RICKY RUDD – No. 88 Snickers Ford Fusion (Qualified 2nd) – “He’s been spectacular since he’s been here. This Snickers 88 Ford Fusion has been pretty fast since we’ve been here. We’ve been on the speed charts about every time out. It’s a little disappointing having run a little bit quicker than that yesterday, but I guess everybody in general is slowing up a little bit. You can’t complain. It’s not over with yet, but if it can end up with a Yates front row that would be tremendous.”

ARE YOU HAVING A GOOD TIME? “I really am. Anybody who has the opportunity to hop in a Yates car, especially at Daytona, they’re not gonna think twice about it. Their stuff has always been fast here. We were really good out in Las Vegas. I’m excited about this. I’m excited about having a teammate like David Gilliland. We can work together and we’ve been doing that already – the setups and swapping back and forth between cars. We didn’t know which way this thing was gonna turn out, but I think we sort of both helped each other leapfrog to the top of the chart. It looks like David has a good chance of sitting on the pole and maybe us on the front row, but I’m just more pleased with the way the teams have worked together with this Snickers Ford.”

ROBBY GORDON – No. 7 Jim Beam Ford Fusion (Qualified 38th) – “It’s a little better than what we were in practice, we’re about 34th or 35th right now, but I’m real happy. P.J. (Jones) came down here and tested it and said it was real good. I think it was about fifth-quickest in drafting practice, so I’m looking forward to doing some drafting practice on Wednesday and obviously the 150 on Thursday.”

HOW MUCH NICER IS IT TO BE LOCKED INTO THE 500. “That’s what happens when you’re a new team, you have to work your way in and you’ve got to be able to finish up inside the top 35 in points and that’s what we were able to do. Thank goodness we were able to do it before this year. It looks like a lot of tough teams are trying to make the show.”

DAVID GILLILAND-RICKY RUDD REACTION ON PIT ROAD

DAVID GILLILAND – POLE-WINNER – CAN YOU BELIEVE THIS? “No, I can’t. I’ve said I’ve been pinching myself for the last eight months and I’m not gonna quit anytime soon. I’m real proud. The guys brought a great M&M’s Ford Fusion here this weekend. Todd Parrott is experienced and with the success he’s had here and Robert Yates and Doug Yates with the engine package, and the car that all the guys at the shop prepared for me to come out here today is just unbelievable. How about Mars? A Snickers and M&M’s front row for the Daytona 500. That’s awesome. We’re just real glad that we could step up like they stepped up to sponsor our team and hopefully this will be a great start to a great relationship and a good start to the year.”

TALK ABOUT YOUR FEELINGS? “What are the odds of that? (Winning the pole in his first attempt) It’s unbelievable. We’ve had a great M&M’s Ford Fusion here all weekend. Todd Parrott with all the success he’s had here, he’s just a great crew chief. He’s really taken me under his wing and really, really helped me a lot. More than us on the pole, how about Snickers and M&M’s on the front row for Mars Incorporated. That’s a great way to start off a new relationship. I’m just real proud of the guys – Doug and Robert Yates. After some of the stuff that was said about the Yates organization last year, I’m real proud to come out here real strong. Hopefully this is a sign of things to come. We had a great test at Vegas too with our intermediate program, so I feel really strong about that. After the run we had last night we learned a lot and we’re looking forward to carrying some of that information over to the 500, so we really feel like the run last night was an advantage for us.”

TALK ABOUT WHAT IS REALISTIC FOR SUNDAY? “Realistically, we just want to bring home a good finish and learn some racing tactics for Daytona. We got to learn a little bit last night, which is a great big plus for me being that was my first race ever at Daytona. It’s really good and it’s realistic that we just want to bring home a good finish and get some momentum rolling to get the year started off right.”

