Raybestos Rookie Final Practice speeds:
Smith 14th
McDowell 20th
Carpentier 34th
Hornish Jr. 35th
Franchitti 41st

Regan Smith was the top Raybestos Rookie in today’s final practice session for the Subway Fresh Fit 500 posting the 14th best overall speed.

REGAN SMITH, No. 01 DALE EARNHARDT, INC./PRINCIPAL CHEVROLET: “We’re making gains. We need to go sit down and look at everything and look at what some of our teammates are doing. We’ve got a couple of teammates that are really stellar right now but we’re making gains on our car. It’s going to be better to run good in the race than to qualify good. You obviously want to do everything all in the same weekend but we’re just going to keep working on it tonight and looking at our notes and see what we can come up with.”

HOW MUCH OF A CHALLENGE IS IT TO START THE RAC WITH HALF THE TRACK IN THE SHADE AND THE OTHER HALF IN THE SUN? “It’s going to be a challenge. I think more importantly than starting it and being good off the bat, being able to stay good the whole race is going to be quite a challenge. I watched the race tape last night and this morning and the track went through a huge transition and guy’s cars went through a huge transition. We need to look at what time the sun will be all the way down, what time the track will be all the way in the shade because as hot as it got today during the day it’s going to get twice as much of a transition that we’ll go through into the shade than we did just now even. We’ve just got to look at all that stuff. It’s obviously a challenge and this place has always been tricky.”

HOW DO YOU PREPARE TO DRIVE INTO GLARE OF THE SUNSET? “I don’t know. I can’t see when I’m down there yet so I’ll figure that out tonight [smiles].”