Catchfence

RAYBESTOS® ROOKIE CONTENDER ADVANCE FOR THE

DOLLAR GENERAL 300

NASCAR NATIONWIDE SERIES RACE

AT CHICAGOLAND SPEEDWAY, JULY 9, 2009,

Raybestos Rookie Justin Allgaier participated in a press conference this afternoon at Chicagoland Speedway. Allgaier leads Brendan Gaughan by six points (176-170) in the overall Raybestos Rookie standings. He has racked up three top-five and eight top-10 finishes and is sixth in the NASCAR Nationwide Series championship standings, best of any Raybestos Rookie.

No. 12 Verizon Wireless Dodge Charger

JUSTIN ALLGAIER, No. 12 VERIZON WIRELESS DODGE:

“Well it’s great to come back home, coming back to Illinois. It just feels like home. Ever since we first started coming up here to the Chicagoland Speedway it’s been a great facility and great place to come race at. Everybody that works here and runs this place seems to really enjoy the races. It’s not going to be the first time coming up here and race but it will be the first time in a Nationwide car so I’m excited for that. But I think, you know, so far this year we’ve had an excellent season. We’d love to have won a race by now or get some more top-fives but I think we’ve had to build on our program.

This is the first time Penske Racing has had a full-time Nationwide program in our shop so there’s a lot of things that we had to work on. It’s a Raybestos Rookie season for me so I’m learning all these racetracks for the first time, or at least most of ‘em and we’ve also got a crew chief that I’ve never worked with before so I think we’ve made big strides and made our cars better. We’ve run kind of fifth to 10th-place all year long and obviously we want to break that fifth-place barrier and we feel like if we keep running the way we are and we keep building our notes package we should be there before long.”

Justin Allgaier

“Well I think that, you know, some of the things that we’re going to fight here this weekend are the same things that we’re going to fight at Gateway. Just going into the night races, knowing some of these racetracks and having some laps, it’s great that we’re able to understand what the track is going to do a little bit better. I think that that’s one of the things when the Cup guys come over and run in the Nationwide Series with us they typically have a better understanding of what the track is going to do and I think next week and this week are going to be kind of the same. Gateway is a tough racetrack. It’s very different on both
ends so I think that’s one of the things that’s going to be tough. This racetrack is really fast and you know a lot of different lines so I think we’re going to fight a lot of the same problems just different racetracks this weekend and next weekend.”

IS THERE ANY POSSIBILITY OF MOVING UP TO THE CUP SERIES NEXT SEASON?

“Well I’m not going to say that it won’t happen but you know I think we’re all kind of under the same understanding that right now our focus is the Nationwide Series. We’d love to win Raybestos Rookie of the Year. We’d also love to be a little bit farther up in the championship standings whenever the year ends and that’s what we’re trying to do. Verizon Wireless has been a great sponsor for the Nationwide program and obviously we know that with everything that goes on for the Cup side that they can’t advertise. I feel like hopefully they’re happy with our program in the Nationwide Series and like I said I’d love to move up to Cup.

I don’t foresee it happening right away. My goal is that I’d love to run another season here and get some more experience, get some more laps on all these racetracks, but I’m not going to say it won’t happen. Roger Penske is probably one of the best at trying to figure out when he feels that a driver is ready to move on. That’s kind of some of the things they’ve done with some of their drivers, especially Ryan Newman. They watched his progress as he went through the different series. They don’t move somebody until they feel like it’s the right time. I’m behind Roger and everybody at Penske Racing and whatever decision they make. My ultimate goal like I said is to get to Cup. I want that opportunity but I don’t want to take that step too early and regret it later in my career.”

WHAT HAS BEEN THE TOUGHEST THING YOU’VE HAD TO ADJUST TO WITH THESE CARS?

“I think the biggest thing with the cars is just the horsepower, or lack of horsepower. Coming from the ARCA Series you’re allowed to run basically the same engine package that the Cup side runs and you come to the Nationwide Series you’ve got a smaller carburetor, you’ve got the tapered spacer. I call it a restrictor plate but I was corrected in the hauler the other day. They said it is a tapered spacer and if we wanted to go back to regular restrictor plate they could probably work on that. It makes ‘em tougher to drive because with horsepower you don’t realize how much you actually drive the car with horsepower. And I think there’s drivers that are very good at doing both.

There’s drivers that are good at one or the other and unfortunately I’ve been around having enough horsepower to really kind of drive the car my whole life and it’s made it tough to come over here. But I think we’re building on that. We’re making the cars better every week and making it a lot easier. You’re trying to get the cars freed up where I have to rely on the horsepower but I think the biggest struggle for me more than anything has been the tracks and other competitors. Coming to these racetracks for the first time you obviously want to run well and most of the other competitors get on the racetrack and immediately they’re right where they’re going to end at the end of practice. Some of their fastest laps are one to two laps into practice.

I think that’s been probably my biggest hurdle is trying to get used to these racetracks and just knowing at the end of practice if we’re 25th on the board that that was as good as anybody else at the time but the beginning of practice usually is when the fastest laps are run so I think that’s my biggest concern.”

COMMENT ON COMPETITION RELEATED TO THE TAPERED SPACER.

“I think that what NASCAR is trying to do with the tapered spacer is obviously equal the playing field and it does that. It makes the racing probably closer. It does separate the men from the boys if you will. The guys that figure it out and they learn how to drive that they obviously run better. The biggest issue that we have, me personally as a driver and as a race team, is you drive so hard because you have that tapered spacer. You listen to the Cup guys after they’ve qualified and the majority of ‘em say ‘I overdrove the corner. I drove in too hard.’ And the Nationwide car you can do that but usually when you do that you end up wrecking because there’s a fine line of what’s too hard and what’s not hard enough.

Do I think the racing would be better without ‘em? From a driver’s standpoint probably yes. We are an entertainment sport though, and it’s all about the fans so I understand why we’re doing what we’re doing just the same as double-file restarts. As the driver standpoint it makes it tough but the fans love it. It’s kind of a catch-22. If they take ‘em off the cars are obviously going to go faster. We’re going to be faster than the Cup cars probably at a lot of these places. We have a lot more downforce. It’s a struggle that NASCAR has made the decision on and we’re just playing in their court so we’ve got to deal with the rules but I think from a driver’s standpoint yeah I would definitely like to see ‘em go away.”

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- Camp & Associates, Inc. Press Release