Catchfence

Where the Raybestos Rookies finished at Auto Club Speedway

Gaughan 9^th

Lagasse Jr. 12^th

Allgaier 14^th

Annett 16^th

Butler III 20^th

Townley 22^nd

McDowell 36^th

UNOFFICIAL Raybestos Rookie standings:

Gaughan 23

Townley 17

Annett 16

Allgaier 16

Lagasse Jr. 16

McDowell 16

Butler III 7

RAYBESTOS® ROOKIE CONTENDER QUOTES FOR THE STATER BROS. 300 NASCAR NATIONWIDE SERIES RACE AT AUTO CLUB SPEEDWAY, FEBRUARY 21, 2009, PAGE 5. 

MICHAEL MCDOWELL, No. 47 PACIFIC PACKAGING GROUP TOYOTA:  WHAT HAPPENED?  “I’m not really sure.  I got down in the middle of Turn 1 and felt like I was spinning out in my own oil and then it obviously caught on fire.  The motor was running..  I don’t know if we had an oil line or something happened.  We had just started out a little bit too tight which we were a little worried about how well we qualified we might be a little bit too tight.  Gene Nead [crew chief] and the guys made good adjustments and we started to come back.  We’re not really sure what happened.  Hopefully we’ll be able to figure it out.  It’s funny because everybody sort of laughed at me getting in and out with my helmet on.  I’m one of the only drivers who gets in with my helmet on every time and I do it so that I can get in and out pretty quickly just for those cases.  These cars are great, safe and the fire protective, Sparco and all these guys, it’s not like it used to be.”   

BRENDAN GAUGHAN IN THE No. 62 SOUTH POINT HOTEL & CASINO CHEVROLET WAS THE TOP RAYBESTOS ROOKIE IN TONIGHT’S RACE.

• Gaughan scored a ninth-place finish, his best in three Nationwide Series starts.

• Gaughan took Raybestos Rookie of the Race honors for the first time in 2009.

• Gaughan was the only Raybestos Rookie to finish inside the top-10 in tonight’s race.

• UNOFFICIALLY Gaughan leads John Wes Townley by six points (23-17) in the Raybestos Rookie standings.

• UNOFFICIALLY Gaughan is eighth in the Nationwide Series championship standings.

• Scott Lagasse Jr. scored a 12^th-place finish, his best in 16 NASCAR Nationwide Series starts.

GAUGHAN:  “Ninth and 10^th for Rusty Wallace Racing.  It’s a damn fine feeling to be the Raybestos Rookie of the Race once again [smiles].  Top-10 and a great points night.  Some of the guys I saw had some accidents that were in front of us in the points so getting out of Daytona as well as we did is playing right into the whole strategy for me going into Daytona starting this season: get through there, don’t dig a hole, let the South Point Chevy Impalas do their job at California and Vegas.  The next race is my home, baby and we’re taking that same race car.  It was ninth here and it’s going to be better in Vegas.”  YOU RAN IN THE TOP-10 ALL NIGHT AT A TRACK THAT USUALLY FAVORS THE BIGGER TEAMS.  THAT MUST BE ENCOURAGING TO YOU.  “Rusty Wallace has a great race team.  My car chief is Shane Huffman, who has got a ton of experience and he wants to show everybody that not only was he a great race car driver but he can be an even better team player and he is just doing a whale of a job for me.  All the guys at the shop, like I said, this is a one team race team that has two race cars.  And they act that way, they treat it that way and that is the biggest difference. 

That’s what makes Rusty’s team so good and it’s going to be very powerful for years to come.”  WHAT DID YOU NEED FOR YOUR CAR TO DO TO FINISH BETTER AT THE END OF THE RACE?  “A little too tight, a little too tight in the center still.  Jason Rodgers is my engineer and I kept giving him feedback the whole race saying keep this in mind for next time.  We’ve got to get the left-front down more, got to get it to roll through the center better and then in the end Bryan Berry did the typical, what he always does to Brendan Gaughan which is take the track bar up six rounds and let me drive a dirt car.  I love restarts, man.  I kick people’s butt on restarts [smiles].  This is the most fun I’ve had in years, man.  Steven right behind me and in the end I kept shadowing to Steven’s side to let me draft me so he could get Leffler back and I’m screaming at my spotter ‘Make sure you tell me if he’s high or low so I can keep helping Steven out.’  Ninth and 10^th, I hope the boss is happy.  He’s got his job and he can’t be in the booth and be too excited but I hope we excited him tonight.”  YOU MUST BE EXCITED GOING TO LAS VEGAS NEXT WEEK, ANOTHER HIGH DOWNFORCE INTERMEDIATE TRACK.  “And this race car right now is real close.  We just need some adjustability in our shocks, need to get that left front down a little further and we’re close to being top-five.  Once we get those top-fives, only one spot left.”                    

