Where the Raybestos Rookies finished in the NEXTEL Open:
Hamlin 4th
Yeley 5th
Stremme 6th
Bowyer 13th
Sorenson 14th
Truex Jr. 20th
DENNY HAMLIN, No. 11 FEDEX EXPRESS CHEVROLET: “I’ve never really been known for short runs. A lot of things went against us. It stayed really humid and that kept heat in the track and rain washed the rubber off. The track just didn’t tighten up as much as we needed it to. I was just way too loose. I nearly lost it there a few times. But still, we’re confident about this setup for next week’s race. We started coming back to them a little bit there towards the end. To have a car that turns as well as this thing turned tonight, I’m pretty pumped up about next week.” DID THE CAR DRIVE CONSISTENTLY WITH THE NEW TIRE COMPOUND? “It was just hard to predict. I don’t know how much passing was going on back there. All you could do was hope that somebody really messed up and that’s how I lost the lead and that’s how I lost every other position. I’d just get loose and mess up. It’s just part of it. It ain’t going to be much fun to watch.”
J.J. YELEY, No. 18 INTERSTATE BATTERIES CHEVROLET: “The car ran really good, and I know when we come back for the 600 we’ve got a better piece than this. For whatever reason, we might have a piece of garbage in the carburetor. It just wouldn’t take off on restarts or the initial start and it would just kill me. I’d give up a car length every time and it would let someone get underneath there or it wouldn’t give me the ability to charge ‘em. I had a lot of fun there. The car was real good on the outside and good on the inside. I just gave them too much on the restart to get going.” THIS IS THE FIRST RACE ON THE NEW TIRE COMPOUND. WHAT DO YOU THINK? “At night when it’s cool I don’t think it’s going to be that big of an issue. If this was a day race, I’d think you’d have a whole lot of drivers that would be really, really upset. The tire gives up grip just like normal. You push it too hard and the car is going to push or you’re going to get a little bit free. But for the most part, the cars are pretty stable, pretty stable around other cars, so I think the race should be pretty good.”
REED SORENSON, No. 41 TARGET DODGE: “It was pretty good. I think if it had been a regular race we would have been decent but it was really hard to pass. I don’t
know if that was because the track was green or just the way these tires are. It was tough to pass for sure. It was a good car but it’s not the car we’re bringing back for the 600 but I feel like we can take it somewhere else pretty soon and be pretty good.” WAS THIS A FRUSTRATING RACE? “We were picking our way through there. Like I said it was hard to pass. I was racing with Robby there and he got loose and I guess his spotter told him I hit him, which I didn’t. So the next corner he tried to wreck me and that was close. We were in the third and fourth groove up there and he was hitting me in the left rear trying to wreck me, so that wasn’t fun. I asked him after the race and his spotter said that I hit him and we couldn’t find any marks on his car [smiles]. He apologized to me. It’s not a big deal. I’m just glad that we didn’t tear anything up.”