HOW DO YOU APPROACH THE DUEL? “I’ve got to talk to Todd about that. With the limited experience I have here, I really lean on him for all the experience. How about Ricky? He’s been a great teammate. When I came to Yates some people questioned the decision, but they’ve really tried to build their organization and build their team around me, and bringing in guys like Ricky Rudd to help me. We’ve really been helping each other and I think today being on the front row just shows how closely and how good these teams are working together right now.”

RICKY RUDD – WHAT DOES THIS RYR FRONT ROW MEAN TO YOU? “I’m just tickled to death to see this for all the guys that weathered the storm they had last year. They’ve worked hard over the winter. They’ve built some awful fast race cars and through my whole career I’ve never had the fortunate opportunity to work with somebody like David Gilliland. He keeps talking about me helping him, I tell you, I’m learning a lot from him. He’s a pretty darn good chassis guy himself. He has a real good feel for a race car, but it’s just a lot of fun. It’s easy. I don’t know how to describe this go-round. It’s just a very low pressure deal and everybody sort of believes in each other. Butch Hylton, our crew chief, and Todd Parrott and all the guys have been working really good. They’re two teams, but, really, they act as if they’re one team and that’s just a neat situation to be in.”

RICKY RUDD PRESS CONFERENCE – “It feels really good. To come back and align ourselves – the Yates teams at Daytona or Talladega, you couldn’t pick a better place to come back, but I’m just real fortunate. I’ve got a great team. I’ve got guys like Butch Hylton turning all the bolts and running the crew and it’s just a real good feeling right now. I like what I see with what’s going on.”

BUTCH HYLTON, Crew Chief – No. 88 Snickers Ford Fusion – “I think it’s a statement about Yates and how hard we’ve worked over the winter to try to turn this thing around. I’m just real thrilled Ricky decided to come back and drive for us. He makes a big difference with his experience and makes the guys feel like he we can go out there and win every week. If we can keep this up and go to Las Vegas and California and run like we did at the test, I feel really good about it.”

RICKY RUDD CONTINUED – WHAT WOULD YOU HAVE CONSIDERED SUCCESS TWO MONTHS AGO? “I think I measure it more what happened at our Vegas test and things of that nature. I guess I’m a realist. Don’t get me wrong, this is great. This is really Butch Hylton’s front row and Todd Parrott’s front row and all the guys at the shop that worked so hard, and the motor shop. I look at things like Vegas, that’s sort of the bread and butter of what’s gonna happen next year and I’m more excited about how well we tested out there and how well we raced out there. I’ll be honest, I would not have come back to work if I didn’t think this team was solid enough to have an opportunity to win some races. I know there are probably a lot of people that don’t see that, but I walk through the shop and I’ve been walking through shops for a long time and it doesn’t take long to sort of recognize the talent that’s there. You go to the test and kind of sit there as an observer. I like what I see. The team is playing a little bit of catch-up right now, but to sit here and see the success the team has had, I’m not totally shocked by it.”

HOW NICE IS TO HAVE TWO TEAMS WORKING AS ONE? “It’s made a tremendous difference. It’s a real positive environment to be in. I was at Yates before and obviously had a teammate, but our shops were located in different cities and the cars were built differently from one another, and even if the drivers wanted to compare notes it just didn’t work. It was totally different race cars pretty much. When I was at Hendrick it was a similar deal – the cars were in different cities at that time. Some ran in-house chassis, some were store-bought chassis, so this is the first time really in my career I’ve had the opportunity to work with somebody and somebody as talented as David that is exceptionally good and gives exceptionally good feedback for being inexperienced on these race tracks. He’s just got a tremendous talent to relate what the race car is doing. He keeps talking about me helping him, but he helps me as well. We go out there and we’ve got two heads in the driver’s seat working together. I know Butch came up with some things, our car ran quick. Just to show you how open it is, he runs over and shows Todd, ‘Hey, we learned something a while ago that last run, you need to look at this.’ Todd makes some changes right before qualifying. That’s the kind of teamwork concept that’s sort of a dream come true to have that kind of environment, instead of competing against each other. I’ve been there before where you worked harder to beat your teammate than you did each other and it’s not supposed to be that way. I’m really pleased with what we’ve got going on right now.”

