Raybestos Rookie Happy Hour speeds:
Allmendinger 33rd
Ragan 39th
Montoya 42nd

AJ Allmendinger will be making his first NEXTEL Cup Series start in Sunday’s Food City 500 at Bristol. Allmendinger visited with members of the media following today’s the final NEXTEL Cup Series practice session.

AJ ALLMENDINGER, No. 84 RED BULL TOYOTA: “The first practice [on Saturday] we were probably disappointed. We weren’t even close. We struggled but my guys, I was really pleased with them, because we worked hard and got the car better. Still got a lot of work to do. Brian [Vickers, teammate] is struggling with the same issues but at least I thought we got the car at the end of the practice, at least be racy. Not in the top-10 right now so we’re going to have to work on it and make some changes tonight. We’re probably going to have to do a lot of work on it during the race and stay clean. But at least we can race in the pack now where in the first practice session I figured I was going to be lapped in 10 laps.” WHAT KIND OF FEEDBACK ARE YOU GIVING TO THE TEAM? “Just tight. I think it’s slippery. I think you’re going to see all the cars on the racetrack tomorrow, with the sun beating down on it, it’s going to be slippery, and it’s going to be tight and a lot of mistakes being made. Guys are going to be quick right away, some guys are going to come on, some guys that are never even in the game but we’ve just struggled with being tight. We got it better but we still need to work on it.” DO YOU HAVE A PLAN IF THE SPLITTER OR REAR WING GETS DAMAGED? “I think the splitter, everybody has a question on because that could just be taken off by getting on the apron or something like that. If you knock the wing off, you’ve got more issues that just putting the wing back on because it’s probably smashed the rear of the car in. My guys are the best group of guys. They’ve got plans for everything. I’m just going to do my best to not make ‘em have to worry about it.” SUNDAY’S RACE WILL BE THE FIRST TIME YOU’VE HAD TO PIT UNDER RACE CONDITIONS AND THIS IS A CHALLENGING PIT ROAD. “Well a) try not to be confused because I think we pit one way if it’s green and one way if it’s yellow so I’m going to keep my spotter on me about that. If it’s green, it’s green and just try to be careful. It’s better to lose a second or two by being easy than have to come do a drive through and lose four laps doing that. If we are under green, I’ll be honest, I’ll be easy and no fault of my crew guys I’ll probably lose a couple of spots just being cautious. If it’s yellow, I’ve done a lot of pit stops under yellow in the truck races. I know how to do those. Just never give up and try to stay calm. It’s a long race and we’ve seen it time and time again. You can go down two or three laps and there’s enough yellows to get the Lucky Dogs and you’re back on the lead lap before you ever know it so just stay calm.” DID YOU GET A FEEL FOR PITTING HERE IN PRACTICE? DID YOU MAKE A MOCK RUN DOWN PIT ROAD? “Not really because there’s so many cars out there you don’t want to be the idiot that spins out trying to come into the pits and wrecks about four guys going in. I didn’t want to do that my first race. Maybe I’ll save that for a later time and use that for a trick.” DO YOU JUST WANT TO FINISH TOMORROW? “Just want to finish. We know this place. You don’t even have to run all the laps. You can be a couple of laps down and still be in the top-20. But I want to cross the checkered with most of the fenders on the car and still running and get a good finish out of it. If I could be top-25 then I’d be thrilled.” YOU HAVE RACED AT A LOT OF DIFFERENT TRACKS. HOW DIFFICULT IS BRISTOL? “It’s the craziest place I’ve ever seen and I think with 160,000 people tomorrow, I’m just going to be wondering what the heck is going on around me. I’m pretty pumped up about it.”