RAYBESTOS® ROOKIE CONTENDER ADVANCE MATERIAL FOR THE AARON’S 499 NASCAR NEXTEL CUP SERIES RACE AT TALLADEGA SUPERSPEEDWAY.

JUAN PABLO MONTOYA, No. 42 TEXACO/HAVOLINE DODGE: IS IT SPECIAL TO GO BACK TO TALLADEGA? “Yeah, I think it’s going to be fun to go back there, being my first proper stock car race was there. It’s should be pretty cool, should be a little different.” WHAT WAS YOUR FIRST IMPRESSION OF STIOCK CAR RACING AT TALLADEGA? “I was surprised at the banking, you know. For an open wheel guy, 22 degrees or 23 degrees like California or Michigan we’re like really high bank. It’s like ‘Wow’ and now you go to places like 20-degree bank and there’s nothing. Twenty degrees bank is not much.” WHAT DID YOU LEARN AT DAYTONA THAT WILL HELP YOU AT TALLADEGA? “I think Talladega is very different. I think with the new asphalt like it was last year they are very different racetracks. It’s a lot easier to go in wide open throttle in.” WHAT HAVE YOU DONE TO IMPROVE THE RESTRICTOR PLATE PROGRAM SINCE DAYTONA? “I think our restrictor plate program is actually really good. We had really strong cars last time in Daytona. Being my first race and everything, we were good. We were unlucky.” WILL YOU GET DRAFTING HELP AT TALLADEGA? “Some will, some won’t. We’ll see.”

DAVID RAGAN, No. 6 AAA FORD: WHAT DID YOU LEARN AT DAYTONA THAT WILL HELP YOU AT TALLADEGA? “Patience is probably the biggest word for my season this year. Patience goes to leaps and bounds of highs at Talladega and Daytona. We’ve got great racecars that we’re taking to Talladega next week. The whole Ford Fusion group is going to be pretty fast. We know that we’ll have to race hard the whole 500 miles but at the same time we’ve just got to be there at the end, like we proved at Daytona. We rode back there from 20th to 30th the whole race and then at the end we still had a good car where we could go hard.” HOW MUCH EXPERIENCE DO YOU HAVE AT TALLADEGA? “Just a few ARCA/REMAX Series races and the Craftsman Truck Series race last year. Once they paved the place, Talladega has really got a lot of grip and that makes it fun for a racecar driver. We can race hard and really don’t have to worry about losing the car all of a sudden. It’s got a lot of grip. The biggest thing will be, obviously qualifying well is important, but to have a good handling car on Sunday is going to also be important.” AT DAYTONA, COULD YOU TELL A DIFFERENCE IN THE COMPETITION IN THE BUSCH RACE ON SATURDAY AND THE CUP RACE? “Sunday is just where guys take it a little easier at times. They know when to push it and when not to. But guys on the Busch side race hard every lap and there is a lot of competition in front of the Busch races. Once you get back to 15th or 20th it kind of evens out a little bit. But on the Cup side on Sunday, the competition is all the way from first to 30th.” DID ANYTHING ABOUT THE DRAFT SURPRISE YOU AT DAYTONA? “How much the cars get pushed around. A lot of times you’re turning left and then the car is going right. People can pull up beside you if they know what you’re doing and basically stop you in your tracks. There’s a lot of games that you can play with each other just by putting your nose here or moving a little here and there to really affect other drivers. The more I race around these guys at the restrictor plate tracks the more I’ll know those little tricks that help you.”

JIMMY FENNIG, CREW CHIEF, No. 6 AAA FORD: WHAT HAVE YOU DONE TO MAKE YOUR RESTRICTOR PLATE PROGRAM BETTER? “Well, we’ve got him a better car. Our good car, we got wrecked in the 125 so hopefully we’ve got him a better car. We’ve been to the wind tunnel with it. We built two cars, rebuilt the one that we wrecked and another car and went to the wind tunnel with it. We worked on it a little bit more and hopefully we got the drag knocked out of it for Talladega.” IF YOU GET THROUGH DAYTONA AND THE CAR IS IN ONE PIECE, DO YOU JUST LEAVE IT ALONE FOR TALLADEGA? “Well, no, you still want to work on it because Talladega is different than Daytona. At Talladega you want a low drag car. No matter what you always keep working on your stuff.” IS PATIENCE IS CRITICAL AT TALLADEGA? “That’s what it is everywhere. Yeah, you’ve got to be patient.”

