UAW-GM Quality 500 - Rookie Post-Race Quotes

Where the Raybestos Rookies finished at Charlotte:
T. Kvapil 17th
K. Busch 39th

KYLE BUSCH, No. 5 KELLOGG’S/DELPHI CHEVROLET: “You know, it’s not the tires, it’s not the racetrack, it’s just the conditions we’re under. I was riding my car around there 85-90 percent and just scared to death pushing it that final 10 percent because you never know what’s going to happen. It’s hard to race under the conditions where you are pitting every 30 laps. Somebody is going to win tonight but it’s not going to be the No. 5 team.” ARE ALL THE DRIVERS RUNNING LESS THE 100 PERCENT? “I guarantee it. You go ask everybody after the race how hard they ran. They’ll tell you they ran hard at the end but ask them how hard they ran at the beginning and through the middle part of the race.” YOU WENT FROM LEADING THE RACE TO SITTING IN THE GARAGE. ANY INDICATION WHAT WAS COMING? “No, no indication. There was nothing that I could have done any different about it. I’m only driving my car 85, 90 percent out there, not even pushing it the final 100 percent because I’m scared to death seeing all the other competitors out there. Terrible circumstances out there to race in, but it’s not Goodyear’s fault, it’s not the racetrack’s fault. It’s just a tough break. If NASCAR wants to throw a caution every 30 laps that’s what they’re going to have to do to keep us out of the fence otherwise that’s just what’s going to bring out the cautions.” UNTIL THAT POINT YOU HAD BEEN WATCHING THE TIRE WEAR CLOSELY. HAD YOU SEEN ANY PROBLEMS? “I had no problems with out right front at all the whole night. We had a little bit of problem with our right rear. It started blistering a little bit but we didn’t have any problems with the right front. I’m sure what’s happening now is that Humpy is really thinking about repaving now. Everybody is worried about it out there. You go ask these guys how hard they are driving these racecars and I’ll bet you they are not driving them 100 percent. It’s tough circumstances to race in and everybody has got to race in those conditions. We’re going to pay somebody to win out there tonight but it’s not going to be the No. 5 team and they deserve it.” ARE THE TOP FINISHERS TONIGHT JUST GOING TO BE SURVIVORS? “That’s all they do. They survived.” IS IT FAIR TO DETERMINE A RACE THAT WAY? “No, if you can’t drive your car to 100 percent of its ability there’s no point in having a race. Our there we’re just running around there just trying to make laps and bide out time. I was able to drive the car 90 percent but my car didn’t survive driving 90 percent. Maybe it would have at 60 percent.” WHY WERE YOU ONLY DRIVING 85 PERCENT? “I was scared to death to go that final 10 percent because I knew a right front tire or some thing was going to happen. It’s inevitable when you have that many going down throughout the day with everybody else. We all want to come out of this day and go see our families tomorrow.” HOW WOULD YOU DESCRIBLE THE TRACK RIGHT NOW? “There’s nothing wrong with the track; it’s super-fast, of course. There’s nothing wrong with the tires. The grip is excellent. It’s just the conditions that it’s under. The tires are under way too much stress and the track is way too fast and it’s just what happens. The only thing that can be done is basically to pave it. That’s about it. I think it’s the fastest racetrack that you’re going to see. It’s comfortable for us drivers but it’s not comfortable for cars.”

