RAYBESTOS® ROOKIE CONTENDER ADVANCE MATERIAL FOR THE APRIL 30 AARON’S 499 NASCAR NEXTEL CUP SERIES RACE AT TALLADEGA SUPERSPEEDWAY.

Raybestos Rookie Clint Bowyer and his crew chief Gil Martin discuss NASCAR’s recent rule changes regarding the front bumper area of NASCAR NEXTEL Cup Series cars for the April 30 Aaron’s 499 at Talladega.

Bowyer finished sixth in the February 19 Daytona 500, the only restrictor plate race run this season. He enters Sunday’s race fresh off a fifth-place finish in the Subway Fresh 500 at Phoenix International Raceway, his best effort in nine career NEXTEL Cup starts.

Bowyer leads Denny Hamlin by eight points (85-77) in the Raybestos Rookie standings.

CLINT BOWYER, No. 07 JACK DANIEL’S CHEVROLET: “I’m glad that they are doing something, they are trying something. I think it’s a step in the right direction. You’re probably just going to see bashed up bumpers now [smile]. I think it will make for a better race and the wrecks that you see where they just hit them so hard it wrecks them, I don’t think you’ll see that anymore. If they don’t [back off] they’re going to be wishing that they would have at the end of the race. As I learned in Daytona, you’ve got to be there at the end with all the fenders on it to be able to race for a win. We were there at the end and had all the fenders on it and was able to get up to sixth-place. That was a big part of it and it’s going to be a bigger part of it now.”

GIL MARTIN, CREW CHIEF, No. 07 JACK DANIEL’S CHEVROLET: “What they’re trying to do is everybody had so much armor plating in the front of their car for bump drafting that just so you could bump into somebody, hit them in the back and not destroy the front of your racecar. And with that being said, we replaced that with some tubing that was a little bit smaller in size, but I think it’s still going to be beefed up where the same result is still going to be there a little bit. But the amount of work that it cost was unbelievable because everybody had their cars prepared from Daytona to Talladega and it cost us a lot of money, a lot of time just to put those bumpers in. It’s yet to be seen whether it’s going to make any difference or not. I’m sure it will make some because some guys had some really beefed up bumpers but I think they’re still going to have some of the same result. Is it going to affect the racing? Probably not. The racing is still going to be the same. We look forward to going. We had a really good car in Daytona and I think we’ll have the same thing at Talladega.”

COULD THIS HAVE PUT YOU BEHIND? “It definitely put all of us behind because it couldn’t have come at a worse time, some of the times when we were getting ready for testing. After Daytona, even if you didn’t have damage, you did whatever you were going to do to your car: repainted it and had it sitting on your shop floor ready to go, just waiting for an engine I’m sure like most people were and then have it ready to go to Talladega. The guys that had damage they got theirs fixed and got it done. In order to fix what they wanted fixed, you had to cut the noses back off the cars so in essence you had to start over with your cars, which negated a lot of wind tunnel time where you had to go back to the wind tunnel. It was a lot more than replacing a bumper in the front of the car.”

IS THAT AN AREA THAT IS GOING TO BE HARD FOR NASCAR TO POLICE? “No. For the rules that they dictated for us to have, they’ll be able to police that really easy. They’ll know exactly what we have, the rules they mandated for us to be and everybody is in that same box so that will be easy to police. Still, I think it could have waited until after Talladega then everybody is going to have damage and redo their cars. It could have been fixed then with a lot less effort and everything wouldn’t have had to be done twice.”