Coca-Cola 600 - Rookie Qualifying Quotes

Where the Raybestos Rookie qualified at Charlotte:
Busch 6th
Kvapil 18th

RAYBESTOS® ROOKIE CONTENDER QUALIFYING QUOTES FOR THE COCA-COLA 600 NASCAR NEXTEL CUP SERIES RACE AT LOWE’S MOTOR SPEEDWAY, MAY 26, 2005.

KYLE BUSCH IN THE No. 5 CARQUEST CHEVROLET WAS THE TOP RAYBESTOS ROOKIE IN BUD POLE QUALIFYING AT CHARLOTTE. “I was going to take 2 [laps] and I slipped really bad off of turn 2 and I didn’t feel like wrecking a pretty good racecar. It wasn’t worth it. I think the second lap might have been a little bit better even though the first lap was really good. This CARQUEST Chevy has been pretty good all weekend long and even when we tested here this was the car we had. It’s about the best one that we have in the shop. The one that we’re taking next weekend to Dover is going to be a little bit better than this one. These guys keep pumping out cars every week that’s better and better. I’ve always been excited about Lowe’s Motor Speedway. This is my favorite track and I really enjoy coming here. This is probably going to be the best I’ve ever qualified here. I know the cooler it gets the faster that everybody is going to go and it’s just a matter of time before we got bumped off.” TALK ABOUT RACING HERE AT CHARLOTTE. “This is exciting racing. Humpy has ground the track and it’s a bunch different.” YOU RAN A VERY GOOD LAP. “It was. The CARQUEST Chevy and all these guys have done an awesome job. This is one of the best cars that we have in the stable right now. But I think next week is pretty much going to be a little bit better car than this one. It’s not quite ready yet. It’s pretty cool to come out here and run so well especially at everybody’s home track. I love Lowe’s Motor Speedway.” DESCRIBE THAT LAP. “It was scary, probably the scariest lap I’ve taken in a long time. I got off in the corner there and stepped on the gas and the baby stuck and I’m like ‘Wow, this is going to be a good lap if I can hold it here through 3 and 4. I was able to get a good lap through 3 and 4. I knew it was a matter of time before we got beat going out so early. It’s just not a good time to go out early and it seems as though we just haven’t had any luck on our side, especially this week not being able to go out later. Dale Jarrett ran a heck of a lap and I didn’t think I would be able to beat him but I was. Jeff Gordon ran a whale of a lap, too, and as I said, speeds are just going to keep picking up as the temperature gets lower.” THIS IS YOUR SECONED 600. WHAT DID YOU LEARN IN LAST YEAR’S RACE? “It’s a grueling race, it’s a long race, and everybody kind of goes through this race kind of not knowing what to expect. A lot of drivers know how to nutrition themselves and others don’t. It’s just a matter of getting the right fluids in you before the race and getting everything ready to go in order to run that full 600 miles.” HOW DIFFICULT IS IT GOING TO BE TO KEEP UP WITH THE TRACK SUNDAY? “It does change all the time and you can’t leave your car alone. If your car is good in the beginning part of the run you can’t leave it, especially with what we learned last year. There’s going to be a bunch of things that happen throughout the race and so we’ll have to see how it plays out.” IS THAT WHY YOU ARE RUNNING THE BUSCH RACE SATURDAY NIGHT? “It is and it isn’t. We’re just trying to get the Busch program up on top of what it was from last year again and it’s real difficult having to work with a whole new team and what isn’t there this year that was there last year. It’s just a whole ordeal that we have to go through over there and we’ll see what we can do. We’re going to try to make the most of that opportunity and just have a good time.” HOW MUCH A LEARNING CURVE HAVE YOU HAD WITH THE SHORT SPOILER AND SOFTER TIRES? “It has been a big deal. Everybody has changed their cars so much from what they were last year, the aerodynamics of the cars and the downforce level and what they’ve had to go through. They’ve all learned a new curve of what cars and what the new generation cars are going to be now. Even the more curves NASCAR throws at us, they’re going to keep making it a pain every week. That’s what the sport’s all about. It’s kind of boring when you go to the racetrack twice with the same car.” SOME TEAMS ARE STARTING TO MAKE PERSONNEL CHANGES. CAN YOU TELL THAT THERE’S A LOT OF PRESSURE? “There is. I don’t know what it is. I don’t know if it’s from the sponsors, I don’t know if it’s from wanting to run well. I mean, everybody wants to run well, but there is only so many teams that can win on a given basis and here in the Cup Series you have 30 of those. You’ve got 36 races but it’s just all about how everything goes throughout the race. If everything runs up to par 100 percent, you might have a shot to win the race. If something goes 80 percent, you don’t have a shot in the world. You might get a top-10. The Cup Series is just that demanding on everybody and it’s just that hard to run up front.” WILL THE NEXT FIVE RACES MAKE OR BREAK YOUR SEASON? “For us, it pretty much is. If we can run well in the next five to seven races I think that can put us in a good area coming down the stretch to the Loudon race. I’m looking forward to some of the races coming up. Dover is not one of my favorites but I think this time it might be. I’m going run the truck and Busch race there so hopefully I can get some experience going for the Cup race. And then we go on to Michigan, another one of my favorite tracks and Pocono is one of my favorite tracks, and then we go to a road course at Sears Point and that’s going to be cool. I’m looking forward to doing that. That’s an easy place to gain some ground if you have a good car and can stay on the track all day.” YOU ARE JUST 76 POINTS OUT OF THE CHASE. “Well, 76 out of the Chase but that’s if Jimmie Johnson and Greg Biffle have a couple more bad weeks which I doubt that’s going to happen.” ARE YOU ENCOURAGED TO BE THAT CLOSE? “I’m not looking at the 400-point range is where we’re going to get in. I think it’s going to be the top-10. At the beginning part of the year I though there might be 14 or 15 guys that are going to get into this Chase deal but it doesn’t look as though it’s going to be that way. I think it’s still going to be the top-10 again this year.”

