David Ragan was the top Raybestos Rookie in the first Pepsi 400 practice session this afternoon at Daytona. Ragan finished fifth in the season opening Daytona 500.
DAVID RAGAN, No. 6 AAA TRAVEL FORD: THIS WAS ESSENTIALLY ONE HOUR OF DRAFTING PRACTICE FOR YOU. “Our AAA Ford Fusion is pretty tight right now. This is the first time I’ve been down here for a summer race. I need to talk to some of these other guys to see where you’re off the throttle, or how bad is it or how good is it. My car doesn’t feel great but I think that’s kind of normal across the board. I’ll just have to see what everybody else says about their cars and I’ll have to adjust and we’ll work on it in this final practice.” YOU HAD A GREAT RUN IN THE DAYTONA 500. HOW MUCH DIFFERENT IS THE TRACK? It’s real slick. The car is just not in the racetrack good. It feels like it’s just sliding around, not necessarily the back end. You don’t have the grip. I can’t stay in the throttle all the way around the track. I’m in and out. Our Busch car had the same characteristics. That must just be the racetrack. I’m sure Jimmy Fennig [crew chief] and everybody will work on our AAA Ford and get it a little better with the weather conditions that we have. I’m sure that it’s not going to be perfect. We’ll just have to make the best with what we’ve got.” IS THIS A WEEKEND WHERE THE BUSCH CAR HELPS THE CAR CUP IF, FOR NO OTHER REASON, MORE DRAFTING TIME ON THE TRACK? “Oh yeah, and that Busch car, 99 percent of the time helps my Cup effort, just getting out there, making laps, working with the spotter in that first practice. We kind of get our game back going. It’s been so long since we’ve been to a track like this. Everybody kind of get back into the rhythm and what’s your car is capable of. You don’t want to take any unnecessary changes out there in practice but the Busch car will definitely help today, just making some laps and seeing where to pass at, where to go at.”
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Raybestos Rookie Paul Menard is one of 17 cars required to qualify on time for the Pepsi 400. Menard discussed the challenges of making a mock qualifying run in practice.
PAUL MENARD, No. 15 MENARDS/PITTSBURG PAINTS CHEVROLET: “It’s tough to get in these races so we have to go out full blown qualifying running definitely sacrifice race setup in order to get in the race. Right now we’re kind of borderline. I think we hit on some things to get it better and get in the race but I don’t think we’ll have a great race car regardless if we do get in. Just a matter of staying with the lead pack and just riding the day out.” DO YOU JUST GET IN LINE ON PIT ROAD AND WAIT TO MAKE A RUN WHERE YOU CAN GET A CLEAN RUN? HOW DO YOU KNOW WHAT KIND OF LAP TIME WILL GET YOU IN THE RACE? “We’ll just get all we can. We’ll stay on pit road and try to get the cleanest lap we can. If you have any kind of help it kind of screws up what your change was because a lot of these changes are half a tenth changes for the good or for the bad. We just have to have a clean lap to know which way to go for it.” IS THIS A DIFFERENT CAR THAN WHAT YOU HAD AT TALLADEGA? “Yes it’s a different car than Talladega. Old car new body.”
