Where the Raybestos Rookies qualified at Texas:
Hornish Jr. 17th
Carpentier 27th
Smith 34th
Franchitti 41st (DNQ)
McDowell 43rd

MICHAEL MCDOWELL, No. 00 AARON’S DREAM MACHINE TOYOTA: YOU WALKED OUT OF THE INFIELD CARE CENTER WITH A SMILE ON YOUR FACE. HOW ARE YOU FEELING? “I feel upset for the Aaron’s Dream Machine guys. I came off of four on the first lap and I just felt a little bit off, like something wasn’t right. I went down into one and I don’t know if it was just the oil dry or something happened but it’s real unfortunate for those guys. It just makes that much work for the guys back at the shop and just fortunately I’m okay thank God. I got to see that replay and it wasn’t very good. Everyone back at the shop that spends time putting seats in and making the cars safe, I mean, that’s one of the worst wrecks I’ve seen for sure in a while. I’m not excited that I had to participate in it. We’ll pull the backup and we’ll get out there in race trim tomorrow and we’ll be fine. I feel great. Nothing broke, didn’t pass out, didn’t lose anything out there; just wish I didn’t over-correct there. We’ll have to go back and look at it. I don’t know if something happened or if I just lost it there. It didn’t quite feel right. We ran six tenths off what we ran in practice so I think something might have been a little off. I’m just happy that we’re all right and we’ll get out there and do it again tomorrow.”

NOTE: McDowell is asked by SPEED TV to comment on a replay of the accident.

“Well I came off four and like I said something just didn’t quite feel right and I told the guys ‘Man, this thing is really tight. I’m going to run another lap’ then I got down in there and it just started to pull right on me. I tried to gather it up and soon as I turned back to the right the tires hooked up and it started rolling down form there. Like I said, I didn’t lose conscious. I felt every roll down the hill. I thank the guys back at the shop. Like I said, they make these cars extremely safe. They spend the extra time to pad everything up. For me to walk away from that wreck right there is unbelievable. I’m just going to count my blessing tonight and thank God for the opportunity to walk away from that wreck.”

WHAT WAS IT LIKE INSIDE THE CAR? “I was just mad. I made some people mad last weekend and now here we are this weekend holding up qualifying. That’s just unfortunate but like I said I think we had a good car in race trim and we’ll get back to that tomorrow in Happy Hour and go back after it.”

WHAT RECENT SAFETY IMPROVEMENTS WERE MOST IMPORTANT IN YOU BEING ABLE TO WALK AWAY FROM THIS ACCIDENT? “Well it’s got to be a combination of everything. Obviously the Car of Tomorrow has got a lot of room in it and allows for some impact like we saw today. I think the advancements in the seats and helmets and the headrests for sure. That was a violent wreck and I lived through all of it. I felt every roll and I’m standing here right now no problems, maybe a few little bumps and bruises but other than that it’s fine. So that’s amazing to me. I knew when it turned back to the right it was going to be big. I’m glad I gave the belts an extra little pull there before I went out for qualifying. Real unfortunate for all the guys at Aaron’s. We definitely don’t want to see this Dream Machine up in the fence so tomorrow we’ll do a good job and pull the backup out and see what we’ve got.”

DID YOU GET IN OIL OR OIL DRY? “Honestly, it got away from me so fast it felt like oil or something broke. It’s unfortunate ‘cause I don’t want to blame anybody. I’m in the driver’s seat and maybe I just tried to open up the entry a little bit because we were a little tight the lap before and maybe I got up into the oil. It’s unfortunate. I don’t think that NASCAR did anything that they wouldn’t normally do. We trust them to go out there whether the track’s good or not. When you go out to qualify you can’t go out there 90 percent. You’ve got to go all out. I think we maybe crossed the line a little bit there.”

DID YOU HIT ANYTHING AT ALL IN THE TUMBLE, YOUR ARM OR KNEE OR ANYTHING? “There were definitely things moving around [laughs]. I got out and I felt like maybe my ankle hurt a little bit but it was fine once I got walking. I think it was just from rolling down the hill and getting out a couple of roll bar pieces padding fell down I had to climb through but other than that, that was it. I saw a little bit of fire and I said ‘Okay, I’m getting out of here’ and pretty calmly got out. No problems; walked the ambulance on my own power. Like I said I never lost consciousness through the whole entire thing. Just unbelievable the safety that goes into these cars.”