WHAT IS IT ABOUT DAVID THAT IMPRESSES YOU? “I tell you what impressed me the most. We’ve got a little farm out in the country. He came over the other day and he brought his five-year-old son with him and we were riding dirt bikes and motorcycles and stuff and just having a good time. There must have been 15 of us and I had a couple of motorcycles and four-wheelers in the corner. I told David, ‘I don’t have time to mess with it but go over there and dust it off and put some air in the tires and gas it up and it’s ready to go.’ He goes over there and hops on the little four wheeler and he could ride a wheelie the length of this front straightaway on a four-wheeler. I was really impressed with that. I said, ‘That’s my kind of guy right here.’ You’ve got to remember this guy came here to test never seeing the speedway. He was lost. He couldn’t find his way to the tunnel and that was a month ago and now he comes here and sits on the pole. He didn’t win the shootout, but he gave Tony a fit and finished second in the shootout. That’s pretty amazing and he’s not by himself. There are a lot of guys out there that are seeing these race tracks for the first time and it just amazes me how they can pick up on things so quickly.”

WHAT KIND OF SHOT IN THE ARM DOES THIS GIVE ROBERT? “I think it’s a boost that these guys deserve. You’ve got guys like Butch Hylton over here, you’ve got to remember that this team came together real late. Robert had a completely different team or leadership last year at this time and his intentions, he meant well and tried to build a better organization, but it just didn’t work. It didn’t click. He had some talented guys, but the chemistry just didn’t click and they weren’t successful. In comes Butch and then Todd Parrott comes back to the organization and it started coming together, but it happened real late in the season. Sitting there and watching Robert like you guys did, it was probably pretty sad to watch how low the team had gotten. Robert didn’t even have a sponsor for the second car and these guys had opportunities and families to take care of and they said, ‘Robert, we’re gonna stick with you. We’ve got confidence. I think you’re gonna get a sponsor. We’re not leaving anywhere. We’re gonna wait until the very, very last minute.’ And the group that he had today, especially the 88 Snickers team, these guys could have bailed and they didn’t and I think that’s one reason the chemistry is so good. And I think that’s why Robert’s got a little bit of a bounce in his step again because he’s got a program that’s working and it’s clicking. Again, I was the last addition. I guess I was the last guy to get hired and really stepped into a pretty darn good race team. I didn’t see the race team that they had at the beginning of last year, but what I walked into was a pretty darn good assembled race team.”

HOW DOES IT FEEL TO BE BACK AND DO YOU REALIZE THERE ARE STILL LONG RACES AHEAD? “I won’t try to think about those yet and the races you’re speaking of they’ve been pretty much my strong suit my whole career (Martinsville), but I didn’t sit at home and sit in a rocking chair. I worked hard. I rode dirt bikes. I don’t know if you guys ride dirt bikes or not, but it’s pretty physical. I rode those quite frequently. I actually went and ran a go-kart race and those things pull four g’s in the corner and the average guy out here could probably get about eight laps and they would be done. I purposely would go out and run an hour-long session just to try to get myself built up. So from a conditioning standpoint that’s not a concern for me. What was a concern, you take a year off and you start second-guessing yourself. Will I remember how to shift the gears? Will I remember the switches? There’s so much that goes on. The first time I hopped in a car to go test I was a little bit rusty for about two laps and then it just comes to you. It’s just like riding a bike, I guess. I’m fortunate I still have my health. I’m 50 years old. There are guys that are 50 that can’t get around at all and can’t hardly get out of the house, and there are guys that are 50 that are big athletes. I’m very lucky that I still have my health. I don’t know how old I can go before I start losing skills and ever, but I feel like I’m as good as I was when I was 18 or 20, the difference now is that you’ve got a lot of guys that are very good also. The level of competition has stepped up, but I’m very fortunate that my skills, however good they originally were, are still there.”

