Clint Bowyer Nabs Pole for Chevrolet at New Hampshire International Speedway; Second Place Run for Martin Truex, Jr. Puts Team Chevy on Front Row for Sylvania 300

Impala SS Drivers Capture Five of Top-10 Starting Positions

Loudon, NH - Clint Bowyer (12th in the standings), No. 07 Jack Daniel's Impala SS, captured his second NASCAR Nextel Cup Series pole at New Hampshire International Speedway. His lap of 29.206 seconds/130.412 m.p.h. bested the field of 49 cars attempting to qualify for the Sylvania 300 43-car starting field.

Starting alongside Bowyer, giving Team Chevy the front row, will be local favorite Martin Truex, Jr.(seventh in the standings), No. 1 Bass Pro Shops/Tracker Boats Impala SS.

A total of five Chevrolet drivers put their Impala SS race cars in the top-10 starting positions.

Jimmie Johnson, No. 48 Lowe's Impala SS, qualified fourth for Sunday's first round of the 2007 Chase for the NASCAR Nextel Cup. Johnson is the point's leader as 12 drivers begin their battle for the coveted championship prize. Nine of the 12 Chase racers are members of Team Chevy.

Tony Stewart (third in points), No. 20 Home Depot Impala SS, will start the 300-lap/317.4-mile race in sixth with Kevin Harvick (11th in the standings), No. 29 Shell-Pennzoil Impala SS right behind in the eight starting position.

Team Chevy drivers involved in the Chase qualified as follows: Kyle Busch (ninth in points), No. 5 Kellogg's/CARQUEST Impala SS in 12th; Denny Hamlin (sixth in points), No. 11 FedEX Express Impala SS in 14th; Jeff Gordon (second in the standings), No. 24 DuPont Impala SS will roll off 18th and Jeff Burton (10th in points), No. 31 AT&T Impala SS will start in the 23rd position.

There will be 19 drivers behind the wheel of Impala SS race cars when the Sylvania 300 rolls off on Sunday 2:00 p.m. EDT. ABC, MRN and Sirius Satellite Radio will bring the live action to fans worldwide.

Clint Bowyer, No. 07 Jack Daniels Impala SS - Qualified on the Pole

ON SITTING ON THE POLE FOR THE FIRST RACE OF THE CHASE: "I'm really excited. It's an exciting time for not only me, but for everybody at RCR and everybody on the Jack Daniels Chevrolet. It's a lot of fun to be a part of this Chase. The pressure is off of us. We're 12th. We only have one way to go and that's forward. Sitting on the pole right here, the first race of the Chase, is a big step in the right direction. I think it says a lot about our race team."

ON THE ROOKIE PRESSURE COMING INTO THE CHASE, IT SEEMS LIKE BOTH YOU AND MARTIN TRUEX JR. ARE HANDLING IT EASILY: "Yeah, I'm excited for both of us. We've battled it out in the Busch Series and I have a lot of respect for him. When he posted that lap it was like, man, nobody is going to beat that. After the first lap, I didn't think I had a chance at it (laughs). They scuffed and we went out on stickers and I knew it was going to take a lap to get going. But I'm glad I got going as fast as I did."

ARE YOU FIRMLY STAKING OUT THE UNDERDOG'S ROLE NOW BY TALKING ABOUT BEING IN 12TH? "That's just fine (laughter). If I can keep all of you guys (media) off my back and wondering what's going on and we sneak up in there. All that matters at the end of the year when you're standing in line at the pay window, that's all that matters. It's no different back in the day was back then you had to wait until five or six in the morning before they could figure it out at the local dirt track to get paid."

HOW IMPORTANT IS IT TO GET YOUR FIRST VICTORY, AND IF NOT, HOW IMPORTANT IS IT TO FINISH STRONG IN THIS RACE AND SET THE STAGE FOR THE CHASE? "Well, it's very important and that's what excitements me about this weekend. Already, we unloaded and we were really fast in practice. I was looking at the sheets and we were really good. I'm really excited about our chances to win our first race right here. That would be so cool to get our first win in the first race of the Chase and get that confidence and that momentum going. That's exactly what this team needs. We saw it with Martin Truex Jr. As soon as he got that win, he rattled off three top-three finishes right in a row and put himself in this Chase. I really think that would catapult this team to the next level."

YOU'VE BEEN CONSISTENT ALL YEAR EVEN THOUGH YOU HAVEN'T HAD A WIN. DON'T YOU FEEL LIKE YOU'RE ON A ROLL EVEN THOUGH YOU HAVEN'T WON? "Yeah, you know I was reading magazines and newspapers and people say you don't belong here and everything and the bottom line is there were three teams behind us when that cutoff was that won races that we were ahead of, points-wise, so we did the things it took to get here. It doesn't matter. Racing back when we were racing motorcycles and dirt cars for championships, consistency is what wins championships. But you've got to run a little closer to the front than we have been. We have to make that next step and I firmly believe that we can do that."

DID RICHARD CHILDRESS GIVE YOU ANY INSTRUCTIONS ON HOW TO APPROACH THE CHASE? "I haven't seen him. He's in Mongolia or something, shooting another sheep (laughter) of something. I haven't seen him. Hopefully he'll show up and we'll have a victory. I hope not, I want to win but I want to celebrate it with him in victory lane. There's nobody who likes winning better than RC."

DID YOU ALL NOT GET THE MEMO THAT THIS WAS SUPPOSED TO BE HARD? "Don't get me wrong (laughs). It beats New York. I was so excited to get back to the track, I couldn't stand myself. You couldn't get me in a car fast enough. But I'm just very excited. This is a neat thing to be a part of. It's a big deal. It's something you've worked your whole life to get to. To finally see it paying off and to be a part of such a big thing is pretty neat. So you just wide the wave as long as it lasts and hope your wave is bigger than theirs."

