Where the Raybestos Rookies qualified at Phoenix:
Montoya 14th
Menard 19th
Allmendinger 33rd (DNQ)
Ragan 45th
Reutimann DNS (DNQ)
JUAN PABLO MONTOYA, No. 42 TEXACO/HAVOLINE DODGE: “Just too loose. In practice it was pretty tight and tried to run the same line that I did in practice and nearly wrecked the second lap.” DID YOUR CAR GET FREE OFF TURN 2? “It was just too loose all the way off both ends and I nearly wrecked in the second lap down in three and four so I lost a little bit of lap time. But that’s what it is. We’re probably going to end up like 20th or something. It stinks [smiles].” IN PRACTICE WAS YOUR CAR BETTER ON A LONGER RUN? “We started really bad today, made a lot of changes, made it a little better, but we’ve been way off today.”
PAUL MENARD, No. 15 MENARDS/JOHNS MANVILLE CHEVROLET: “Definitely hit the wall the second lap. My first lap was decent. Every run we made in practice seemed like it took a good lap for the sticker tires to come in and I was going for it on the second lap. I picked up the gas hard and it just got tight and ran out of room coming off two. We picked up from practice a couple of tenths and the guys did a good job. We live and we learn. We didn’t run very good in spring; finished like 25th or something like that. This is a brand new racecar that has never seen the track before today. The guys at DEI have done their homework. This is the newest car out of DEI right now so it’s a pretty good one.” COMMENT ON THE DAMAGE TO THE CAR. “Right front and right rear. Just beat the fenders out. We might have to re-glue the crush panels but it shouldn’t be too major. We definitely don’t have to go to a backup car. We can pound it out a little bit and it’ll be all right.”
DAVID RAGAN, No. 6 AAA INSURANCE FORD: “Certainly I thought we had a top-10 car in practice. Qualifying is just a tough deal. You’ve got to hit your marks. You’ve got two laps to do what you’ve got to do. Certainly I was trying to get all I could out of it and just got a little loose coming out of two and the right rear corner caught the outside wall. It wasn’t a good lap for us. I feel like we’ve got a better AAA Ford than that but we’ll have to work on it tomorrow. We’ll be coming from the back. It’s not hurt that bad, just some cosmetic stuff. You can’t let that kind of stuff happen when you’ve got a good car like that.”
DAVID REUTIMANN, No. 00 BURGER KING TOYOTA: “I cranked it up and it just didn’t feel right and took off down the back and just felt sluggish. Something was going bad from the time we cranked it up. I’m waiting in something else to happen. It’s been one of those days. I had the fastest car of the go or go home group and all we would have had to do is…I thought we were in good shape and now we’re going home.” DID THE CAR RUN FLAT IN YOUR LAST PRACTICE RUN? “The last run that I made everything was fine. It gave no indication there was ever anything wrong at all until I fired it up to leave and take off. There was something wrong from the time I fired it up and never made it around.”
