Where the Raybestos Rookies qualified at Phoenix:
Bowyer 20th
Hamlin 22nd
Truex Jr. 26th
Sorenson 28th
Yeley 35th
Stremme 36th

CLINT BOWYER IN THE No. 07 JACK DANIEL’S CHEVROLET WAS THE TOP RAYBESTOS ROOKIE QUALIFIER AT PHOENIX. “The track’s going to cool down and it’s going to get faster. The Jack Daniel’s Chevrolet was really good. To be honest with you, I messed up the lap a little bit. I feel like I gave up about a tenth out there. It’s just frustrating when you do that. I got into 1 a little too deep the first lap and got on the gas too quick the second lap. I was just trying to get our first pole of the season. We’re running out of time [laughs] so we’ve got to hurry it up. I think it hurt us going out early. The draw wasn’t very good. I just didn’t run a very good lap. It’ll race good.”

DENNY HAMLIN, No. 11 FEDEX KINKO’S CHEVROLET: “We didn’t get edged out for the pole by any means. I think that will probably be the difference between somewhere like 12th and 13th. I don’t know. We’re going to see where we end up but the FedEx Ground Chevrolet was really good in race trim and that’s the most important thing. We picked up [in qualifying] but we should have picked up a lot more that what we did. Every mock run we picked up two-tenths on our second lap. Had we picked up two-tenths this time we would have really been looking good. I messed up and hit the apron. I made a driver error. It’ll be all right. We’re going to end up somewhere in the top-15, hopefully. If we don’t, we’ll battle back.”

J.J. YELEY, No. 18 BONIVA/GSK CHEVROLET: “We just lost a lot of forward bite from what we had in practice. I’m really disappointed. I know it’s not going to take much as far as having a bad lap to really set you back in the field. It’s disappointing. I think we could have at least backed our time up from what we ran in practice and that would have been decent. Going out early wasn’t a big help and I didn’t get up to speed very good, either. We’ll start middle to the back of the pack and have to work our way back to the front.”

DAVID STREMME, No. 40 DISCOUNT TIRE COMPANY DODGE: “I screwed up my first lap. The car doesn’t have a lot of grip. We didn’t unload very good and made some pretty big improvements since we unloaded. We just keep getting better. One thing is Reed is running pretty decent so we’re going to go kind of back toward what he’s running.” CAN YOU RECOVER IF YOU MAKE A MISTAKE ON THAT FIRST LAP? “No, you can do it on either one. I was kind of being a little cautious.”

REED SORENSON, No. 41 TARGET DODGE: ARE YOU HAPPY WITH THAT LAP? “Kind of but not really. It was all right. I think my second lap was going to be a lot better. It turned better than I thought it would and I hit the apron coming out of 4 and got really loose. But everywhere else it was a better lap. It felt like we could have done a little bit better than that.” YOU HAVE A LOT OF TAPE ON THE WINDSHIELD. HOW BIG OF A FACTOR WAS THE SUN IN QUALIFYING? “I just put it on right before qualifying. It’s just the way the sun is right now and I guess that’s the way it will be at the end of the race as well. You’ve got to figure out how much tape you want on it. The track is so flat here that you can put quite a bit of tape on it and still see pretty good.” YOU WENT OUT EARLY IN THE QUALIFYING SESSION. “It didn’t help. It’s cooling off out here a little bit but not a whole lot so hopefully it won’t hurt us too bad. Turns 1 and 2 are in the shade a little bit and it seems like it’s going to get more in the shade by the end of qualifying. Definitely better to go out near the end.”

MARTIN TRUEX JR., No. 1 BASS PRO SHOPS/TRACKER BOATS CHEVROLET: “I didn’t do a very good job. We were really good in practice. My first lap has been our best all day. We were good and then we’d get loose on our second and I went out there and I was sideways on my first lap so I really didn’t know what to do with it. And it got better so I just didn’t drive it right on the second lap. It was disappointing but I raced really good last time. In race trim our car was really good. We’ve been starting in the back the last few weeks and driving to the front so we’ll just have to do that again, I guess.” IS THIS TRACK PRETTY MUCH THE SAME IN THE SPRING AND FALL? “Yeah, it seems to be. Earlier today the track was really grippy for us, for some reason and as they ran more practice and the Busch cars ran a couple practices and the sun was out pretty hot so it got slick again. It’s really the same. If the temperature’s the same, it’s the same. Obviously we’re racing in the daytime and it’s going to be slicker than it was when we ran here at night so it’ll be a little bit different.” IS A SLICK TRACK AND THE CAR SLIDING AROUND PRETTY STANDARD HERE FOR THE FALL RACE? “Pretty much, yeah, standard for everywhere we go with these cars [smiles]. If the sun is out you’re sliding all over so it’s more fun to race that way to be honest with you than it is to have tons of grip and everybody not being able to pass. I like the track. I’ve always done well here. I don’t really think this has much to do with how I’ll do Sunday.”

GIL MARTIN, CREW CHIEF, No. 07 JACK DANIEL’S CHEVROLET: DOES IT MATTER WHERE YOU START HERE? “Pit selection is really important and it’s important where you start here just because of the fact of everybody bunches up so bad. The draw we had today was just terrible. We had a great race car in practice. Going out ninth was a complete deficit for us to go out that early. I wish we had the opportunity to have gone out about 40th because I think we’d have had a shot at getting our first pole right there. But we’ll overcome this. We’ve overcome a lot worse than what we’re going to have to overcome today. I think we’ll be fine on Sunday. We’re on a little bit of a roll right here. We’re going to take every chance. We’re going to gamble on everything we can gamble on to win this race and Homestead, whether it’s fuel or tires. If anybody is going to beat us, they’re going to have to out-think us. We’re going to do whatever we can do to win Sunday.” ARE TIRES A BIG FACTOR HERE? “They were in the spring. The first few laps they were so fast. They’ve done a good job with this tire for this place because it hangs on pretty good. If you get your car setup to where it’ll be really good in the long run, you’ll be able to gamble later on tires because the track position is going to be way more than tires. If everybody’s about the same and you’re good on the short runs, the tires are going to make a huge difference there. We’re going to gamble every way we can to win this thing. We’re going to do whatever it takes.” HOW DO YOU KEEP THE TEAM FRESH ENOUGH TO MAKE A RUN NEAR THE END OF THE SEASON? “Most of this team is pretty old. I’m a pretty young guy myself. They were starting to get tired but I pretty well got ‘em all pepped back up [laughs]. Seriously, we have got a good group of guys that work well together and because of that they keep everybody pumped up. Everybody seems to do a lot of stuff together. We got to a lot of functions together. We’re all flying to Jack Daniel’s next week to the distillery together as a team. We’re taking all 30 of us before we go to Homestead just to try to keep everything pumped up. The people at the distillery are really pumped up about how the season is going. I think that’s really important. Off track functions go a long way keeping the group of guys together, making everybody feel like they are a part of what’s going on. It pays a lot of dividends on Sunday.” DO YOU GIVE THE GUYS A DAY OFF ONCE IN A WHILE? “Oh yeah. We try to give everybody a day off. Andrew Mason, our shop foreman, has done such a great job organizing our cars. I don’t want to say it’s been an easy year but I will say he’s made it as easy as it can be the amount of time that we’ve been able to give the guys off during the week. Most of the time they’ve been able to get a day and a half off during the week. That’s almost unheard of and be able to keep running at this level with this level of performance. I think everybody has just stepped up to the program and have done that. We’re expecting to be a contender for the Chase next year, no doubt.”