WHAT DID YOU TELL JAMES HYLTON BEFORE HE QUALIFIED? “That’s pretty neat. I first came in the sport I was 18 years old and James Harvey Hylton was about the only guy that would talk to me. He hopped in our race car a couple times when I would go to places like Daytona and drive it around there and tell me what we needed to do to set it up. He was a really good chassis guy. He’s a good driver, but a good setup guy. It was kind of strange that I’m down on pit road and here comes James Hylton and he’s asking me for advice. It’s gone full circle. He was like, ‘How do you run the top line? When do you pull it down to the bottom? What do you do about the wind?’ It was pretty neat to have flashbacks when I was 18 and it was the other way around.”

HOW DO YOU LOOK AT PRACTICE AND ALL NOW? “I’m gonna let Butch answer that, the only thing I’ll say from a driver’s standpoint, don’t get me wrong, third would have been a great opportunity to showcase how well Robert Yates Racing is coming back, but there’s a big difference in third and second. I was really sweating that front row. Butch has a plan. He already knows what he’s gonna do on different setups.”

BUTCH HYLTON CONTINUED – “When you sit on the front row here, it lets you be a little more aggressive in the duels. It’s pretty obvious that our car has a little different setup in it than other cars if you watched it on TV, so we’ll take that in the 150s, and we’ll be able to run that, give it a shot, and see what happens. If the car runs like I think it will, like it did at the test, we’ll probably race that in the 500 but it lets us have the option to try different things. If we had got bumped off the front row, we would have had to be a little more conservative with our practice this week, so that’s kind of what we’re gonna do.”

RICKY RUDD CONTINUED – DID YOU TELL DAVID ABOUT THE HOT DOG WRAPPERS AND WHAT WERE YOU THINKING WHEN YOU WENT OUT AND SAW THEM? “I was looking for the hotdog wrappers and there weren’t any out there laying around. That was my problem today and yesterday in practice. I filled David in on all those little things, but there wasn’t anything blowing around on the race track today, yet the wind was blowing. As a matter of fact, there was a pretty stiff wind. It was 20 knots and that could have been the difference in our front row spots exchanging with each other. It wasn’t an ideal situation, but everybody dealt with the wind. It was different for people at different times. The thing about the hot dog wrappers, when you get a head wind on the backstretch here, there’s not much a driver can do with it, but if you get any kind of quartering head wind, sometimes the wind comes across the track and hits that wall. If it’s coming from the airport across, you want to hide against the wall and it will basically hide that wind and there’s speed there. If it’s coming from the infield going across the track, a lot of guys were running the middle of the race track, you can kind of hug more to the right side because you watch the hot dog wrappers and they’re not blowing around. You’ll see sand blowing, but the hot dog wrappers are still and that’s where you want to run.”

CAN YOU TALK ABOUT THE DRAFTING ASPECT FOR DAVID? “I think that’s a good question. Two cars working together can accomplish a lot of things. It used to take three, four or five cars, but two guys working together can do pretty good things. Our goals are, and this is really Butch’s and Todd’s department and they’re gonna be good at getting us the best cars that we can have for raceday comfort where we can go out there and run with each other. Just watching the other night at the shootout, the guy that wins this thing in the long runs is the guy that will not have to lift the throttle. You heard Tony talking about how the cars are sliding around a lot. That’s true but some guys are sliding around more than others and the cars that slide around the least amount will be the guys the go out front, especially in the long run. That’s what we’ll be working on the next couple of days. I just hope we can get these two cars running equally well where we can work with each other. It’s great to have a partner out there, you can’t do it by yourself.”

