The second Daytona 500 practice session this afternoon was cut short by rain. Clint Bowyer (eighth) was the quickest Raybestos Rookie in the session, posting a lap of 48.220 seconds, 186.645 mph. The rest of the class: Denny Hamlin (ninth), J.J. Yeley (18th), David Stremme (22nd), Reed Sorenson (30th), Martin Truex Jr. (39th), Chad Chaffin (48th), and Brent Sherman (51st).

MARTIN TRUEX JR., No. 1 BASS PRO SHOPS/TRACKER CHEVROLET: “Right now, just pretty much standard Daytona, just trying to find some speed. I’m out there holding it on the floor riding around in circles and the guys are trying to make it faster. There’s not much we can do as drivers here until we get out there in the draft. But I look forward to that. I love running here and I love drafting. I’m looking forward to next week. Our car is not real fast right now but I think it will be real fast in race trim. Our cars usually draft real well; they did last year and they raced really well. They just weren’t fast by themselves. We just want to get tomorrow out of the way and let’s get ready to go racing.” THERE WAS A LOT OF WIND HERE TODAY. “The wind affects everybody, but the thing is, it’s hard to figure out if what you tried was actually better or worse. You can go faster with a good gust of wind and you can go slower with a good gust. It’s just hard to make changes and compare runs.” THE WEATHER FORECAST IS FOR COOLER TEMPERATURES HERE TOMMOROW. WILL THAT BE A BIG FACTOR? “No, I don’t think so. It’s going to be colder for everybody. I don’t think that’s a big deal here. It’s not like we’re running around where everybody has to lift and you have to handle good. In qualifying, if your car is fast, it will run fast no matter what.” ARE YOU GUARANTEED A STARTING SPOT IN THE 500? “Yes.” THAT MUST BE A RELIEF. “It’s definitely a relief. Last year we didn’t have one and we had to race our way in. And we finished fourth in our 150 and the guy behind me didn’t make it. It’s a tough race to make, probably the toughest race of the year to make by far. Fortunately, we don’t have to worry about it this year.” IS LOSING PRACTICE TIME TODAY A BIG FACTOR? “Honestly, no. With these speedway cars, usually you’ve got what you’ve got when you unload. The fastest that we ran was on our run right out of the trailer just about like everybody else. We’re kind of wasting time right now.” WITH SO MANY CARS HERE, HOW DIFFICULT WAS IT TO GET A CLEAN LAP? “It’s not bad if you can get out. It doesn’t get bad until the last 10 or 15 minutes of practice when guys are like 25th in line and they want to get that one extra run in and they start jumping out of line. That’s what screws it up. Most of the practice you’re good to go.”

REED SORENSON, No. 41 TARGET DODGE: “Qualifying lap is all we’ve done so far. We made a few changes and got a little bit slower and then got it back to kind of where it was. Our fastest lap is exactly what we ran in the test. We didn’t slow down, so we feel like we should have been a little bit better. But that’s speedway racing and that’s where we’re at. We were about 28th the first time and I think we’re about 28th this time so we will qualify about 28th if I had to guess.” HOW BIG OF A FACTOR IS THE LOST PRACTICE TIME? “It doesn’t matter. Everybody tested down here and tried the majority of the things that they wanted to try on the body and aero stuff, the air box and things like that. Mostly everybody got all the stuff they wanted to try out out of the way. Pretty much everybody has got what they’ve got. We pretty much knew what we had and we ran about what we thought we would. We’re going to qualify and get ready for the 150s.” IS THE QUALIFYING PROCESS HERE FRUSTRATING FOR A DRIVER? “It is. It feels like a waste of time. I’m sure if you had a car to challenge for the pole it would be pretty fun, but when you are back there around 30th you’re just ready to race and get out there and get in the draft and have a little bit more fun doing that.” THE WEATHER IS SUPPOSED TO BE COOLER HERE TOMMOROW. WILL THAT MAKE A DIFFERENCE? “You think it would. Usually when it gets cooler the motors run a little bit better but the wind is a big factor as well. If the wind starts, hopefully it will stay for the whole session that way it’s the same for everybody. As far as the cool weather goes, it’s the same for everybody so if you pick up the other guys are going to pick up, too. It’s all about the same. It’s a long drawn out process. It seems like we do three days worth of nothing but getting ready to qualify. Then you qualify and then you start a race and by one lap you can move up or lose 10 positions where you qualified. It almost seems like a waste of time. You’re locked in if you qualify on the front row and unless you do that, you might as well draw out of a bucket and see where you start for the 150.” HOW DIFFICULT WAS IT TO GET A CLEAN LAP? “It was pretty good until people started pulling out of line. Some of the other guys were just driving by not even standing in line and it was messing everybody up that had been sitting there for 20 or 30 minutes. I don’t quite understand that but that’s what they were doing. It seems like NASCAR would not allow them to do that. But other than that, we got all clean runs. If you don’t get a clean run, you’re not learning anything because the team makes a change to the car and you go back out there and it’s either better or worse. If you get help, you don’t know if it was better or worse. We got all clean runs today, luckily. We know what changes helped it and which ones hurt it.”

CHAD CHAFFIN, No. 92 FRONT ROW MOTORSPORTS CHEVROLET: “Right now we’re struggling just a little bit. We’re probably 44th or 45th fastest. Tomorrow, three guys are going to get locked into the race by virtue of the top-three qualifiers that are not locked in virtually get locked in. Technically they don’t but in reality they do. We don’t have a chance of that so right now we’re going to throw some stuff at the car and try to pick up some speed just to learn for the qualifying race on Thursday. If we can get a little bit of speed out of it in the morning in theory it should be a little faster come Thursday.” HOW FRUSTRATING IS IT TO KNOW THAT YOU CAN’T REALLY MAKE THE CAR ANY BETTER? “That’s the frustrating thing with a track like Daytona or Talladega. It’s just a different breed of racing than everywhere else we go. There’s nothing you can do to fix it. You might find a tenth of a second changing springs and shocks but pretty much the fast cars unload fast and they’re going to be fast and the slow cars are slow. That’s just part of it. I’m glad to be here. We’ll just race our guts out Thursday and try to get this thing in the race and see what happens.” WHAT IS IT GOING TO TAKE FOR YOU TO MAKE THE 500? “They’re going to lock in 35 and then they are going to take two out of each race. The way it could fall is that you could be in a race with everybody that has to get in could end up in the same race. And you could end up in a race by yourself having to get in and by virtue you’re going to get in. We won’t know until all this shakes out tomorrow night. You look at the guys that aren’t locked in and you have to be in the top-two at the end of your race. If the three fast guys race their way in, then they back down the speed chart a little bit. We can’t really bank on that. I think we’re too far down the speed chart and it won’t ever get to us. We’re going to have to race our way in but we don’t know what that is until we see the lineup.” HOW BIG OF A FACTOR WAS THE LOSS OF PRACTICE TIME? “It might have hurt us just a hair because we were going to make some drastic changes. We wanted to go out two more times and I think we might have been close to getting them both in and we might could have found some speed. We were going to make some drastic changes. It was going to be a lot better or a lot worse. But it’s the same for everybody. We’ve had all winter to get this thing fast. We can’t complain because we lost 30 minutes of practice because we were down here three days a month ago. It is what it is.”