Race 2 Win: Aaron’s 499 - Rookie Post-Race Quotes

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Aaron’s 499 - Rookie Post-Race Quotes

Where the Raybestos Rookies finished at Talladega:
Yeley 11th
Hamlin 22nd
Sorenson 26th
Stremme 34th
Truex Jr. 36th
Bowyer 40th

UNOFFICIAL Raybestos Rookie standings:
Bowyer 91
Hamlin 87
Truex Jr. 81
Yeley 81
Sorenson 75
Stremme 63
Sherman 39

DAVID STREMME, No. 40 LONESTAR STEAKHOUSE DODGE: WHAT HAPPENED? “People not using their brain. I mean, here it is we’re not even 10 laps in the race and they’re four-wide doing stupid stuff. What are you going to do? You can soften the bumpers up all you want but they need to park some guys and you’d have no problem then.” WAS THAT A SITUATION WHERE YOU COULD ALMOST SEE IT COMING? “Yeah, that’s why I got to the back. It’s pretty obvious. There’s some guys driving like idiots and there’s nothing much we can do, just kind of a victim. We’ll go back out and ride around.”

CLINT BOWYER, No. 07 JACK DANIEL’S CHEVROLET: “It’s just unfortunate. Everybody is just riding around, just killing time until that last 50 and trying to stay out of trouble then that happens. It’s just stupid, real stupid. I got stopped and somebody hit me from behind [smiles]. They didn’t see it.” CAN YOU GET THE CAR BACK IN THE RACE? HOW HARD DID YOU HIT? “I hit twice pretty hard.”

MARTIN TRUEX JR., No. 1 BASS PRO SHOPS/TRACKER BOATS CHEVROLET: “It’s just too early to be out of the race. It’s like nine laps of racing in. I was just out there riding around logging some laps, and got hit in the door real hard. I was all the way up by the wall. They said it was getting five-wide or something getting in the corner and I was just riding around the top. Cars just flew up into my left side. The car is pretty tore up and it’s kind of unfortunate.” LAP NINE IS KIND OF EARLY FOR FIVE-WIDE. “I’d say it’s about 450 miles too early. It’s just stupid. I was just logging laps. I don’t know what we on. I couldn’t see it. I was all the way on the outside. I was the fifth one out there. I’d been running up there for about five laps. I was just chilling out, taking my time. It’s nine laps, you know. I don’t know exactly what happened.” IS THERE ANY MAJOR DAMAGE TO THE CAR? “We’re in bad shape. It’s going to take them probably a half-hour to fix it and we’re going to lose a bunch of laps. It’s not too good. We’ll get back in the race and run some laps. I don’t even know if we’ll make minimum speed. It’s pretty tore up.” WAS IT TOO EARLY IN THE RACE FOR FIVE-WIDE? “Absolutely it was too early. It’s nine laps. What can you say? We’re all wrecked and it’s over and done with now. Some people just never learn, I guess.” WHEN A WRECK LIKE THAT HAPPENS EARLY IN THE RACE, CAN YOU MISS IT? “No. I mean, I was up there by the wall and I’m running around there and the next thing I know I’ve got cars in my door and got me in the fence. They just hit me into the wall. There’s nothing you can do. If you’re around it, there’s nothing you can do.”

J.J. YELEY IN THE No. 18 GSK ASTHMACONTROL.COM CHEVROLET WAS THE RAYBESTOS ROOKIE OF THE RACE AT TALLADEGA.
Notes:

Yeley finished 11th and took Raybestos Rookie of the Race honors for the second time this season. He was also the top freshman driver in the Auto Club 500 at California Speedway.

DID YOU KNOW? Yeley led once for one lap, the fourth consecutive race he has led at least one lap. Fellow freshman driver Denny Hamlin also led once for one lap.

DID YOU KNOW? The Aaron’s 499 is the third consecutive race where TWO or more Raybestos Rookie drivers have led a lap.

Clint Bowyer UNOFFICIALLY holds a four-point lead (91-87) over Hamlin in the Raybestos Rookie standings.

Three Raybestos Rookies are inside the top-20 in the NEXTEL Cup Series championship standings: Bowyer (18th), Hamlin (19th) and Martin Truex Jr. (20th).