DID YOU CLOSE YOUR EYES DURING THE ACCIDENT? “I should have [laughter] but I didn’t close my eyes, no. I just kind of rode it out [laughs]. It wasn’t a fun ride, that’s for sure. I stand here with a smile on my face because I’m fortunate and I do feel bad about the car and about everyone that works on the Aaron’s Dream Machine. I just want to thank the guys back at the shop for working so hard to make these things safe because they spent a lot of time the last couple of weeks switching drivers. It’s been tough. We haven’t had a lot of time to do that. They took the extra effort to make sure that the car was safe and I appreciate that.”

AT WHAT POINT DID YOU KNOW THAT THIS WAS GOING TO BE A HARD HIT? “I knew right away, as soon as I turned in. Like I said, when I turned in it honestly felt like something had broke and that could have been the oil or the oil dry. It took off on my pretty quickly. Our car has been pretty good all day long, even in mock qualifying runs so I was a bit surprised by it. And then it caught back to the right and that was pretty much it. All the rest was history. Like I said, it’s unfortunate. We’ll go back out there and we’ll do a good job. We’ve got to score a lot of points this weekend and keep this thing in the top-35. The good news is that our team is very prepared with our backup car and we’ll unload and we’ll be okay.”

HAVE YOU EVER ROLLED A CAR LIKE THAT? “No. I guess there’s a first for everything and that was definitely my first. It was a big wreck for sure but these cars are so safe these days and this definitely goes to show that. I just want to thank Michael Waltrip Racing guys for doing a great job.” CAN YOU DESCRIBE THAT WRECK? “I’m not exactly positive how it all happened. Like I said, I don’t know if it was because of the oil dry or there was oil up there. The first lap it just didn’t quite feel right. That’s why I was going to run the second lap. I don’t know if something broke or if we just got into the oil dry. It’s hard to see. I know watching the replay I don’t know if it’ll help or not. We’re definitely not going to be able to tell looking at the car. I got down in there and it pulled a little bit to the right and then it got a little bit loose to the left and then I just tried to gather it up and by that time, you’re going so fast here, it just hooked up and went. And once I hit the wall I knew it was going to be pretty big. It was a lot of momentum there. That first hit wasn’t bad, actually. The second hit was all right and then we just started tumbling down the track. I’m very grateful and blessed to be here right now talking to you guys, standing here no problems.”

HAVE YOU TALKED TO YOU FAMILY YET? “I did. That was the first thing I made sure. My wife’s here right now and my dad, I know he was upset at home watching so we tried calling him there. I’m feeling fine. I’ve got no problems right now. The doctors checked me out and said I was all right. They told me to call ‘em if I had any issues.”

WHAT WAS YOUR REACTION TO SEEING THE REPLAY FOR THE FIRST TIME? “Before I even saw the replay I knew what it was going to look like. I felt like I just didn’t stop flipping. It just felt like it just never ended so I knew it was going to be pretty bad. It’s just a shame because we had a good race car. Like I said, I’m not sure if something broke or if it was just the oil dry. I don’t want to make my name big because of big wrecks and making people mad like I did last week. We want to do it by track results and we’ll still do it. We’ll bounce back from this and we’ll go out there tomorrow and we’ll get our car good. I thought we had a shot at qualifying in the top-20. That’s why I was so disappointed on that first lap. Just didn’t feel anywhere near it did in practice and then the second lap something happened so I don’t know if there was something going on that led to that or if it was just the oil dry.”

DO YOU HAVE ANY SCRAPES OR SCRATCHES? “No scrapes. I got a little bit of a rub on the top of my helmet from roll bar padding but I didn’t hit my head on anything. More just getting out, really. No big deal.”

DID THE DOCTORS TELL YOU TO EXPECT ANYTHING LIKE SORENESS? “I’m not a doctor but I’m just going to go ahead and probably guess that I’m going to be pretty sore in the morning [laughter]. The adrenaline is probably taking over right now but like I said I’m not sore. I feel pretty good and we’ll go out there in Happy Hour and do a good job. It’s just unfortunate. I feel bad for the guys. That’s a lot of work right there.”

WHAT WERE YOU THINKING WHEN IT ALL STOPPED? “I was thankful that I was alive and not hurt. I knew as soon as I stopped that I was fine because I didn’t lose consciousness. All my limbs worked. I was patient and got out of the car on my own power. I was thankful that I got through that one. As far as mentally being prepared, if I survived that one I’ll pretty much survive any of them so I feel pretty good to get the first big one out of the way.”

