RAYBESTOS® ROOKIE CONTENDER PRACTICE DAY QUOTES FOR THE DAYTONA 500 NASCAR SPRINT CUP SERIES RACE AT DAYTONA INTERNATIONAL SPEEDWAY, FEBRUARY 9, 2008.

Patrick Carpentier was the top Raybestos Rookie in today’s first Daytona 500 practice session. Carpentier logged the second-best overall speed in the session.

PATRICK CARPENTIER, No. 10 VALVOLINE DODGE: YOU ARE SECOND ON THE BOARD. “I like that [laughs]. It’s wonderful. The guys did a lot of work with the car and every little thing that we could think of to make it better and every aero things they did it and did it. I think everything is coming together so I’m really happy. The main objective here is to make the race. If we make this race then that’s a good start to the season and then we’ll be in. They haven’t made it in the last couple of years with this car so hopefully we’ll get the Valvoline Dodge in the race.” IS IT A BIG RELIEF TO RUN WELL RIGHT OFF THE TRAILER KNOWING THAT YOU DO NOT HAVE A GUARANTEED STARTING POSITION? It’s very positive. I’m very happy. We’ve got to duplicate it tomorrow and there’s a few things with the line that I’m going to keep until tomorrow and hopefully it works out well. But to see it up there, it’s a lot better than not being on that board there. When you’re not on that board you know that you’re at the end of the line and you’ve got to do a lot of work. We came here and we’re very fast; just got to maintain it.” HOW WELL DO YOU NEED TO RUN IN QUALIFYING TO MAKE THE RACE? “I think it’s top-eight. We have to be in the top-eight because some of the guys are pretty fast and if we’re in the top-eight we’ll be okay but we’ve got to be in the top-eight.”

RICHARD “SLUGGER” LABBE, CREW CHIEF, No. 27 BILL DAVIS RACING TOYOTA: “I feel okay about it. Basically when you come here to Daytona and Talladega all you can look at is everyone’s first run off the truck because tomorrow all you get is two laps off the get-go. Everyone with cold temperatures and stuff and at the time when we run that lap we were first on the board. We fell pretty good about our stuff and hopefully we’ll have a good lap tomorrow and get locked in this Daytona 500. That would be a great thing with a Raybestos Rookie and no sponsor. It’d be fun. We’ve got to be one of the fastest three.” TO RUN WELL RIGHT OFF THE TRUCK MUST BE ENCOURAGING. “Well, it’s better than being 30th, that’s for sure. We worked awful hard on the speedway program and hopefully everything with parlay itself into one big deal tomorrow and hopefully it’ll all work out.” HOW WELL DO YOU NEED TO RUN IN QUALIFYING TO MAKE THE RACE? “One of the fastest three [laughs]. It’s all you can do.”