Where the Raybestos Rookies qualified at Phoenix:
Reutimann 25th
Ragan 32nd
Menard 33rd
Montoya 36th
Allmendinger 46th

DAVID REUTIMANN IN THE No. 00 DOMINO’S TOYOTA WAS THE TOP RAYBESTOS ROOKIE QUALIFIER AT PHOENIX. “Our car was pretty free. We got a good draw and that helped a lot. The place got a little quicker as it cooled down. All in all, I’m pretty happy. I’m happy that we’re in. That’s what I’m happiest about.” WHAT’S THE NEXT STEP GETTING READY FOR THE RACE? “Just get out here and start doing race runs tomorrow and concentrate on trying to make the thing as good as we can. A lot of those guys have a head start on us, a couple of hours of practice ahead because a lot of those guys were making race runs and then did some qualifying stuff towards the end of the day. And that’s just kind of the way it’s going to be for a while until we get some top-10s. We’ll just try to make smart changes in the amount of time that we have. The important thing is that we’re in the race.” YOU DIDN’T RUN THAT WELL IN PRACTICE BUT YOU PICKED UP A LOT FOR QUALIFYING. “The draw helped. We made it faster and the draw helped. The draw definitely helped. I’ve rolled out second here in the truck deal and qualified about dead last a second slower than we practiced and then today it went our way and I’m glad of that. That’s what we needed. We needed something like this.” DID THE RICHMOND TEST HELP YOU HERE TODAY? “Maybe a little bit but I doubt it because we were so bad at Richmond. We were not even close to where we needed to be at Richmond and we were really disappointed. So they came back and worked on it and that’s what you do when you test and you find that you’re not that good you go back and you beat on the thing and cut on it and that’s what Frankie [Kerr, crew chief] and those guys are doing. I’m proud of them. They’re doing a good job.”

DAVID RAGAN, No. 6 AAA/SHOW YOUR CARD AND SAVE FORD: “I’m pretty happy, compared to where we were in practice. We’ve just really been struggling with our AAA Ford Fusion, just really, really tight. Everyone at Roush Fenway is working extremely hard on these Car of Tomorrow cars. There’s a place we want to be but there’s a hundred different ways to get there and I think we’ve tried about 97 of them. We’re pretty close to getting this deal figured out. We’ll just continue to pick up. I proved last week we’ve got a lot more racing to do. I’ve got to take it lap by lap and be there at the end. WAS GOING OUT EARLY A DISADVANTAGE? “I think going out late is going to be an advantage. I don’t know if it’s going to be a huge advantage because it wasn’t that terribly hot today. But yeah, that’s probably going to cost us a little bit going out this early. But anywhere in the top-20 would be a fine start for us.” SOME OF THE TRACK WAS IN SHADE, SOME IN SUNLIGHT WHEN YOU MADE YOUR RUN. “It’s not too terrible hot today so it’s not that bad. We’re not close enough to worry about just a little bit of shade [smiles]. The only thing that could hurt us now is a gullywasher coming through here. We’re happy to be here, we’re learning and just trying to get better.”

PAUL MENARD, No. 15 MENARDS/JOHNS MANVILLE CHEVROLET: THAT WAS A GOOD LAP FOR YOU. “It was a lot better than it was looking earlier. We changed quite a few things. Pops [Tony Eury Sr., crew chief] got it a lot better. I don’t want to do that every day. That’s no fun, leading up to it and then actually doing a lap. But it’s all worth it at the end.” YOU STRUGGLED AT MARTINSVILLE BUT CAME BACK AND QUALIFIED FOR THE RACE HERE TODAY. “If we make it, it’s the first COT race that we’ve been in. It’s going to be interesting on Saturday night to see how it drives in traffic. We had a good run last week and get some momentum built up in the next few races.” WILL THE CARS THAT GO OUT LATE IN THE QUALIFYING DRAW HAVE A BIG ADVANTAGE? “Yeah, I think so. That track has a lot more grip now than it did earlier and I think it’s going to continue to get better. The problem is that we don’t practice at night at all so when the sun goes down it’s going to be interesting to see what happens but I think overall it should just get more grip.” WILL THAT MAKE THE CAR MORE DIFFICULT TO TURN IN THE CORNERS? “Yeah, it doesn’t cut very good. You really have to be patient, wait for it to turn before picking up the gas.”

JUAN PABLO MONTOYA, No. 42 TEXACO/HAVOLINE DODGE: “It was okay. We were really tight through 3 and 4 so we lost a lot of lap time there but it was okay. We were not that fast in practice. We improved a little bit but a little disappointed.” IS THIS THE BIGGEST CHALLENGE YOU’VE HAD SO FAR WITH THESE CARS? “Balance-wise, yeah. It’s just not a challenge. It’s when the car handles bad, handles bad and it makes your weekend horrible. But it doesn’t mean the track is harder or anything. This is one of the tracks that I ran last year, actually. You know, when you have a good car everything is smiles. When you have a bad car you’ve got to try to make it better.” IS IT MORE DIFFICULT TO FIND THE RIGHT SETUP ON A FLAT TRACK? “No, not really. I think the other tracks we’ve got to figure out because we’ve done a lot of them. You look at California, you look at Vegas, the first mile-and-a-halfs and two-miles we did, we sucked. Now we’re better but we sucked in the first few ones.” IS THE SOLUTION TO GET MORE LAPS? “No, just make the car better. Work on it, understand where we are and just make the car better.” IS EVERYTHING OKAY WITH YOU AND TONY STEWART? “Yeah we’re cool. The thing is the press makes a fuss out of everything and we don’t. He’s okay with it, I’m okay with it, you guys are not. I don’t care.”

AJ ALLMENDINGER, No. 84 RED BULL TOYOTA: “We stunk. That’s pretty much it.”