WHAT KIND OF ADVICE DID YOU GIVE TO DAVID? YOUR FIRST RACE WAS A YEAR BEFORE HE WAS BORN. “Yeah, and his dad is like 50 years old and I’m 50. I used to race against his daddy out in California when we would go to the west coast. He was the west coast guy you had to beat when you went out and ran the road courses, but it all gets back to you put your helmet on, put your gear on. Everybody, to me, is the same age, you talk the same language. There’s no generation gap when you start talking about race cars. Sometimes you might describe things a little bit differently, but it’s neat to work with somebody that has that much enthusiasm. You can see yourself in him from years ago. David kind of came up a little bit unique. He almost didn’t get discovered. I put him in the category of a Denny Hamlin. As much talent as he’s got, he almost didn’t get discovered. These are the guys that work their butts off. They’ve built race cars and they drove race cars. David set up race cars to make it. He’s done it all. It didn’t get handed to him by his daddy, who was the west coast champion. He had to learn it the hard way and it’s a pleasure to work with somebody like that who is appreciative of everything that you can do for him.”

DAVID GILLILAND – “I couldn’t ask for anything more as a rookie coming to Daytona for your first time. It’s been an experience. It’s been great. We unloaded and the M&M’s Ford Fusion was great. To come to a place as a rookie, you’ve got all of Todd Parrott’s experience and all the success he’s had here, and Robert and Doug Yates – not only the power they provide us with – but all their success and experience they have here. When I first met Robert, I went to dinner with him, and just hearing all the stories and the times that they’ve been to Daytona and all the success they had. It’s just a pleasure to be a part of it and I’m just really, really looking forward to Sunday in the Daytona 500.”

TODD PARROTT, Crew Chief – No. 38 M&M’s Ford Fusion – “It’s a good day for Robert Yates Racing in general. We come to Daytona. We work hard all winter. Doug and his guys in the engine shop work endless hours on the restrictor plate program. Talladega, back in October, the last restrictor plate race it was an all-Yates front row, so we came to Daytona to repeat that. All the guys in the shop work so hard on our restrictor plate cars. The whole program. David is doing a great job. We came down here and had a great test. The job he did last night in the Bud Shootout was phenomenal. I thought for a rookie to come to Daytona and drive as hard as he did and do the job that he did I thought was great. It’s an exciting week. I’ve been fortunate enough to be with Robert Yates Racing since 1996 and I’ve had a lot of success here in Daytona. I’ve won a couple of Daytona 500s and a couple poles and I love this place. Other than my house in Mooresville, this is my second-favorite house. I love this place.”

DOUG YATES, Car Owner – No. 38 and No. 88 Ford Fusions – “For me, it doesn’t get any bigger than this. It’s an engine builders dream to come to Daytona and have your car sit on the front row and to start the season off, you couldn’t ask for a better way to do it. For our company, this is the second time that we’ve been able to sit our cars on the front row and I’m really proud of that. Also, I wanted to add because the engine builder doesn’t get many questions, so I want to add that this is a big year for Ford Motor Company and we’re really here to represent Ford and the Ford Fusion and to do a good job for them. It’s a very important year for us and hopefully we can make them proud.”

ROBERT YATES, Car Owner – No. 38 and No. 88 Ford Fusions – WHAT DID YOU SEE IN DAVID TO HIRE HIM? “That question really ought to go to Doug Yates. I was in my motorhome in Michigan watching the Kentucky race and Stephen Leicht finished 10th. The phone rang and Doug called me and said, ‘We just found our new driver.’ I said, ‘What do you mean?’ He said, ‘The guy that just won the race, that’s our new driver. We’re gonna sign him.’ He said some guys had been telling him about him and he said, ‘That’s the cat. He doesn’t choke. He gets it done,’ so Doug went after him and hired him, so good job Doug Yates.”

DAVID GILLILAND CONTINUED – “We were just talking about that on the way in. We met a little steakhouse in Mooresville and sat down – Doug and I – and just got to talking racing and different things and kind of where I came from and different things. We were just walking up here a minute ago and said, ‘We’ve come a long way since that night in the steakhouse.’”

