’ve never been here before, even in a Busch car. But we’ve tested really well and the biggest thing that I’ve got out of this is that if Raabe Racing closes its doors tomorrow, Eric McClure can drive a racecar and I want the whole world to know that I can drive a racecar. The biggest thing for us right now is that there’s going to be tracks coming up I’ve never been to. We have to learn as much as we can about each track about what does what and really we have to perform but at the same time use it as a test because we have to get better as we go along and overcome my inexperience but I don’t think that will be a big problem. Everybody has got to do that at some point.”

KYLE BUSCH, No. 5 KELLOGG’S CHEVROLET: DO YOU HAVE A COMPLETLEY DIFFERENT APPROACH DURING AN IMPOUND WEEKEND? “Not really. There’s just a lot of different aspects that go about it: the qualifying procedures, the race procedures, how long the races are, everything is so different now. You have to go about it and play it by ear, really, and just adapt yourself to your car and be able to work on your car to make it better for you. There’s a lot of things that we try to do.” MOST DRIVERS SAY THE CARS ARE LOOSE UNDER THIS NEW RULES PACKAGE. HOW LOOSE IT TOO LOOSE? “I think it’s a big factor now. You can run around there loose and know that you’re loose and just kind of hang on to it but when you’re driving it and you’re either tight or comfortable and all of a sudden it snaps out from under you, that’s where your problem comes and that’s what happened to me last year. I’m just riding around there and I’m a little bit free but I’m also pretty decent because I can drive a free car. All of a sudden it just snaps out from under you and you’re like ‘What the heck just happened?’ That was our biggest deal last year. This year I’m just going to try to work on making the cars comfortable and just trying to get the grip back.”

TRAVIS KVAPIL, No. 77 KODAK/JASPER ENGINES AND TRANSMISSIONS DODGE: HOW HAS THE IMPOUND WEEKEND CHANGED YOUR APPROACH? “I think it changes it a little bit for sure. You have to just totally work on your race setup and not really worry about where you’re going to be for qualifying. And that’s kind of what we did yesterday. We made three or four really long runs and used up all our tires and I thought we found a pretty decent balance. We you find you good race setup you tape it up and do a few things that you can do for qualifying and see what speed you’ve got out of it and what it is is what it is. That’s kind of how we’re approaching today. We did one qualifying run yesterday and I thought the car drove decent. It wasn’t doing nothing crazy so I was happy with it. Whatever we’ll get today is what we’ll get. I’m not really too concerned. I know that we’re locked in the field so we definitely don’t need to go out there and tear the racecar up or do anything foolish to jeopardize our day tomorrow. We’ve put all our emphasis on tomorrow.” TRACK POSITION IS CRITICAL AT THESE HIGH DOWNFORCE TRACKS BUT THERE DOESN’T SEEM TO BE MUCH EMPHASIS ON QUALIFYING. “That is something that I’ve thought about. That’s something that I learned in the truck series especially with how the races were so short if you qualify in the top-15 it took you all day to just to get in the top-five or top-10. With the Cup cars you get a little more time to work your way up through there but you’ve got to have a fast car. The leaders are going to be out in clean air and running hard and they are going to be able to put you a lap down real soon. It’s tough because you want to get a good starting position, good pit selection, and things like that but yet Sunday is what really matters. Right now our strategy is just to work on race setup and take qualifying with whatever we’ve got. If we find ourselves starting in the back of the pack and getting laps down in these races, that’s something that we’ll have to do is work on qualifying or find one little trick or one little thing that really helps me go fast for two laps that we can undo on our first pit stop or something like that.” HOW BIG OF A RELIEF IS IT TO GET INTO THE FLOW OF THE SEASON? “I enjoyed Daytona, the whole two weeks of it and the testing, probably a lot of the newness. I thought it was great. We had a fast racecar. I enjoyed how our team progressed through the Speedweeks and made our car better each time we went on the racetrack and had a shot at a top-10 finish toward the end until we got tangled up. I enjoyed it but I am looking forward to the regular downforce tracks and places like that where you don’t have to worry about the draft and things like that. You can just work on handling and the guys in the motor shop can work on putting great motors in the cars.” WOULD YOU LIKE TO SEE A MORE UNIFORM WEEKEND SCHEDULE? WOULD THAT HELP YOU AND THE TEAM PREPARE BETTER? “However they deal it to us, we’re going to deal with it and do the best we can to work through it. I think it would be easier on me and the guys, for sure. I know in the past it was pretty set what time practices were and qualifying and happy hour. It was always a pretty set schedule. Coming in as a Raybestos Rookie, it’s a little confusing. I was looking at the Daytona schedule and like Atlanta in a couple weeks, it’s totally different than what we’ve been doing the last couple weeks. It would be nice if something was a little more solid or even if it were two different ways but so far I think like the first three or four races there are three or four different formats. It’s really no big deal. We’re going to work through it and do the best we can. It’s kind of one of those things that doesn’t really matter but for everybody’s mindset it would be nice if everything was precise and the same every week.” THERE IS A MIX OF CARS IN PRACTICE WHO ARE FOCUSED ON RACE SETUP AND QUALIFYING SETUP. IS IT DIFFICULT TO GET WHAT YOU NEED FROM PRACTICE? “You can still get what you need, but you’ve got to rely on your spotters and your crew chiefs to make sure that you’re informed on what everyone’s agenda is because there are a dozen or so guys out there that want to be out there by themselves in clean air making qualifying runs. You are limited on the tires that you have before you qualify so you don’t want to mess somebody’s qualifying run up on a sticker set of tires. It can be devastating. You’ve got to be aware of what everybody is doing. I just try to get out there and get by myself and if anybody is coming on me, even if you think they are in race runs, just let them go. You don’t know what they’re plan is so just try and stay out of everybody’s way.” HOW IMPORTANT IS TIRE MANAGEMENT IN CUP PRACTICE? “The only place that we’re restricted on tires is in practice. I think we get four sets of tires to practice and qualify on. We were talking about it the other day, it would be nice if you could go out on stickers and do your qualifying runs but you don’t want to necessarily come here and unload off the truck in qualifying mode and just blaze right off the trailer. That’s hard to do. Yesterday we burned up two sets of tires just making long runs then we had one set of stickers left so we did our sticker run then put the car back into race trim and made some long runs so we have one set of stickers left for today to qualify on. You do have to manage your tires up until qualifying. There are different ways you can do that. It comes down to if you want to work on qualifying or race trim. If you wanted to work on qualifying you’d go out there and do four sticker runs right away but we were working on race runs where we’d just go out and make long runs.”