ALAN GUSTAFSON, CREW CHIEF, No. 5 KELLOGG’S/DELPHI CHEVROLET: DO YOU KNOW WHAT HAPPENED TO THE TIRE? DID YOU CUT IT? “I don’t know. We had a good car and we saw some chunking on right front and a little on the right rear, nothing excessive. Every run averaged about 25 laps to the dot and you could see that they would blow a tire. I know Kyle is going to push, so I let him push and get the lead and as soon as we got the lead to back it down. He backed it down probably three tenths so I figured ‘Hey, we’re good and we’ll ride here’ and boom. I’m sure it blew a tire. I don’t know dynamically what’s happening to those tires, why they’re busting. I’m sure Goodyear does but that’s a shame. It’s tough to race like that.” IS IT SOMETHING STRUCTURAL WITH THE TIRES? “Personally, I don’t think it’s Goodyear’s fault. I think they do an awesome job with these tires. It’s too fast. These cars run around here too fast. You have 3,400-pound cars and NASCAR wants to cut the spoiler and get the downforce away. Well, that’s too much. They’re sliding and they’re too fast. If you had the downforce I don’t think the tires would slide as much. You wouldn’t have to ask the tires to do as much to grip the corner and you wouldn’t have the problems. Without the downforce and running at these speeds I don’t think there is a tire in the world that can handle it.” IN A RACE LIKE THIS, IS THERE SUCH A THING AS STRATEGY IN A RACE LIKE THIS? “No, there’s no strategy. It’s Russian Roulette. The luckiest guy is going to win this race and he’s not going to think so. The winner is going to sit there and think he knew what he was doing but he is the luckiest guy who got the tire or had the situation and he didn’t blow a tire.” YOU SCUFFED MULTIPLE SETS OF TIRES YESTERDAY IN PRACTICE. DID THAT MAKE A DIFFERENCE? “We scuffed all our tires. I’m at minimum or above Goodyear’s recommended pressures. We did everything we could do. We knew it was going to be this kind of race and out tires looked good. We evaluated our pit strategy and how we ran the car was according to our tires. We thought we were on a good pace. We were going to have to pit in 30 laps like everybody else would but we thought we were on a good pace to do that or until the caution fell and boom. I don’t think he was running the car any harder than he had been before and for whatever reason it blew that right front tire. I hate it for everyone at Kellogg’s, Delphi, and all our guys. These guys worked their tails off. We had our best car here and it was in position to win another race and it’s taken away.” IS THE SOLUTION REPAVING THE TRACK? “No, it’s going to be just as fast. I don’t think the solution is repaving the racetrack. The track has got too much grip. When it was old and wore out you could get away with it because the surface didn’t have the grip. It was bumpy and you couldn’t get grip in the car. I think the solution is put downforce in the cars. If you want to run as these speeds, you’re going to have to put downforce in them or you’re going to kill tires. This is the most magnified situation that we’ve had but we’ve had tire problems at Chicago and you could list 10 racetracks this year. You see it all the time. I remember Elliott wrecking going into turn 1 at Chicago, so it’s not the tires. It’s the cars. The cars don’t make enough downforce, the tires are too soft and they just can’t handle it. The cars need more downforce with harder tires like we had in 2003. You can go back and look at 2003 and you don’t see any tire problems.” WILL WE SEE THESE PROBLEMS AT ATLANTA AND HOMESTEAD? “We corded tires at Atlanta [in March]. Of course, we had a backup car and we didn’t have the best car and we still finished 12th with it in Atlanta, but we corded tires there. Atlanta is not as abrasive. It’s wore out, it’s rougher, it’s bumpier, it’s better for these type things. You don’t have the loads at Atlanta that you are carrying here. And Homestead, with the progressive banking, it might be okay but I’m not sure. It hasn’t ever seemed to be too hard on tires but you know Bill Elliott blew a right rear there that one time. I just think you have to get downforce back in the cars. That’s the only way you’re going to fix it.”

TRAVIS KVAPIL IN THE No. 77 KODAK/JASPER ENGINES AND TRANSMISSIONS DODGE WAS THE RAYBESTOS ROOKIE OF THE RACE IN THE UAW-GM QUALITY 500. Notes: Kvapil finished 17th and took Raybestos Rookie of the Race honors for the 10th time this season. He also led the race once for one lap.

More Notes
Kvapil and Kyle Busch (once for seven laps) both led tonight’s race at Lowe’s Motor Speedway. Two or more Raybestos® Rookies have led a lap in just three races this season: the Coca-Cola 600 at Lowe’s Motor Speedway and the Chevy Rock & Roll 400 at Richmond (Va.) International Raceway were the others.