DID YOU EVER FEAR YOU MIGHT NOT GET DISCOVERED? “Absolutely. This is a sport, a year ago so many teams were going after 18, 19 year old kids and I’m not an 18, 19 year old kid and I never will be again. We won a lot of races on the west coast and we worked really hard at our racing program. I’ve always been very dedicated to my racing. We won kind of the biggest race on the west coast for us is the Toyota All-Star Shootout and we won that last year. Nothing really came about after it. My 30th birthday was coming up and the wind was kind of out of my sails a little bit. Without an opportunity, you can’t show what you have and I’m just very thankful that Clay Andrews gave me the opportunity to move to Mooresville. That’s where you need to be in racing, I think, to be able to get discovered and then we were able to win at Kentucky and now I’ve got this wonderful opportunity at Robert Yates Racing with M&M’s.”

TODD PARROTT CONTINUED – CAN YOU TALK ABOUT GETTING THIS TEAM BACK TO THIS POINT? “It’s big. The struggles. I sat endless days in the Petty Enterprise hauler and watching all the stuff on TV that’s being said about Robert Yates Racing. I got my start here. I feel like it’s my home. I knew the place was better than what it was given credit for. Like I said, people make mistakes in life and in this sport and make wrong decisions, and some things went on internally – not knocking anybody that was there in the past – but it just didn’t click. In this sport, it’s a team sport. You have to have people in place that click and it wasn’t working. When Doug called me up and asked me about the opportunity to come back and told me what he had planned with David I was totally excited. I didn’t want to leave Petty Enterprises because it was a great place and still is, and working with Bobby Labonte and all that was a great experience for me. To go away for six months, see the other side, and to watch this place struggle, when I came back I wanted to work that much harder to get it back on top.”

WHAT IS DIFFERENT OR THE SAME ABOUT DAVID AS WITH DJ AND SADLER? “He’s a hungry race car driver. He has a lot of ability, a lot of talent. He thinks about things. Our communication level – those last 14 races was the best thing to happen for us as a team. To be able to work together – me to learn what he needed – it was hard because I never worked with a rookie before. With as very little experience as he had – I worked with Dale Jarrett was a very successful driver and had a lot of experience and Elliott Sadler had a lot of experience, so I took a lot of those things I learned with those guys and Rusty Wallace and the days I worked with him, I feel like a father figure sort of in a way – just telling and explaining to him what he was gonna see. Like last night was perfect. I feel like the job he did was everything that we talked about what we wanted to do. I told him, ‘If you get behind the 20, the 48, the 24 or the 8, do not leave their bumper.’ When he got behind the 20, he never left his bumper. He did exactly what he was supposed to do and wound up second and did a great job. He’s got a lot of heart and a lot of desire and we’re gonna have a lot of success this year. I’m really excited about it. Our whole program at Robert Yates Racing is looking good. It shows today how close and what kind of team we have. Butch and the 88 team and Ricky in the Snickers Ford, it’s an all-candy front row for the Daytona 500 and it’s gonna be really sweet come next Sunday. I’m really excited.”

DAVID GILLILAND CONTINUED – COMPARE THIS THRILL TO KENTUCKY? “This I’m gonna have to say is bigger. Daytona is the biggest race. It’s something I’ve dreamt of doing my whole life is coming to Daytona and to come here for your first time and, like I said, to be involved with such a great organization and come here and, after our test, to have a chance for the pole and actually get it, and then get a second-place finish in the Budweiser Shootout – just gaining experience and respect as we go – this has definitely been the biggest thing for me and something I’ll never forget.”

