Where the Raybestos Rookies qualified at Pocono:
Menard 21st
Reutimann 23rd
Allmendinger 28th
Ragan 39th
Montoya 41st

PAUL MENARD IN THE No. 15 PITTSBURGH PAINTS/MENARDS CHEVROLET: WAS THE TOP RAYBESTOS ROOKIE QUALIFIER AT POCONO. YOU PICKED UP A LOT FROM YOUR BEST LAP IN PRACTICE. “Yeah it was. I drew first and that never helps unless you’re at Indianapolis. We’ll just have to wait it out and see. Dave Charpentier and all the boys did an awesome job all day. We had a real good practice. We made changes to the car and it’d go better. If we made one that’d go worse we’d change it. We’ll wait it out and see.” DID YOU HIT THE WALL? “Yeah, my first lap it just nicked it coming off the tunnel turn, not too bad. Just cosmetic, just barely went through the sticker. But the second lap I was just trying to get better ‘cause I kind of screwed up in the tunnel turn and hit the wall so the second lap I tried to get it better but it wasn’t to be.” YOU HAVE A NEW CREW CHIEF THIS WEEKEND. “Dave and I have known each other for a year or two now. I have nothing but respect for the guy. He’s one of the smartest guys I know. Trying to get a more engineer-driven mentality in our organization. Tony Sr. has moved to head up the R&D program, which is a good move. He’s one of the most experienced guys in the business so for him to do that is awesome.” THIS IS YOUR FIRST TRIP TO POCONO AND YOU ARE RUNNING THE ARCA RACE. DOES THE ARCA CAR HELP YOU JUST BY GETTING LAPS ON THE TRACK? “Even though it’s basically a Cup car, I was amazed how much that spoiler makes a difference. It’s close to two inches longer and the car drives a ton different. I think a Busch car drives a lot closer to a Cup car than an ARCA car does. Just logging laps, I’ve never seen this place before this morning so getting laps and figuring what to do to go fast.” IS ONE END OF THE TRACK MORE DIFFICULT? “I’ve been struggling with Turn 1. It’s so rough down there. We’ve been doing qualifying runs with the Cup car and you have to basically run the bottom, go over the bumps. ARCA car is going to be fun because you go up top and drive around ‘em. I think if we get in this race the Cup car will be the same.”

AJ ALLMENDINGER, No. 84 RED BULL TOYOTA: “This place is crazy. I have no clue what I’m doing around here. It’s bumpy, it’s awkward. You know, they told me it’s like a road course. It’s a lie. It’s not like a road course [smiles]. That was a good lap. You always feel like you can get a little bit more out of it but it wasn’t, at least in my mind, there wasn’t a lot more I could do to get out of it. I just need laps around this place. It’s a tough place. I’m proud of my team because we started off pretty bad, as bad as you could probably start today. They just kept working at it and we got it better so time will tell, cloud cover will tell if we get in the race. If we don’t, I at least feel like we did all we could do. Usually I hold my breath but about halfway down the back straightaway I realized this is a 55-second lap and I can’t hold my breath for that long so I started losing oxygen. It’s not really these tracks. The good thing is that we’re coming to these harder tracks with more time in the car. If you would have sent me to Darlington the first race of the season I would have retired.”

DAVID RAGAN, No. 6 AAA FORD: “I messed up through the tunnel turn. It turned a lot better than it had in practice and I just ran up on the curb and probably cost us a good two or three tenths. It’s a mistake on my behalf but still a little better than what we ran there in practice. We got a pretty good race car. Qualifying won’t show it but hopefully tomorrow during Happy Hour we can get it adjusted a little bit.” HAVE YOU RACED HERE BEFORE? “Two years ago we ran the ARCA race here. It’s not your typical track so you have to go about changing things a little different. Certainly driving styles are a little different. It can be the normal tight and loose here and there but this place has a lot of bumps and every corner is a little different. It’s kind of like Phoenix but you’re going 180, 190 miles per hour getting into the corner. I think we got us a good car and I think we’ll be alright for the race.” YOU ARE ALSO RACING AT NASHVILLE THIS WEEKEND. WHAT IS THE PLAN? “Hopefully it will come with some strong top-fives, top-10s and no missing approaches landing in Nashville or Pocono and no fogging out [smiles]. The plan right now, weather permitting, as soon as qualifying is over on the Cup side, we’ll fly tonight to Nashville for the Cup practice, Carl, Greg and myself. And then tomorrow, as soon as our Happy Hour here in Pocono is over, we’ll head to Nashville and hoping that we have a late draw and I’ll be able to qualify the car and we’ll be good to go. Possibility weather can play a factor in to when we can leave here, when we can arrive in Nashville. I know they’re calling for some thunderstorms there tonight. It’s the same for everybody. I’m just trying to make laps and figure this place out before we get ahead of ourselves.” WHEN DO YOU GET WITH THE CREW CHIEF AND DISCUSS CHANGES TO THE CAR? “If I had a month, I still couldn’t make the call on what to change. Jimmy’s [Fennig, crew chief] is going to change what he wants to change when he wants to change it [smiles]. I just tell ‘em what the car is doing and he makes the call. As soon as practice is over we’ll debrief for a few seconds.” WHAT DO YOU THINK ABOUT POCONO? “I love it. I wish it was condensed into about a one-mile and then we could really race. There’s just too much riding around down the straightaways. Like I said, if they shortened each straightaway up about a couple hundred yards I think it would be a lot more fun. But this is a great racetrack and great area of the country. I’d much rather be here than some big metropolitan city with a bunch of traffic. This is a cool place to be.”

JUAN PABLO MONTOYA, No. 42 TEXACO/HAVOLINE DODGE: “It was really tight, nearly hit the wall coming out of two so I just checked-up.” HOW DIFFICULT IS THIS TRACK FOR A NEW GUY? “It’s three corners. The car works good, you look good. The car works bad then you look bad. It’s the same for everybody. Turn 3 is probably the toughest corner but when the car feels good and you can commit to it, then you’ll be good. But when the car doesn’t give you what you want it’s very hard.” DID YOU HAVE FUN THE OTHER NIGHT RACING ON DIRT? “It’s fun because you go out there and have fun, no compromise or anything. Nobody really cares if you run good or bad.”

DAVID REUTIMANN, No. 00 BURGER KING TOYOTA: “It was good. I left a little bit out there in one and two because it was so much better than what it was in practice. Slid a little bit in whatever turn that is they’re calling it down there but I think that’ll be a good enough lap to get us in and that’s all that matters. I’m real proud of my guys. We weren’t all that good in practice and they really did a good job.” YOU’VE HAD A TOUGH COUPLE OF WEEKS. HOW BIG IS SOMETHING POSITIVE TO THE TEAM? “Anything that happens that gets you in the races is a huge boost to everybody involved and those guys deserve to get in the races. I haven’t done too good of a job for Burger King the last couple of weeks so we need to try to make it up for ‘em.” AND YOU RAN WELL AT POCONO. “No I don’t. Maybe we need to start going to racetracks I don’t have any laps at [laughs]. This is a cool racetrack and I’ve always enjoyed the odd configured racetracks and I think this is about as odd as it gets.” WHAT ARE YOU EXPECTING IN THE RACE? “Well, I don’t know. We’ll get the thing in race trim. I haven’t been able to get any Raybestos Rookie of the Race awards this year and I’ll like to try and get one if I can. A lot more than one, but we’ll just start with one, hopefully.”