Other Raybestos® Rookies that have led a lap in the fall race at Charlotte (since 1975).
1979: Dale Earnhardt (three times for 55 laps)
1979: Harry Gant (once for seven laps)
1982: Geoffrey Bodine (once for 5 laps)
1983: Trevor Boys (once for two laps)
1986: Alan Kulwicki (twice for six laps)
1993: Jeff Gordon (once for one lap)
1994: Jeff Burton (once for 29 laps)
1994: John Andretti (twice for 30 laps)
2000: Matt Kenseth ((once for one lap)
2002: Jimmie Johnson (three times for 66 laps)
2003: Jamie McMurray (once for one lap)
2004: Kasey Kahne (four times for 207 laps)

KVAPIL: “Considering how the weekend started, we were slow in practice and started shotgun on the field, terrible and started the race terrible. Luckily we had a couple of cautions early and we could work on it, otherwise we were going to get lapped. We made a lot of adjustments, spring rubbers and wedge and tire pressure and just kept getting it better and better and better. We found a few things that didn’t work and found a few things that did work and just kept creeping up on it. We were still 80-85 percent of where we needed to be. We still had a little bit to be fast-fast but our lap times were a half-second to a second faster at the end of day than where we started. Everybody did a good job. We loaded it on the trailer. It’s a good car for us and we’ll use ‘er again in a couple of weeks.” WITH THE CONCERN OVER TIRES TONIGHT, WERE YOU ABLE TO PUSH THE CAR 100 PERCENT? “We were slow enough that I don’t think we were really hurting it that bad [smiles] in the beginning. Once you get the car working you’re easier on tires. Fortunately there was a lot of cautions there where we could keep working on it and working on it and we had a couple toward the end of the race there and we got the car pretty good. We had minor tire trouble for a little bit but it was never anything to be real concerned with. I was pretty happy with it. At the start of the race if you had said that we would have finished top-20 I would have never believed you. We just kept working at it. I’m looking forward to Martinsville next week. I know that we’ll run strong there.” ANY CLOSE CALLS FOR THE KODAK DODGE TONIGHT? “Nothing real close. The closest one was that last one there with Rusty. I saw him spinning and I had to either stop or gas it and hope I had a hole. I decided to gas it because I didn’t want to get run over. That was the closest one I seen on the bottom of the track so I just kind of tried to drive through the top.”

SHANE WILSON, CREW CHIEF, No. 77 KODAK/JASPER ENGINES AND TRANSMISSIONS DODGE: “We had a decent finish. We still kind of missed the setup at the beginning of the race. We were just way too tight. We’ve just seemed to have lost the handle this last couple of months on our bodies. We seem to be really tight. We’re going to have to go back to the shop and try to figure it out and talk with our teammates and see what there problems were. It all ended up good. We were kind of the tortoise tonight [smiles]. We weren’t running off our tires so we didn’t have any problems. That’s all it was. Attrition gave us a good finish.” DO YOU THINK THEY NEED TO PUT MORE DOWNFORCE ON THESE CARS? “I’m not really a good engineer on that. What they did with the surface didn’t work. The tire was definitely too hard and it got too much heat. You probably needed a tire that was actually a little softer and would wear, and as the tire wears it cools itself better because of the thinner layer of rubber there. Probably just needed a little different compound for the surface but Goodyear doesn’t know if someone is going to change the track in between the races so it’s hard for them. It’s no one’s fault, its just circumstances. I’m sure no one will do it again for quite a while until they forget about this one.” COULD WE SEE A RACE THIS WILD AT ATLANTA AND HOMESTEAD? “Atlanta is a good race. They’ve got the tire figured out for there and it will just be good racing. We would have been in trouble if we were in Atlanta today, but hopefully we’ll be better by then. I’m looking forward to the next couple of races.” ARE YOU SURPRISED THAT YOU STRUGGLED THIS WEEKEND? “I thought we were going to be good. We were very good here in the spring. Like I said, we’re missing something right now and we’ve got to figure it out.”