ROBERT YATES CONTINUED – YOU STUCK WITH IT INSTEAD OF SELLING. HOW SATISFYING IS IT RIGHT NOW? “I would just sort of sum it up after last night in my life a little bit – it’s really about people making me and encouraging me to do things. There was a time last year when I felt I may be the problem and wasn’t in love with it and was really wanting to leave it, but it’s Doug and Todd and Carolyn and everybody encouraged me – and most of all Forest Mars. He came and says, ‘What do you need? I want you to have two cars and I’ve got you covered.’ It’s these people that really encourage me to do this. It’s never really been my decision on what I’m gonna do. That’s the way my life has been. Davey Allison grabbed me or Darrell Waltrip actually got me down at Daytona for a year in a motel and made me do things I certainly appreciate now, but it’s really the way it’s been. I could have walked out of here last year, but I’ve got a son and this second generation and the Parrott’s and the Fox’s, and I’ve got to leave it to them and take care of them, so I want this next year to get this thing up – get the sky from falling on us and get it up – and hopefully these guys can carry on for years to come.”

WHAT WAS IT LIKE TO WALK THROUGH THE GARAGE TODAY? “Last year, I think I got feeling sorry for myself, but it was getting pretty rugged middle of the year toward September. Last night, I had some owners come up to me and congratulate me and thank me for staying there and competing against them. It’s people like that who genuinely want you to be there. Those are guys you want to race. We try to put so much pressure on everybody and run them off, but the groups that you love racing against, you really don’t want them to leave and I really appreciate some things that were said to me last night by some car owners that I would have thought probably they’d love to see me get out of here. We ran right behind one of them last night, so that was great.”

DAVID GILLILAND CONTINUED – WHAT WAS IT LIKE AFTER YOU WON AT KENTUCKY AND DID YOU GET LOST TRYING TO GET HERE FOR TESTING? “I’ll start with Kentucky. When we won Kentucky, Jerry Nadeau is a close friend of mine and we hired him to do kind of what Ricky is doing – not what Ricky is doing, but to coach me and help me. Ricky is doing a great job as a driver, but he’s also been a great coach to me. Jerry Nadeau, after the race, he pulled me aside and said, ‘Your life has changed forever.’ I felt like I had won big races before and I’d always hoped that it would change, but nothing concrete ever came of it. I actually drove my car owner’s motorhome from Charlotte to Kentucky, so I was driving home in the motorhome that next day – Sunday – and my phone started ringing. I told my wife, she was sleeping in the back and I woke her up and said, ‘This might be it, finally.’ From there, we had a great deal of phone calls and had some really good offers. Come Friday before Kentucky, I would have given my right arm for any single one of those offers, so we were put in a great situation. As far as making the decision it was hard. I came home and asked my wife, ‘What do you think I should do?’ And she said, ‘What does your heart tell you? How did you feel when this car owner called you?’ and I told her. And she said, ‘How did you feel when that car owner called you,’ and I told her. And she said, ‘Well, how did you feel when Doug Yates called you?’ And I said I feel out of my chair, so that was the deciding factor and I’m very, very, very glad that this is the choice we made. As far as coming here, Ricky helped me. Coming in here I didn’t know where the tunnels were, I didn’t know where anything was. Like I said, it was my first time coming here, so he guided me around. Also, as far as the wrappers on the track and everything else goes, I told him if the wind is going down the backstraight, where do I need to be or if it’s blowing down the front straight where do I need to be? And he was right there to answer all those questions and many, many more. That’s the beauty of having a teammate with so much experience and knowledge and, like I said, he’s just been there to answer all those questions. As a rookie, coming to a place for your first time, you’ll go and say there’s a bump coming off of turn four. That’s a question in your mind – how does a car need to be in that particular part of the track. Pretty soon you’ve got five to 10 questions piling up and pretty soon you’re lost and you get all mixed up, but with Ricky he’s able to answer those questions as they come and it really helps as a rookie to be able to focus on what we’re doing.”

ROBERT YATES CONTINUED – CAN YOU DESCRIBE THE EMOTIONAL TOLL OF LAST YEAR? “In this sport about sponsorship and long term and if you’ve got that – you know you can go through some low places. We got to a place where there’s no cushion now. We’ve got to make it happen, so this is probably the best thing that could happen to us. We needed this shot more than at any other time.”

