Where the Raybestos Rookies finished in the First Gatorade Duel:
Hornish Jr. 9th
Smith 17th

RAYBESTOS® ROOKIE CONTENDER QUOTES FOLLOWING THE FIRST GATORADE DUEL AT DAYTONA INTERNATIONAL SPEEDWAY, FEBRUARY 14, 2008.

SAM HORNISH, JR., No. 77 MOBIL 1 DODGE: YOU FINISHED NINTH. HOW WAS YOUR RACE? “We scraped it up a little bit. Right before that last caution I was working on getting a little bit higher on the racetrack and I went a little bit over that. I know it’s another learning thing but I was real happy with the way the Mobil 1 car handled. We had to pit a little bit earlier than some of the other guys and changed tires. That last restart we had a good run going down the backstraightaway and I went to the outside to go around the 87 and the 5 and nobody went with me so that ended up costing us a couple of spots. I was just real happy with how the team worked. They had a great pit stop and there’s still a lot of stuff I have to do yet but I don’t have any complaints right now.” YOU HAD TO MAKE A GREEN FLAG PIT STOP. DID YOU HAVE ANY PROBLEMS FINDING SOMEONE TO DRAFT WITH ONCE YOU WENT BACK OUT? “Not really because of just kind of the way it happened to work out. I was right in the pack with the rest of the leaders. It really wasn’t too bad. I feel like I could have got my in and my out a little bit better than what I did and that would have maybe put us up a little bit better but the way everything cycled through I was right there with the leaders anyhow. I was just real happy with the way the Mobil 1 guys their pit stops. This is not a first for any of ‘em but first time really working all together so I was happy with that.” DID YOU NOTICE THE CARS MOVING AROUND? “I noticed mine moving around a whole lot [smiles]. We were too tight the first run and then we were too loose the second run so we’ve got to work on that a little bit over the next couple of days. There’s a lot of guys moving around, a lot of guys bumping into each other and as you saw it started real early in the race, even. It was fun.” HOW BIG OF A RELIEF IS IT TO GET THROUGH THIS RACE? “It’s a big relief. I’m real happy with the way that that worked out. We’ve definitely bumped ourselves up quite a bit as far as where we’re going to start. I was real happy with that.”

REGAN SMITH, No. 01 THE PRINCIPAL FINANCIAL GROUP CHEVROLET: YOU MADE AN UNSCHEDULED PIT STOP. “It just picked up a vibration. The right front tire was corded so I had to come in and get that thing off of there which, ultimately didn’t hurt us that bad. The guys had a good pit stop and we got back out, joined right in the pack and everybody else cycled through. Just lost a lot of track position by pitting by ourself there. But I feel like we learned a lot for Sunday. Obviously didn’t finish where we wanted to but we’re going to work on it here. We’ve got two more days of practice and we’re going to work on it and get it tuned in and dialed in and see what we have for Sunday. We’ll just get The Principal Financial Group Chevy ready.” YOU RAN WELL EARLY IN THE RACE. “Yeah, the car seemed fine right up there at the front of the pack. I got down to the inside there at one point and it looked like it was going to go and get cleared and we got stopped up just before we could. I couldn’t push guys like I needed to be able to and then when you can’t do then they’re not going with you as much as you need ‘em to. We've got a little work to do but we’ve got a good idea of what we need and we’re going to work on it.” IT SEEMS LIKE THE CARS MOVE AROUND A LOT. “That’d be an accurate statement [smiles]. They do a good bit of moving but I think we all expected that coming into it. It’s going to be cool because I really feel like the race is going to be a big-time handling race on Sunday. And I think everybody else is going to say that same thing now. You can tell the cars that we really starting to handle good towards the end and we weren’t where we needed to be in that aspect. We’ll work on it.”