TRAVIS KVAPIL, No. 77 KODAK/JASPER ENGINES AND TRANSMISSIONS DODGE: “It’s okay. I came to the white flag and I said ‘That felt really good’ and he [crew chief Shane Wilson] said the lap time and man, I’m pretty disappointed. It’s the fastest we’ve ran in two weeks here and it’s the best that the car has drove in the two weeks that we’ve been here and we’ve been slowly making improvements on it over these past couple weeks. I feel like the car has speed and it drove good, it drove comfortable. I’m looking for the same results that we had last weekend, just being a front runner all day and be there at the end.” WHAT IS A QUALIFYING LAP AROUND CHARLOTTE LIKE NOW? “I think you kind of take what you’ve got. For me, I’m comfortable in about the middle of the racetrack. I saw Jeff Gordon on the bottom of 3 and 4. Ideally the fastest way around is on the bottom, but my car feels really good in about the middle, feels like it’s got a lot of grip and it’s good and stable for me. I think you react and where you end up is where you end up on the racetrack.” HAS THE TRACK STAYED CONSISTENT FROM LAST WEEK TO TONIGHT? “I think it has. Definitely earlier this afternoon when it was warmer the track had a little less grip and we seemed to be sliding around a little bit more. It’s cooling off and the track feels the same as it did last week and like I said earlier, we’re really looking towards how we ran in the open for our setup into the 600.” WHAT WOULD BE A GOOD NIGHT FOR YOU AND THE TEAM HERE SUNDAY NIGHT? “I think if you finish on the lead lap you’re going to have a good result just because it’s a long race but I really feel like we can push a top-10 out of it. I feel like we’ve had a top-10 car these last two weeks. I guess right now if we didn’t do that we’d be a little disappointed. I think that’s what we can do.”