GAUGHAN PRESS CONFERENCE

“We had a great Chevrolet Impala tonight.  Rusty Wallace builds great stuff.  Bryan Berry and the guys, I love ‘em to death, man.  Shane Huffman and Mark Setzer and all the guys in the fab shop, it’s a fantastic race team.  It was so much fun.  I even drove on the bottom tonight if you can believe it.  I don’t know if I’ve seen the bottom of a racetrack in at least four or five years and I found it.  It’s a little white line on the bottom.  Didn’t know it was there. It was awesome to go back down there and see it.  I still went to the high side to pass people.  We had a race car that was probably somewhere between seventh and 12^th-place.  I learned a long time ago from guys like Ron Hornaday and guys like Kevin Harvick in the West coast that restarts are king.  And if you love restarts, you will cherry pick as many spots as you can and hold ‘em off.  That last start I should have finished about 12^th but I passed four guys in one corner because I love restarting and held ‘em for the last 10 laps.  It got us a top-10, top Raybestos Rookie, which is one of the goals that we have this year.  A little bit extra media, gets us to the media center with a nice top-10 finish.  Hopefully I’ve got Rusty happy, got my Daddy happy sitting on the box with us and now we do the three-hour drive back to the South Point Casino for the night and go to my home next week and have a blast of a time.  Take the same Chevrolet Impala and make it a little bet better and if we can be a little bit better that means we’re closer to the top-five”  WHAT ARE YOUR THOUGHTS ON BEING A RAYBESTOS ROOKIE ONCE AGAIN?  WHAT ARE YOUR GOALS IN THE NATIONWIDE SERIES? “I feel old.  I’ve never run Nationwide races.  I’ve raced here in Sprint Cup and I’ve raced in Winston West and I’ve race in Craftsman Truck and I’ve been to a lot of places but I’ve never raced Nationwide.  Fortunately the rules say that I can get an extra set of tires every week by putting a big yellow stripe on my bumper and it gets me a little extra media.  I mean, right now I’d be ninth-place getting in my street clothes driving home if I wasn’t the Raybestos Rookie tonight.  It gets me to the media center, gets me a little extra press, I’m just happy to do it, man.  I’m glad the rules are the way they are and I got to sit here and give it a shot.”      

SCOTT LAGASSE JR., No. 11 GATORZ PRECISION BUILT EYEWEAR TOYOTA:  “It’s a good place for us to start as a team.  Obviously you want to run better than that but for us that’s what I’ve got to keep remembering is that I’m a Raybestos Rookie first. All new guys, all new team, first race that Paul [Wolfe, crew chief] and I really got to work together.  We don’t really count Daytona.  To come out of here 12^th car in one piece and take it to the tunnel, do some work on it.  Driver learned a lot and what he needs in a race car and I think I’ll make it easier on Paul here on out.  He told me he’s got some things to make it better so really a good day for us.”  YOU HAD A GOOD RUN HERE AND NEXT WEEK THERE IS ANOTHER HIGH DOWNFORCE TRACK AT LAS VEGAS.  YOU MUST BE ENCOURAGED LOOKING AHEAD.  “Oh very much so.  I’m real encouraged about the year.  Daytona we had a great race car and we came here with a good car.  There guys are tough, you know.  They’re good and that’s why they’re running at this level.  It’s fun to get out here and run good and have a solid day.”  WHAT DID YOU NEED FOR YOUR CAR TO DO TO BE BETTER?  “Just turn better..  We were just giving up the nose too much.  He’s told me he’ll fix it and he hasn’t lied yet.  We’ll be good.”  HOW IMPORTANT WAS IT TO BOUNCE BACK WITH A GOOD RUN HERE AFTER DAYTONA?  “A buddy of mine told me Greg Biffle made this comment and it really makes good sense. He said when you leave and get on an airplane that’s it.  You’re on to the next one.  So of course it lingered for a day or two because we did have a very good car and those guys worked really hard to build that thing but I kind of thought about that and I said it makes sense.  Let’s go on to the next one and do the best we can.  Those are a lot of things that I’m learning now.  I’ve never raced week in and week out.  It’s been sporadic here and sporadic there and just on kill all the time so there’s a lot of learning.  The cool thing is that I’m around great people that understand that and want to see me succeed.  I’m having the time of my life right now.”       

JUSTIN ALLGAIER, No. 12 VERIZON WIRELESS DODGE:  “Definitely a positive weekend.  We felt like we had a really good car.  We had some trouble on pit road at the end there and just unfortunate.  At the end there I didn’t have tires.  I run over some debris early and felt like maybe we had got something in the tire.  They made the call to come in and get tires.  It was the right call.  We had something in the tires so we went back out.  We did the best we could.  Chad and all the guys did a great job calling the race tonight.  We just felt like we had a really good car.  You know, we raced with the 20 quite a bit and I think they ended up third so felt like we should have been at least in the top-five.”  HOW IMPORTANT WAS IT TO BOUNCE BACK AFTER DAYTONA AND HAVE A GOOD RACE HERE?  “First and foremost we want to get the Verizon Wireless Dodge in victory lane but at the same time we don’t want to fall out of the top-30 in points and we felt like tonight our only goal was to get points.  We want to win and we want to run well but we’ve got a precarious spot in the top-30 and then we can go racing from there.” YOU GO TO ANOTHER HIGH DOWNFORCE TRACK NEXT WEEK AT LAS VEGAS.  THAT MUST BE ENCOURAGING.  “I definitely am.  I think we’ve got an even better car going to Vegas.  We’ve got a new car, a new crew chief, new driver.  Everything is new for us so we’re just trying to get every little bit out of each car.  We got a lot of bugs worked out of one of these cars tonight and feel like we can work on it for next week.  I think you’ll see us up front a lot more than you did tonight.”      

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Camp & Associates, Inc., Press Release