DOES THIS MAKE YOU WANT TO KEEP CONTROL OF THE TEAM? “Forty years ago I started working in this sport and 20 years ago Doug started working with me in this sport. Last year I thought, ‘Well, I’ve done enough of this and there’s probably not much more they need me to do.’ Doug says, ‘Wait a minute, I’ve been here 20 years. You can’t walk out on me.’ So, really, Doug’s making good decisions. Carolyn is making good decisions and Todd Parrott is making awesome decisions. Doug and Carolyn were the ones that brought this guy back and when he was third on the chart yesterday, he didn’t just sit there and say, ‘Maybe they got just a couple thousandths he got beat by,’ but he went digging in the shock and spring bucket and said, ‘Third doesn’t pay anything.’ Again, Todd is King Kong at doing this deal and David is Young Bull. He’s from the same area I think Ernie (Irvan) is from. He sure drives like him, so they must grow up out there and grow them pretty tough. He mixed it up awesome last night and did a great job. When the guys that you know that they’ve got the clout to get to the front say, ‘Come on David, run with me.’ If you can get in that click, that’s where we’re headed and hopefully can stay there, but we started off good last night.”

TODD PARROTT CONTINUED – “Sitting on the pole for the Daytona 500 is something that we can ride for a week. You’re on the pole. You’re in the Daytona 500. You don’t have to worry about it. Like David said, we were talking a while ago before we came in here, we can try some different things in the 150s setup-wise if we want to. We don’t have to worry about where we’re starting for the Daytona 500. Our goals, obviously, coming down here is to win races and to win at Daytona. Finishing second last night, he showed a lot of experience and a lot of poise and a lot of patience, so hopefully come Thursday in the 150 our car is just as fast as it is now and he can get out front and stay out front, and stay out of trouble. If we see something we don’t like, we can fall to the back and not worry about it. The luxury about being on the front row is you don’t have to worry about where you’re starting, so you can sort of breathe a sigh of relief for the rest of the week.”

DAVID GILLILAND CONTINUED – HOW TOUGH WILL IT BE THIS WEEK TO CONTAIN YOUR EXCITEMENT FOR THE 500? “I don’t get super, super excited or out of control at all on stuff like that. I’m focused and the Daytona 500 is what we’re all here for and that’s not here yet. We’re all definitely excited and I’m proud of all the guys. The front row, like Todd said earlier, we can’t say enough about the guys at the shop that worked all winter and poured their heart and soul. Our team last night, they were here until 1-2 o’clock in the morning tearing our shootout car apart and back here at 6:30 in the morning and all back with a smile on their face. It’s just really good and we’re gonna continue. Like Todd said, we’re here to win races. We accomplished our goal last night. We had a good finish, I learned a lot and we brought home a good finish and a straight race car. Now today our goal was to try to get the pole and now our next goal is to try and win the 150, so we’re just gonna keep setting our sights on our next goal and try to achieve our goals.”

WHAT WILL YOU DO DIFFERENTLY HERE ON THE POLE THAN TALLADEGA? “Talladega was my first-ever restrictor plate race, so we got a lot of experience. We finished all the laps and we brought home a 15th-place finish, which is very good. For this weekend, the same thing. We want to be there at the end and try to get off to a good start. It is the first race of our year and momentum in this sport – it’s so much about momentum and if we can just get off to a good start and bring home a good, solid finish for Robert Yates Racing, that’s our main goal is to bring home a good, solid finish.”

ARE YOU READY TO WIN THE DAYTONA 500? “I’d like to think so. Last night was my first race here and I learned a lot and I’m very, very thankful that we had that race. That was all part of Todd’s plan. We went to Talladega and he worked extra hard to try to get the pole. Like Todd said, we’re just very thankful that we had those last 14 races to better position ourselves for this year. Our communication, I’ve learned a lot of what I need to tell Todd. Just our communication has come a long ways, so we’re excited and we feel like we’ve got a race car good enough to win the 500. I just need about 495 miles of experience and then we’ll go for it the last five miles and try to do it.”