DAVID REUTIMANN, No. 00 DOMINO’S TOYOTA: WHAT HAVE YOU BEEN WORKING ON TO IMPROVE YOUR RESTRICTOR PLATE PROGRAM? “In our case we’re taking another car to Talladega and spending more time in the wind tunnel and just doing everything you possibly can to make the thing as good as you can. I feel like our cars are better than they were at Daytona. I feel like our cars are pretty good. It’s an ongoing deal. You just never stop working on the thing, ever, to try and make it better. We’re taking a brand new car to Talladega and hopefully it’ll be what we need to get in the show. You’ll see some guys, regardless of what team they are, they’ll bring another car to Talladega because they feel like they’ve got one that’s better. Our situation is that we got wrecked late in the race there and tore our car up pretty good so you’re stating over from ground one. We’re just going to bring another car because you’re going to have an whole new body on it anyway when you get right down to it [smiles].” WHAT DID YOU LEARN AT DAYTONA THAT WILL HELP YOU AT TALLADEGA? “I learned on the Daytona side the cars need to have to be a whole lot freer than I ever anticipated for them to stay good for any length of time. I’m not sure that Talladega has the same characteristics or not but I know that at Daytona we’ve got to be way, way freer to start in order to be even remotely good in the middle or at the end of a run.” IS RESTRICTOR PLATE RACING DIFFERENT IN BUSCH VERSUS CUP? “You’ve got less time so you fight for it a little harder in the Busch Series, I guess, because you don’t have the miles and the pit stops to make up any ground. I don’t think it’s any different. I just know the Busch cars seem to get tight and the Cup cars seem to get tight [laughs]. That seems to be the ongoing things is you fight being tight at a lot of these speedway tracks, a lot of the big racetracks like that.”

PAUL MENARD, No. 15 MENARDS CHEVROLET: WHAT HAVE YOU WORKED ON TO GET THE RESTRICTOR PLATE PROGRAM BETTER? “Focus more on speed. Daytona is a downforce track, it’s a racing track and Talladega is pure speed, especially since they resurfaced it. Just get all the drag out of the car and if we take away front downforce because of that then so be it. As long as we get a slipperier race car that’s what we’ve been trying to do.” ARE YOU RUNNING THE SAME CAR THAT YOU HAD IN DAYTONA? “No, different car. It’s the same one that we ran last fall at Talladega and we ran pretty good with it. We got caught up in a wreck and replaced the nose and a side on it and had it back to the wind tunnel. It’s kind of back to normal.” WHAT DID YOU LEARN AT DAYTONA THAT WILL HELP YOU AT TALLADEGA? “I didn’t learn a whole lot [smiles]. We didn’t make it. But the 150, I think we were good enough to get in. We just kind of got bogged down at the end and it hurt us. Those places are all about momentum if you have to get out of the gas for anything then it just kills your momentum. That’s kind of the key, just stay in the throttle stay off the brake.” AS A DRIVER, CAN YOU TELL A LOT OF DIFFERENCE BETWEEN DAYTONA AND TALLADEGA? “Racing, yeah, not qualifying. Qualifying is the same. It’s wide open and easy. Racing, you have a lot more room at Talladega and you can hold it wide open no problem for a fuel run where at Daytona you’ve got to start breathing it and actually start driving the racecar.” IS THE DRAFT IN THE CUP CAR AND CUP RACE MORE INTENSE THAN THE BUSCH RACE? CAN YOU TELL A BIG DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THEM “I’d say that it’s less intense, actually. The talent is a lot better on the Cup side. The talent on the Busch side is awesome. It’s probably the best it’s ever been but, still, they don’t have the experience that these Cup guys do. You’re always kind of waiting for somebody to make a mistake or something big to happen where you have a lot more comfort just being around all the Cup regulars.