Catchfence

2009 Raybestos Rookie Contender

Brendan Gaughan, 12th

Justin Allgaier, 21st

Peyton Sellers, 26th

Michael McDowell, 28th

Erik Darnell, 29th

Ken Butler, 31st

Michael Annett, 35th

Scott Lagasse Jr., 37th

Terry Cook, 40th

RAYBESTOS® ROOKIE CONTENDER QUOTES

FOR THE KROGER 200

NASCAR NATIONWIDE SERIES RACE

AT O’REILLY RACEWAY PARK, JULY 25, 2009, PAGE 1.

No. 11 Amercia's Incredible Pizza Toyota Camry

“I don’t know. It’s a little frustrating for that early in the race. The only thing I can say is thank-you to America’s Incredible Pizza Company for being so supportive. The guys at CJM here, they’ve known for a couple of weeks that Denny [Hamlin] was coming in the car and they’ve kept their heads down digging. Paul [Wolfe, crew chief] has come up with some stuff here lately and then we’ve found our speed back. I hate it. We had a good race car [smiles]. After watching the truck race last night and seeing tire management we were kind of biding our time there figuring for the long run, save a set of tires for late in the race and have some fun. It is what it is now.”

No. 15 Pilot Travel Centers TOYOTA Camry

“I’m not sure who it was, I think it was the 40, got into us coming off two and cut down our left rear tire. By the time I realized it was down there was nothing I could do about it.” HOW HARD DID YOU HIT? “It’s not bad. This track, we’re not really going that fast here so when you hit it really doesn’t hurt that much.”

Brendan Gaughan

NOTES:

- Gaughan scored a 12th-place finish and grabbed Raybestos Rookie of the Race honors for the FIFTH time this season.

THE STREAK ENDS At least one Raybestos Rookie had scored top-10 finishes in the last 17 consecutive NASCAR Nationwide Series races until tonight’s Kroger 200.

GAUGHAN:

“We had a fifth-place race car. Our 5-Hour Energy Chevy was fantastic. In two pit stops I lost a combined total of 14 positions. It’s hard to make that up but my boys are working hard. They’ll get back on it and we’ll come back at Iowa, Rusty’s [Wallace, team owner] place and I promise you Rusty is not going to accept none of that. The guys built me a great race car, man. We drove the hell out of it. Bryan [Berry, crew chief] did a great job and the boys did a great job. I can’t believe we’re 12th and the top rookie. That’s not good. We should have been in that top-10 and kept that Raybestos Rookie streak alive for top-10s. I guess I’ll take the blame for that.”

DID THE TRACK CHANGE ON YOU IN TONIGHT’S RACE?

“It’s just ORP. When the track cools off it gains grip which was awesome. Ours was a little bit too tight in the heat of the day. Bryan made some adjustments and actually got too loose on a short run. Long runs this Chevy was wicked. We’d start passing people and calling times pulling away from the leader and I’m like all right. We were just so far in the back and couldn’t make it up.”

COMMENT ON RACING AT IOWA NEXT WEEK.

“I saw it while Rusty was building it in 2004 as his teammate at Penske. I’m extremely excited. I’ve heard it’s very similar to Irwindale, which when I was a Raybestos Rookie in the Winston West Series I even ran good there. One of my favorite, favorite short tracks in the world is Irwindale and I’ve been told that Iowa has a big similarity to it so I’m looking forward to it.”

Justin Allgaier

“It was. We came into ORP here with high hopes. We felt like our short track program was definitely better than it has been in the past. I don’t know what we missed this weekend but it’s just tough for all the guys on the Verizon Wireless Dodge. They worked really hard. Everybody was working their butts off. At some points in the race we were as good as most. Track position killed us and long runs, some runs we’d go loose and some runs we’d go tight, just trying to get a good handle on the car.

It is a tough night but we’ll get ‘em next weekend. I think the most challenging part about racing here is just not out-driving yourself. It’s so easy to drive in being next to somebody and getting aggravated, you can’t pass ‘em in five, six 10 laps and you start driving in and driving over your head and I think that’s the biggest thing that’s aggravating and you’ve got to watch.”

ERIK DARNELL, No. 6 DISCOUNT TIRE FORD:

“It started on the first lap. The 20 car drove in over his head coming across the nose of this thing and beat the front end in pretty bad a half a lap in. Just frustrating. Mike Kelley [crew chief] and all the guys on the Discount Tire crew did a good job in practice. I thought we had a really good car. We qualified well and I guess it just wasn’t meant to be in the race. It started on the first lap and just got worse from there.

We fought it. We still had a decent car even after we beat the fenders out. We still had a decent car and we had a pit stop. The car was just extremely loose after that and I got up into the wall getting into one and had to come in and change tires and got busted for a speeding penalty. That was about it.”

Raybestos® brand brake and chassis parts are produced by affiliated companies in Affinia’s Global Brake and Chassis Group, the leading manufacturer of braking systems and chassis parts in the transportation industry. The brake line includes everything from brake drums to rotors, pads, shoes and hydraulic parts, while the chassis line features tie rods, ball points, idler arms and sway bar links. Raybestos brand braking and chassis systems are also the only systems used by NASCAR’s Joe Gibbs Racing in competition. For more information about Raybestos brakes, visit Raybestos.com. For more information on Raybestos Chassis visit RaybestosChassis.com

Affinia Group Inc. is an innovative global leader in the design, manufacture, distribution and marketing of industrial grade products and services, including extensive offerings of aftermarket parts for automotive and heavy-duty vehicles. With more than $2 billion in annual revenue, Affinia has operations in North and South America, Europe, Asia and India. For more information, visit www.affiniagroup.com.

*Affinia Group Inc.’s affiliated companies include Brake Parts Inc. WIX Filtration Corp LLC, Affinia Products Corp LLC and other high quality manufacturers of the Affinia family of brands.

- Camp & Associates, Inc. Press Release