Pepsi 400 - Rookie Thursday Quotes

RAYBESTOS® ROOKIE CONTENDER FEATURE FOR THE PEPSI 400 NASCAR NEXTEL CUP SERIES RACE AT DAYTONA INTERNATIONAL SPEEDWAY, JUNE 30, 2005.

Mike Garvey is the most recent driver to join the 2005 Raybestos Rookie class in the NASCAR NEXTEL Cup Series. The Lakeville, MN, native is has made five starts this season with a best finish of 25th at Pocono (Pa.) Raceway in June.

MIKE GARVEY, No. 66 JANI-KING FORD: ARE YOU PLANNING TO RUN ALL THE REMAINING RACES? “That’s the deal. We’re going to run all the rest of the races and just try to keep getting stronger and stronger every week. Realistically, right now if we can start running in the top-25 and then try to move in the top-20 every week and then hopefully the top-15. We’re trying to keep realistic goals and keep working towards them.” IS IT SPECIAL FOR YOU TO BE IN DAYTONA DRIVING A NEXTEL CUP CAR? “This is awesome. This is what every kid’s dream about when they start racing. To me, this is a big day and hopefully we can get a good finish and carry some momentum into Chicago. I think we’re getting stronger every week.” DOES YOUR OPPORTUNITY IN THE CUP SERIES GIVE HOPE TO SHORT TRACK DRIVERS ACROSS THE COUNTRY? “I hope so. Hopefully people will see it doesn’t matter what age you are, if you can drive a racecar you can get an opportunity. If we’re more of a rallying cry for the older guys, hey that’s great. Hopefully we can run good enough and get Jani-King some exposure, Peak Performance, everybody. They’re other people out there that can drive racecars besides 18 or 20-year old kids.” WHAT WOULD IT MEAN TO YOU AND THIS TEAM TO BE THE RAYBESTOS ROOKIE OF THE RACE IN SOME EVENTS THIS YEAR? “That would be awesome. That means that we’re doing our job, getting stronger every week and getting better and better and that’s what we’re trying to do so that would be icing on the cake for us.”

Cindy Lewis and her husband Bill co-drive the transporter for the No. 77 Kodak/Jasper Engines and Transmissions Dodge driven by Raybestos Rookie Travis Kvapil. Lewis discussed the challenges of keeping pace with the NEXTEL Cup Series schedule and making the run from Sonoma, California, to Daytona Beach, Florida in just a few days.

CINDY LEWIS, TRUCK DRIVER, No. 77 KODAK/JASPER ENGINES AND TRANSMISSION DODGE: “We got in at 8 o’clock Tuesday night [from Sonoma] and we left at 6 o’clock Wednesday night to come to Daytona. Do the math. You drive 48 hours back and then you have a 12-hour turnaround and then head to Daytona.” FROM THE TIME YOU LEAVE SONOMA SUNDAY NIGHT UNTIL YOU GET HOME, HOW MUCH CUSHION DO YOU HAVE? “You’ve got about six or seven hours, that’s if you get in, unload and reload, and head down here. But you’ve got to make sure that the car is ready. We got our car at three (Wednesday) and by the time you get a shower and leave to come down, we got here at three in the morning.” IS THIS THE HARDEST STRETCH, FROM CALIFORNIA TO FLORIDA? “Well, it starts with Michigan, California, Daytona. Then you’ve got Chicago, New Hampshire, and it’s going to be neat to see how things work out for Phoenix, Texas, and Homestead because they’re all back-to-back. There’s no room for breakdown so you have to be up on your toes.” DO YOU HAVE AN ADVANTAGE AS A HUSBAND AND WIFE TEAM? “Yeah, I would say so. We still have family. We still have a son at home and you miss seeing him. I had to wake him up when I got up to go back in the shop yesterday I had to wake him up so I could see him for half and hour because he works. We did get to have a little bit of dinner with him and we told him we’d see him on Sunday and spend a day or two with him. Hopefully we’ll get the race in and we won’t have to stay here an extra day and be at home an extra day to get my laundry done.” ON A NORMAL TRIP, HOW LONG DO YOU DRIVE ON A SHIFT? “It depends on how hard the day is before you leave. We don’t try to stretch it out over five hours and that way you don’t get worn out and you’re not numb from sitting in one seat. We usually try to stop and have a good breakfast and nibble on things at lunchtime and then stop and have a good dinner. I’m not one to pick up a sandwich and run with it. You’ve got to allow yourself enough time because your body needs nutrition, too.” WHAT’S THE HARDEST PART ABOUT THIS STRETCH? IS IT THE DISTANCE YOU HAVE TO COVER? “You’ve only got so many hours and you can only put so much in. Some of the guys coming back had problems blowing tires and luckily, knock on some wood, we haven’t had that problem but there’s no room for a major breakdown. But you deal with it and you get to the track. We’ve had that before. You get a rental and take ‘er on in to the track, but make sure you’re there when they park ‘em on time.” IS IT EASIER WHEN YOU ARE DRIVING FOR A BIGGER TEAM? IS THE SCHEDULE SO THAT YOU HAVE TO BE WITH A BIG TEAM TO PHYSICALLY MAKE IT TO EACH RACE? “There’s one-car teams that are switched around, turned around, and back on the road before we are. It’s just a matter of what they’re dealing with. They could have something go wrong that could get them back from loading three hours but a lot of them have two truck drivers. Some of them have three and they switch them all around so that they’re not worn out. But when you’re into racing, it’s what’s put in front of you, put on your plate. That’s what you wanted and you deal with it. You deal with it and go on.” ARE NIGHT RACES GOOD OR BAD ON YOUR SCHEDULE? “If they did a two-day schedule and had us in here on Friday and ran it through like Busch does, qualify Saturday morning, that would be a lot easier. It would give us one more day to get ourselves together as truck drivers to get down here. Pulling in this garage this morning there were a lot of them that looked wore right out.”

DAN MOZINGO, TRUCK DRIVER, No. 5 KELLOGG’S CHEVROLET: IS THIS THE TOUGHEST PART OF THE SCHEDULE? “It’s definitely hard. It’s tough on all the guys that drive the trucks and that fly. At one time we got away from coming from Sonoma to Daytona and I guess this year we kind of came back to it. It’s real tough. We’ve got enough people and people are real organized in our organized in our organization so it’s not as bad of a transition probably as it would be with other people. It makes it easier having the people that we have and the way that we do things. I think organizing people is the key. It’s getting the people organized to do the change. We’ve got the point where we can turn the truck around in few hours and be ready to go again. It’s not that bad for us. We got back Tuesday afternoon around 3 o’clock and came back in and got everything turned around and left at 2 o’clock yesterday to come back down here.” IS THERE ANY GOOD WAY TO SCHEDULE THE RACES? “Short of flying it, no (laughs). The way the schedule is is the way it is and I don’t think there is anything we can do to change it. I think we can put a weekend off after a west coast run like that, especially as far as that one is, I think the weekend after they could have scheduled a weekend off between those somehow or make this a two-day, have us come here on Friday would have made it a lot easier for the guys to have a little bit of time at home.” HOW MANY HOURS DID YOU HAVE FROM THE TIME YOU LEFT SONOMA UNTIL YOU HAD TO PARK HERE AT DAYTONA? “It’s hard on the truck drivers because we have two guys and we ran back in 45 hours. By the time I got home and unloaded the truck that afternoon we got everything situated for the next morning I got to see my wife for 41/2 hours before I went to bed and got up the next morning to come back in. It’s tough, it’s really tough.”