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RAYBESTOS® ROOKIE CONTENDER ADVANCE MATERIAL FOR THE

Justin Allgaier has an eight-point advantage (228-220) over Brendan Gaughan in the Raybestos Rookie standings entering the Able Body Labor 200 at Phoenix. Allgaier is fifth in the series championship standings with a 13-point edge over sixth-place Mike Bliss and 105 on seventh-place Steve Wallace. He scored an eighth-place finish in the spring race at Phoenix earlier this season.

No. 12 Verizon Wireless Dodge Charger

“It is. I mean, these guys haven’t given up and as a driver I haven’t given up. We have had a tough couple of weeks but at the end of the day we’ve got to overcome that and really just try to do the best job that we possibly can. This has been a good track for us in the past. Last year I think we finished 11th in our first-ever run here and then finished eighth in the spring after starting in the back. I think we’ve just got to out and do what we know we can do here. We can’t get ahead of ourselves. I think that the minute that we try to get something that’s not there that’s when we have problems. I’d love to come in here with a hundred point advantage in fifth and a lot more points going into the Raybestos Rookie of the Year program but at the end of the day we’ve got what we’ve got. And we’ve got two races to overcome what we’ve put ourselves in and we’re going to do the best we can.”

ARE YOU SURPRISED AT YOUR SEASON AND THAT YOU’RE TOP-FIVE IN POINTS?

“Not surprised. I think the team has done an excellent job of getting me to there. I’m surprised that we’ve been able to run as bad the couple of weeks as we have and still maintain it, yes. But at the end of the day these guys are great at what they do and they’re building better and better race cars every week. I kind of wish we’d be up a little bit further than we are, I’ll be honest with you. We’re not and we’ve got two weeks to maintain where we’re at and I think we’re going to be really disappointed if we don’t at least maintain where we’re at. There’s not much we can do for improvement but at the end of the day we’ve got to maintain and get the best finish that we possibly can.”

Justin Allgaier

“I think the one thing that I’ve learned is just patience. These cars drive so much different than what I’m used to. I think that’s been one part of it and also learning the tracks. I mean, that’s been a huge benefit during the course of this year and I think moving forward for next year I think that’s going to be a big help. There are so many racetracks that I spend the first half and hour to an hour of practice just trying to learn the place and some ‘em I never learned. I think going into next year I think we’ll be a lot better shape and I hope that stuff that we’ve been able to learn is going to be important going into next year. And I think that if that’s the case we can be right up front there, maybe not contending for the championship but at least be right there, second or third, hopefully knocking on the door and if they make mistakes we can be right there to pounce on ‘em.”

WHAT WOULD YOU LIKE TO ACCOMPLISH IN THESE FINAL TWO RACES THIS SEASON?

“I’d like to sit on the pole and win both races [smiles]. Realistically, run up front, like we did in the middle part of the season, a good top-five, top-10 finish at both of these racetracks would be a big deal for us. We struggled a lot at Homestead last year, last fall, and really disappointed at how we finished so I think we’ve got a lot to gain going into Homestead. This place here [Phoenix], you know, we’ve had some good runs here, we want to keep that momentum going. But typically a driver that’s decent a Phoenix, as long as he can stay out of trouble, is decent at Phoenix every time we come back. Hopefully we can take what we learned in the spring make it better. We came from 43rd to eighth to hopefully we don’t have to come that far through the field and we can race those guys up in the top-five pretty much all night.”

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 a global leader in the on and off-highway replacement products and service industry. In North America the Affinia family of brands includes WIX® Filters, Raybestos®, AIMCO® and BrakePro® brake products, and McQuay-Norris® and Raybestos™ Chassis parts. South American and European brands include Nakata®, Filtron®, Urba® and Quinton Hazell®. For more information, visit 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