UAW-GM Quality 500 - Rookie Qualifying Quotes

Where the Raybestos Rookies qualified at Charlotte:
K. Busch 13th
T. Kvapil 47th

TRAVIS KVAPIL, No. 77 KODAK/JASPER ENGINES AND TRANSMISSIONS DODGE: “I don’t know what to think. We had very, very high hopes coming in here and we ran very well in the Open here in the spring and it’s the same car that ran very good in the 600. I don’t know what we’re missing with it this time around. It didn’t seem like we could do much wrong with it last time we were here. We just haven’t been able to hit on nothing to work for us. We’ve been tight, we’ve been loose, and right there [for qualifying] we just threw the 2 car setup in it just to kind of say ‘Let’s do something different’ and that didn’t work for us, either. It was really loose qualifying. There was no grip for us. Everybody else has a lot more grip and the last time we were here the car drove so good. We’re confused about what’s happened to us but hopefully we can think about it and we’ve got practice tomorrow and try to make it good for the race. And that’s where we excelled the last time we were here. We were able to drive our way to the front. I think we qualified 20th or something but we drove ourself into the top-five under green so hopefully we can do that again.” UNLIKE AN IMPOUND RACE YOU HAVE EXTRA TRACK TIME THIS WEEKEND. HOW BIG A FACTOR IS THAT? “We’re going to need all we can get and I was really looking forward to having a non-impound type deal here. I thought we could qualify really well and get ourselves into the top-15 from the start. The extra track time, we’re definitely going to need it. Like I said, we haven’t really been able to hit on anything to make this car go for us. Hopefully we can figure a few things out overnight and hit ‘er hard tomorrow.” CAN YOU TELL THAT THE TRACK IS DIFFERENT SINCE THEY DID SOME WORK ON IT? “A little bit. It’s got a lot of grip; it’s got a lot of speed. More than anything I think the groove is different than what it was in the springtime here. One and two everybody was up in the middle of the racetrack before and now everybody is trying to get to the bottom, like Charlotte used to be. The groove seems like it changed just a little bit but for the most part it’s about the same.” SINCE THE TRACK IS SO FAST, DOES THAT MEAN A LOT OF SINGLE-FILE RACING SATURDAY NIGHT? “I hope not. It seemed like in the spring when it was kind of a one-groove type of place, just because it didn’t seem like the tires fell off, didn’t seem like guys slowed down that much and it resulted in one-groove type of racing. It’s hard to pass when you’re going this fast. It’s hard to get underneath somebody and you lose your aero or anything like that. Hopefully these tires will give up more than they did in the spring. I don’t know if that’s going to happen or not. When we were here in the spring, half the racetrack was ground and half of it wasn’t. You could be running along and all of a sudden you’d slip and now it seems like it’s even all the way around so hopefully that will make it a little more better and less guys get in trouble.” DO THE TIRES LOOK GOOD? “We’ve been keeping close tabs on all that and everything has been looking pretty good. We just haven’t been able to find the balance on this car yet. We’ll keep trying to figure it out.”

KYLE BUSCH IN THE No. 5 KELLOGG’S/DELPHI CHEVROLET WAS THE TOP RAYBESTOS ROOKIE QUALIFIER AT LOWE’S MOTOR SPEEDWAY. Notes: Busch earned the 13th starting position for Saturday night’s race. He started sixth in the Coca-Cola 600 (race number 12) and led the race twice for 55 laps. “It would have been a lot better if it was less eventful. There was just a bunch of stuff going on there. I went down the front straightaway faster than I have all day and I was getting down in the corner, landing, and getting back to the gas and it felt like low air pressure, which we don’t have for qualifying. It was real unstable and then I picked up the gas and it still was unstable so I just got out of it. But the second lap was out money lap and it drove about like it did in practice. We wasted a lap. If we had scuffs we might have been a little better but it’s just so hard to tell.” YOU WERE ABLE TO QUALIFY 13TH SO YOU MUST BE HAPPY WITH THAT. “No, not necessarily. I mean, we were sixth all day in practice and I thought we should have been at least top-10 if not top-five. But we’ll take the effort and we’ll go on in race trim. The car is real fast in race trim. It’s so hard to tell on what everybody is doing. Everybody can be good for 10,15 or 20 laps and they’ll be hauling the mail but it’s about from lap 25 on during a run that’s going to matter. I believe that we have that car.” DID THE TRACK CHANGE ANY SINCE YOU TESTED HERE A FEW WEEKS AGO. “It’s changed a little bit since we were here testing. It’s gotten a little bit more grip, obviously because of all the rubber down and that’s been a big deal for it, too. From testing on, everybody is kind of under the same scenario. I think we can work on it a little bit and get it better.” YOU HAVE TWO MORE PRACTICE SESSIONS WITH THE CUP CAR TOMMOROW PLUS THE BUSCH RACE. “The practices tomorrow should be pretty good for us. I'm looking forward to it. I think being able to go out there and work on some race trim will be important. We started this morning working on that. The car was real stable in qualifying [setup] all day but I hope that we can get it that stable in race trim as well too for the whole time.” IS THIS GOING TO BE A COMPLETELY DIFFERENT RACE THAN WHAT WE SAW HERE IN MAY? “I certainly hope so because I don’t want that many cautions. There were just too many cautions. Our car was really going to run good on the long run. Like I said, if we can get from that 30th lap on to the pit stop lap, whatever that is, that’s where we’re going to be really strong and other people might fall off. I’m looking forward to trying to be able to build on that.” YOU ARE GOING VERY FAST HERE BUT CAN YOU STILL RACE? “It’s going to be tough. We are going to way too fast to try to race each other because if you try to get underneath somebody or if you do nick them or something like that it’s going to be a huge wreck. We’ll try to keep cautious, of course.”