WHAT DOES THIS POLE DO FOR YOU AND YOUR TEAM AS FAR AS CONFIDENCE? "We qualified 20th here in the spring race and drove up to sixth or seventh. An air wrench flew out in front of me on pit road and I ran over it and I just couldn't believe it. The hose wrapped up in a tire and it yanked it up; clear up in a spot that the it wasn't capable of going. You couldn't have put it up in there. It cut an oil line and ruined our day. We have run well here. Our results are terrible. But we have run up front and hopefully we can run up front and get that finish."

DO YOU FEEL LIKE YOUR TEAM IS JUST NOW STARTING TO GEL? "I'm not going to put all the blame on them. It's me. I'm behind, experience-wise, to a lot of these guys. I've made mistakes. Last week in Richmond we built a car capable of winning the race and I just a mistake. I was going for broke and I came up broke."

Martin Truex Jr., No. 1 Bass Pro Shops / Tracker Impala SS - Qualified 2nd:

"It's a real exciting time for me and my whole team. We're looking forward to the Chase. We've got a lot of the tracks in the Chase we feel like we'll be real competitive and we'll have a chance to win a few of them. And it's a perfect place to start off here today. We had a great day in practice. The car was really, really good right off the truck; probably better than the care we ran here last time. I felt real good going into qualifying. I didn't know we could run as fast as we did with the temperatures cooling down and the adjustments we made were spot on. I was really surprised at the speed we ran. I wasn't sure who would pick up and who wouldn't. It was a great lap for us. I'm really happy with the speed we ran and the time we ran, I just wish we could have been on the pole. We're really trying to get in that Bud Shootout next year. But we've got nine more tries so we'll keep working on it."

ON THE IMPORTANCE OF STARTING UP FRONT, HOW DOES THIS BODE STARTING THE CHASE ON THE FRONT ROW? "I don't think it's all that important. Last time we were here we started ninth and fell back at the start a few spots and we were able to make our way to the front. It's all about having a good race car. Usually the guys that are good start up front, so that's why it seems that way. There will be some guys that maybe struggled today that will get their cars fixed for Sunday and be able to pass. Last time we were here, it was a lot easier to pass than it has been in the past for some reason. I don't know. It's because these cars are a little bit slower in the middle of the corner. They are a little bit harder to get to handle right and a lot of the guys run different speeds. But we were able to come through the pack a few times in the last race here and I was really surprised we were able to do that. So, it's good to qualify up front. It means we've got a fast car. But it's n o guarantee that we'll run good on Sunday. We still need to work through our practices and Happy Hour and make sure we've got the balance where we need it for Sunday."

ON THURSDAY, A FEW OF YOUR YOUR CREW GUYS WERE OUT IN THE GARAGE AREA, TINKERING WITH A MODIFIED AND ACTING REAL RELAXED. WHAT CAN YOU SAY ABOUT YOUR GUYS? "They're doing a good job for me. They built that Modified to come up here and race just to have some fun and get back to their roots. They came up through the Modified cars and its just a way for them to have fun. Some people play golf. Some people fish, like me. And some people just want to be at the race track. So they built a Modified and came up here and they're going to be racing it tomorrow (Saturday) just for fun. It's a good way for them to get their minds off all the day to day pressures of the Cup series and go back to their grass roots racing level."

WHAT WOULD IT MEAN TO WIN AT NHIS? "It would be huge. I've actually won in all the racing series I've run here before. So this is the one I really want. But we've been close. We led a bunch back here in the summer and led all the way up until the last pit stop and had a very good day. So I feel confident that we can come back and better that. It's just a matter of getting our car working well and having good practice tomorrow and having some things go right for us during the race. You can be the fastest car and still not win. We feel like we'll be a contender, but it's a matter of putting it all together. But it would mean a lot. It's a special place for me. I've been coming here for a long time. This track is a big part of the reason that I've got the chances to do what I've been able to do. So it would be real special."

YOU FINISHED THIRD HERE AND FIRST AT DOVER IN THE SPRING. DO YOU FEEL IT'S IMPORTANT FOR YOU TO GET OFF TO A FAST START IN THE CHASE? "I think it's very important for confidence for my team. Other than that, it doesn't really mean a whole lot. These are two great tracks for us and we need to capitalize on the places we're good at to have a shot at it when we get to Homestead. That's the most important for us right not. It's not so much about momentum or anything, we just need to capitalize on the places we know we can run well at. Hopefully, the places where we're not quite as good, we can have solid runs when we get there."

THIS IS SUPPOSED TO BE HARD. THE TWO GUYS WHO ARE IN THE CHASE FOR THE FIRST TIME ARE ON THE FRONT ROW. DID YOU GUYS NOT GET THE MEMO? "Rookies have a huge advantage, that's what its all about. I don't know. It's just coincidence I guess. We've been working real hard. Clint's (Bowyer) team has been working real hard and they're right there on the cusp for their first win. It's just a matter of putting it all together and having everything go right for one day. It could happen for any of us. So we're just happy to be where we're at and my team is doing a great job. That's the reason I'm here. So if they continue to do what they do and we keep it going forward, there's nothing we can't accomplish."

IF YOU HAVE A BAD RACE AT THE FIRST CHASE RACE AT NHIS, IS IT ALL OVER? "I think you can always come back. It just depends on what happens to the other 11 guys. There is no telling what's going to happen. There could be a guy who has ten top five's. Anything is possible. Jimmie (Johnson) had some trouble last year and was able to come back. There is no saying that somebody's not going to have a perfect 10 races this year. You've just got to go out and do the best you can and hope when you get to the last race that you're in contention."