BUSCH PRESS CONFERENCE
“This is a brand new racecar that we were looking to debut, I believe it was at Phoenix, but it wasn’t quite done and ready to go at that point so we brought it out here to Lowe’s Motor Speedway and it’s a pretty good car. We’re looking forward to it. We tested a bunch in race trim and only made a couple of qualifying runs when we were here testing. That was a pretty sporty lap right there. It scared me to death but it turned out to be pretty good and good enough obviously for the top-five right now and if it sticks there, great. If we ended up sixth or something like that, it won’t be too bad. I haven’t decided if I like fifth or sixth better right now, sixth because of the outside, but fifth for the top-five starting position.” WHAT DOES IT TAKE FOR A DRIVER TO DO WELL IN THE 600? “It takes nutrition, a good meal before the race, a good night before, and also a good day before the race. Last year in the Cup race I only missed out on a couple miles here because we ended up racing the whole thing last year and we made the race last year. I think we only missed about four laps or something like that. Jeff [Gordon] was a few laps down and we had to give him a spot at the end of the race. It was a good event for us and we were able to come there and had a good, decent day. We kind of hung out there and Jimmie [Johnson] was really fast. It was kind of cool to watch him blow past us and disappear and he’d come around a little bit later and we’d see him again. This year, I think hopefully it’s going to be a different story. Maybe we can watch him from the front windshield and stay there.” WITH MORE RUBBER PUT DOWN, DO YOU THINK THE TRACK WILL CHANGE SOME THIS WEEKEND? “I predict it being more or less the same, pretty much. The more rubber that gets on the place it’s going to be a little bit different for some guys and a little bit different for others. I think the more rubber that gets down is not really going to benefit us. I think the speeds might slow down just a little bit due to the more rubber. I think because of the grinding that has gone on here, if you’re running on that fresh asphalt where it’s ground, I think you’re going to be faster than when the rubber starts building up then you’re just running on top of the rubber. Other places that we go to, it seems as though the more rubber that gets built up the better it is for tire wear, so it’s kind of a wish-wash deal right there. It kind of depends on how far guys move up the racetrack, how far they think they need to go to in order to stay with the fresh asphalt or not and how their tire wear is and everything else. I’ll be curious to see how exactly it turns out but I was talking to Humpy earlier today and he says as soon as this race is over he’s coming back in here. He’s going to finish grinding the bottom of turn 2 and he’s going to do a couple of other spots around the racetrack and he’s also going to do the Legends oval for the guys that run on the outside of the Legends track. That’s what I’m looking forward to because I’ve got to run the Legends series here as a car owner this summer so it’s going to be fun.” WHO WILL BE DRIVING YOUR LEGENDS CAR? “The driver is going to be a kid who’s a real good friend of mine, Alex Haas from Las Vegas, Nevada. I was going to do it again this year but already I’m only going to make about four races so I’m not going to make them all. I’m going to have him run it and I’ll be here when I’m here to see him.” IS THE TRACK TOO FAST FOR RACING? “Yeah, the track is too fast. I wish it was the same ol’ way. It was fun the way that it was. You’d slip around a little bit more and have to figure something out. I think the track, when it was the old asphalt; it was harder to get a hold of, obviously, to go fast. I don’t think it would have mattered for Ryan Newman winning the pole, but still it probably would have been better for the rest of us throughout the race just to kind of get out there. You can slide around a lot more. Humpy was trying to made two-by-two racing and from what I remember last year, there was guys running from the white line all the way to the wall in 3 and 4 and then in 1 and 2, they were developing a second groove. It takes somebody brave enough to get out there in that second groove. I think Humpy tried to make it easier for us and I think now you have a false sense of security on what exactly the track feel is for your car and it’s just made everybody that much faster, of course.” COULD YOU HAVE RUN AS FAST AS NEWMAN IF YOU HAD WENT OUT LATER? “If I went out dead last, like Terry, I would predict a .20 [he ran a .31], maybe even a .12 or something like what Jeff ran. I probably wouldn’t have been able to run a flat or below.” DOES THAT GIVE YOU AN APPRECIATION OF THE LAP HE RAN? “Oh, that’s fast, dude. That is blistering fast. For as early as we were going out, I was hoping for maybe a .50 or a .55 for my lap and I went out and ran a .30 so I was delighted with that. I was hoping that it would stick in the top-five and it seems as though right now it is but there is still some fast cars still left to go and of course it’s cooling down out, too.”