SAM HORNISH, JR. IN THE No. 77 MOBIL 1 DODGE WAS THE TOP RAYBESTOS ROOKIE QUALIFIER TODAY AT TEXAS. WAS THAT LAP PRETTY MUCH WHAT YOU THOUGHT YOU WOULD RUN? “Well, we always want to run a little bit better than what we do but that was better than what we expected that we were going to be, or at least I expected we were going to be. We thought that we were far off from where we needed to be. We got a little bit behind in practice and couldn’t get the car freed up enough and it was just way too tight. We were still too tight there but I guess we got it heading in the right direction. We kind of looked at what Kurt and Ryan did and felt pretty good about where we needed to be so I’m happy with what the guys with the Mobil 1 Dodge have done for me today.” COMMENT ON THE LENGTHY DELAY IN QUALIFYING. DID IT COOL OFF THE TRACK? “Whatever it helped cooling off the racetrack it was another hour I got to sit there being nervous about if we were going to make it in to this race or not [smiles]. It’s been a difficult day. Whatever you might gain by being cooler you have to sit there and think about what you’re going to do and how you’re going to do it and hope you don’t screw it up that much longer.” YOU WERE INDUCTED INTO THE TEXAS MOTORSPORTS HALL OF FAME. “That was something that we didn’t know too much about until recently. The Sportsmanship Award is what we do with the bowling tournament and we’ve been really lucky to raise over $300,000 for Speedway Children’s Charities over the last three years. I’m not happy about the fact that we’re not going to get to do it in June but we’re looking forward to hopefully being able to move it to the fall race here in Texas and hopefully have another successful year at that. Just a little bit of a change in mood swing. We were a little bit down after the practice session today and definitely things turned around for everyone here at the Mobil 1 Dodge. We took what Kurt and Ryan were doing and put it together with the best of our setup and it seemed to help us out quite a bit.”

PATRICK CARPENTIER, No. 10 VALVOLINE DODGE: “The car is really, really good because to run that lap, I was off throttle. I lifted there, lifted there, lifted there at the end [points to Turn 4] and if we would have had the same as we had in practice this morning I think would have been really good up there. The car is really good. It stuck the ground. The back end is solid but some reason there was something that kind of turned right before it turned left and I really had to use a lot of steering input into it to make the car go around the corner. I really had to put a lot of steering input into it. I thought we were not making it so the car is pretty good. I’ve got to thank Dodge because we’ve got some good power. The car is good. We gave our stuff to the other guys and they’re all up front and that’s where I want to be. We’ll look at what happened but I’m still very happy. We’re making the race.” YOU RAN WELL HERE ALL DAY. “It’s amazing this weekend from what we learned in Las Vegas and what we learned in Atlanta. Mike [Shiplett, crew chief] decided to set the car up the way he thought and the way we came on, that car was fast from the get-go. To make the race, you should have seen me in that car. I turned the wheel and turned it some more and I’ve never done that in my life but I was trying to find any way I could to make it go around. We’ll find out what it was. Made some changes and maybe something went wrong there. It’s good to have a good car. I think we’ve got a good race car so hopefully like Vegas we’ll have a good race.” DID THE LENGTHY DELAY WORK TO YOUR ADVANTAGE? “The track was better. The track was fast. To run what we ran with the way it is I’m pretty sure that the track was better and it’s got more rubber on it and it’s cooler and all of that. For me it gave me time to sleep so that’s good. I can go out tonight [laughs].”

STEVE HMIEL, COMPETITION DIRECTOR, CHIP GANASSI RACING WITH FELIX SABATES: “I walked down through there a while ago and saw my good friend Jimmy Makar and I remember the 18 car going home from North Wilkesboro years ago. Everybody lives through it. Sam Hornish and the rest of those guys did a good job. They had a tough time last year making races. If you’re a racer, you come back. Certainly it’s unfortunate for us and Kennametal and Dodge and all that. I feel terrible for Dario. If you’re a racer you come back. You don’t fold up. If you’re weaker than what Chip Ganassi Racing is you’d say the heck with it. It’s just one of those days. We’re not happy about it and we’re not taking it lightly. We’ve just got to hitch back up and go to Phoenix next week and shoot that thing in the show.” IS THIS A PART OF THE LEARNING PROCESS? “It’s almost as if you need to suffer through it and kind of pay your dues almost. We’re not happy to do that and we’re not saying that’s part of it but if you look down through here at the cars that are making it consistently now at one point in there lives they were worried about not making it. So maybe it goes along with the mistakes you’re going to have to make before you’re a professional at whatever you do. Unfortunately for us today wasn’t our day. But we’ll keep our chin up, we’ll keep going.”

REGAN SMITH, No. 01 PRINCIPAL FINANCIAL CHEVROLET: “It was real loose. We were fairly neutral in practice and didn’t change anything and felt like we were just going to try and not chase ourselves out and then just got loose. We’ll put it in race trim and see what we got tomorrow morning.” COMMENT ON THE DELAY IN QUALIFYING. “Theoretically it should have helped. If we were loose right there it should have helped that, you know, because there’s more shade when we went out. It didn’t, though [smiles].”