YELEY: “It was a good finish for us. We didn’t give asthmacontrol.com a good run there at Bristol before I got taken out late. It was a good run the entire day. There early on we got up front. I thought we had plenty good enough car to try to lead the thing. I went to the bottom and had a good run and looked in the mirror and everyone left me hanging [smiles]. They definitely didn’t like working with me today. Hopefully I earned enough respect out there that we come back to Daytona in July that people realize that we have good racecars and I’m a safe guy to be around. We can go out there and play and go to the front.” THE FIRST PART OF THE RACE WAS CRAZY, THEN IT CALMED DOWN, AND THEN IT WAS CRAZY AT THE END. “Pretty much [smiles]. You could see that guys to begin with were really paying attention and giving a lot of respect out there and then you could see it was going away, going away and then there was a crash and then they all decide they’re going to play nice again. The longer they ran the braver they got, I guess. It made a lot more fun I guess only having 20 cars out there that you have to race versus worrying about 30 cars to dodge. I had a lot of fun out there.” IS THERE SUCH A THING AS STRATEGY HERE? CAN YOU DROP TO THE BACK OF THE PACK? “I think you can easily enough. I had a plan there to just follow Tony. Everyone was just running around the top and it seemed like I could go good on the bottom. I just couldn’t get any help down there. I told Tony that we were going to follow him and then we had to come in and pit there. I got touched and got a flat left front tire there on one of those last accidents and put us way behind. I was worried about catching the pack there. The 4 car started in front of me and had a bad cylinder or something. He wouldn’t let me go by. I lost the pack and was afraid I wasn’t going to catch them but luckily enough they were racing enough up there that I did.” WHAT IS THE MAIN THING THAT YOU’VE LEARNED IN TWO PLATE RACES THIS SEASON? “You’ve got to finish. I mean that’s the biggest thing. At Daytona, I tried to take it easy and didn’t go far enough back and then still got taken out. I guess it’s safer to be on the bottom. You’ve got an escape route versus being on the outside and being pinned against the fence. A good day for everyone and we’ll just go on to Richmond.” WILL YOU TAKE THAT CAR TO DAYTONA? “It is. This is actually the primary car from last year for the Interstate Batteries team. We had a brand new car that we tried at Daytona and thought that it might have done a little bit better. I don’t think it was nearly as good as this car as what this car was as far as sucking up and drafting in packs. We’re real happy with it.” HOW MENTALLY DEMANDING IS THIS TYPE RACING? “It’s tough. It’s probably tougher than any short track or even any mile-and-a-half because you really don’t any kind of time to relax. It’s very few racetracks that you could run four-wide and be stuck in the middle and do it for 20 or 30 laps so you definitely have to pay attention. It’s definitely mentally draining.”

STEVE ADDINGTON, CREW CHIEF, No. 18 GSK ASTHMACONTROL.COM CHEVROLET: “That’s not bad. I don’t know what the 4 car’s problem was not letting us by there. It cost us about five laps to catch back up to the pack. Nobody would help him today. He probably could have went to the lead there one time and everybody bailed and shuffled him out. He did an awesome job taking it back in one piece and that’s what we needed, just a good solid run.” HOW IMPORTANT IS IT TO FINISH WITH THE CAR IN ONE PIECE? “It’s big for us to have just a solid run here. The deal at Daytona was not a good deal for us, getting caught up and we were just trying ride and learn. But today we tried to race our way up through there and got up to 11th and I’m real proud of him for that.” HOW MUCH WILL YOU WORK ON THIS CAR BETWEEN NOW AND DAYTONA IN JULY? “We’ll tune on it a little bit, just trying to get it to suck up a little bit better. We’ve got to work on that and I’m sure some it is him learning how to use air and everything like Tony does. We’ll work on some stuff there and take it to Daytona. I’m sure it will go to the wind tunnel three or four times before then [smiles].”

REED SORENSON, No. 41 TARGET/BREAST CANCER RESEARCH FOUNDATION DODGE: WHAT HAPPENED THERE AT THE END? “I don’t know. You’ll have to turn on the TV. I have no idea.” YOUR CAR RAN WELL AND YOU APPEARED TO HAVE A GOOD CHANCE OF A TOP-10 FINISH. “It’s all the same out here. Everybody is the same. There is no difference. You’ve got to expect it coming into Talladega that anything can happen here. It’s one of those deals.” WHERE WAS YOUR CAR WORKING BEST? “Mine was better on the outside.”

DENNY HAMLIN, No. 11 FEDEX FREIGHT CHEVROLET: WHAT HAPPENED? “I got to the inside of the 22 and held my line. That’s all I can say. I didn’t move up, I didn’t do anything. I just got a run up to him coming off of 4 and pulled down to get to the inside of him. I stayed there and never moved off the line until the finally hit me. How I wrecked anybody with my right rear quarter I don’t understand. If I would have slide up for something, I understand, but I never moved.” WAS THE PENALTY FOR PASSING BELOW THE YELLOW LINE OR ROUGH DRIVING? “I’m not sure. But I know that it should not be either one.” WAS THE CAR GOOD ALL DAY? “The car was very good. We didn’t hit anybody all race and we were around, just waited for our time to go. And when we did, we get penalized for it. I don’t understand.”

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