Where the Raybestos Rookies finished at Bristol:
Montoya 17th
Menard 24th
Allmendinger 35th
Ragan 41st
JUAN PABLO MONTOYA IN THE No. 42 TEXACO/HAVOLINE DODGE WAS THE RAYBESTOS ROOKIE OF THE RACE TONIGHT AT BRISTOL.
Notes:
Montoya finished 17th and took Raybestos Rookie of the Race honors for the 11th time this season.
MONTOYA EARNS $25,000 IN BONUS MONEY FROM RAYBESTOS: The Sharpie 500 was race No. 7 in the Raybestos® Rookie Magnificent Seven program. The Raybestos® Rookie of the Race normally pays $1,500 but that increased to $5,000 at seven designated races throughout the 2007 season. Montoya claimed the bonus money FIVE TIMES (Las Vegas, Darlington, Infineon, Chicagoland and Bristol) and earned $25,000 for his efforts.
MONTOYA: “You know, it’s my fault. I’m blaming myself. I was too loose for my taste and I thought we were going to be too loose. We tightened up the car and it was just horrible. And when we tightened it up we run for 130 laps so we went a lap down there. It was hard but we had fun today, we ran good. I’m proud of my guys.” ARE YOU PLEASED WITH BEING ABLE TO GET THE CAR BETTER DURING THE RACE? “Yeah, we get it better. We qualified better. I think we had a little bit more for the race but hey, it’s all we got.” YOU RACED KEVIN HARVICK FOR POSITION AT THE END OF THE RACE. “We didn’t give each other too much room. He bumped me a couple times but I don’t care. I’m not going to cry about it.” THIS WAS A PHYSICALLY DEMANDING RACE ON A HOT NIGHT. “Not really. When it was at like lap 130, I thought man, it’s going to be a long night, and then the next time I looked it was 370 already. It was good. It’s easy when you run up front. When you start getting behind it’s a nightmare.”
AJ ALLMENDINGER, No. 84 RED BULL TOYOTA: WHAT DID YOU LEARN TONIGHT THAT WILL HELP YOU NEXT TIME HERE? “I know we say it a lot, probably the NASCAR slang of we probably should have finished a lot better than we were. We were tight in the beginning of the race and then we went a lap down and then some of the fast guys got around me and I saw their line and all of a sudden I was one of the fastest guys on the racetrack. Then it just got a wicked vibration and got loose and found out there was only two lug nuts left on the wheel. We were having radio trouble and I didn’t know if I should pit or not and finally just couldn’t hang on anymore and I pitted. It was one of those pray ‘No yellow, no yellow’ and there was the yellow so we were three laps down. We were running okay and then I don’t know if Jamie got into the 01 and the 01 got into me or what happened but we got wrecked. It pushed the wing up and everything else and just made the car tighter and we worked on that the rest of the day. We could say that we were the best we were at the end of the race. Not what we want but we ran 491 laps, which is better than the 405 we ran the first time. It’s just good to get back racing and that’s what is important. Hopefully we get a little bit of momentum and know that we can do this again and go qualify in California.”
