Catchfence

RAYBESTOS® ROOKIE CONTENDER FEATURE

FROM THE 2009 NATIONAL MOTORSPORTS

PRESS ASSOCIATION CONVENTION, JANUARY 18, 2008.

Raybestos Rookies Joey Logano, Max Papis, John Wes Townley, Scott Lagasee Jr., Brendan Gaughan and Michael Annett participated in a luncheon Sunday at the annual NMPA Conve\ntion.

Logano and Papis will compete in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series while Townley, Lagasse Jr.,

Gaughan and Annett plan a full series in the NASCAR Nationwide Series.

JOEY LOGANO, No. 20 THE HOME DEPOT TOYOTA:

“It makes it hard to be a rookie nowadays because you don’t get to do that testing. The veterans have experience. There’s nothing we can do about it at this point so we’re just going to go for it.”

WHAT WERE YOU ABLE TO LEARN IN THE CUP RACES YOU COMPETED IN LAST YEAR?

“It was a humbling experience that’s for sure. It was good for me. I think I learned a lot about how they raced out there, how long the races are, stuff like that. You even got more time in the cars and stuff like that helps. I feel like overall it was still a plus.”

COMMENT ON YOUR CREW CHIEF, GREG ZIPADELLI.

“He knows what he’s doing. That’s a good thing for me, for sure, coming into this deal and being new to it and have a whole team there that’s pretty much been together for 10 years. Most of ‘em have been there that long with the same car. That says a lot about Joe Gibbs Racing and the whole 20 bunch there and Home Depot staying there again. I’ve got the support behind me, I’ve got everything going for me and I’ve just got to stay focused and do what I do best and see what we can do. It’s like I say every time, it’s going to be a learning curve. Everyone knows that.”

YOU’RE KIND OF LIKE A SPONGE RIGHT NOW, TAKING EVERYTHING IN.

“Exactly, like a big sponge.”

YOU HAVE A LOT OF SPONSOR AND MEDIA DEMANDS GOING ON OUTSIDE THE CAR. HAS THAT BEEN A BIG ADJUSTMENT?

“It’s very busy but I like it, actually. You get used to being on the road. Once you’re home, you’ve kind of stopped everything you did at home all the time because you’re always on the road. You’re home for more than two days you’re like ‘Let’s go somewhere, let’s do something’ [smiles]. So that keeps you motivated and I’m young and I like traveling. I have fun.”

YOU’VE HAD A LOT OF MEDIA ATTENTION SINCE YOU CUP DEBUT LAST YEAR. DO YOU BLOCK OUT ONCE YOU GET IN THE CAR?

“Yeah, it’s hard to block it out at the racetrack because there’s people all over the place. As I’ve said in a couple of interviews before, it’s a good thing to have that, especially these days when times are tough. To have your name out there it helps you get sponsors, especially in my position being young coming into it and already having a pretty strong fan base behind me, having the good sponsors, having a great team behind me. I’m pretty lucky and very fortunate to be where I’m at and you’ve just got to make the best out of this opportunity.”

WHAT ARE YOUR GOALS FOR THE 2009 SEASON?

“I would say the Raybestos Rookie of the Year would be pretty big, obviously in the Cup series. From there we just have to kind of go with the flow, see what we’ve got when we started. We don’t get that testing so we don’t really know where we’re going to be. Just kind of go with the flow and do the best we can every week.”

WHAT DO YOU THINK YOUR TESTING SCHEDULE IS GOING TO BE?

“I don’t know. I have no idea. A lot of those tests are last minute. It’s kind of a toss-up. I don’t know.”

HAVE YOU WORKED WITH DENNY HAMLIN AND KYLE BUSCH A LOT?

“A little bit. They have the same schedule that I’ve got. They’re gone all the time. You don’t get to see ‘em much. You see ‘em at the racetrack you bounce a lot of ideas off ‘em, racetrack stuff, off the track, whatever. It’s good to have those guys there to help you.”

HOW MUCH DID RUNNING THOSE CUP RACES LAST YEAR HELP YOU? “I think it’s going to help me quite a bit, just so you’re not going in there cold turkey and don’t know what you’ve got anymore. So kind of got some stuff to work off of from there. Overall it was a plus.”

JOHN WES TOWNLEY, No. 09 ZAXBY’S FORD: COMMENT ON YOUR EXPECTATION FOR THE 2009 SEASON.

“I’m very excited. Running at all those NASCAR tracks in the ARCA Series, that helped me out a lot, I think. We ran three of at the end of last year and I think that’ll help a lot also. They banned testing so that’s got to be a little bit of a hiccup for us. I have confidence in the team. I have confidence in myself and I think that we’ll have a pretty good year and maybe we’ll have that Raybestos Rookie of the Year title at the end. That would be a big plus on our part.”

IS YOUR FIRST GOAL TO FINISH THE BEST YOU CAN AND BUILD FROM THERE?

“That’s the goal. We want to get out there and keep our nose clean. We want to be as competitive as we can. With a new team we have to give and take out there a lot and we’ve got these first five races to that. These first five races are really going to determine where we stand in points. We did get some points though so that’s going to help us out.”

WHAT WOULD BE A GOOD SEASON FOR YOU?

“I would have to say maybe getting some top-10s. That would be awesome on my part and it would look good on the team’s part, being a new team in NASCAR and all. We’re just going to try to get that Zaxby’s Ford out there and try to keep our nose clean.”

MICHAEL ANNETT, No. 15 PILOT TRAVEL CENTERS/HYPE ENERGY DRINK TOYOTA: YOU SEEMED TO ADAPT QUICKLY LAST YEAR IN THE ARCA SERIES AND CAMPING WORLD TRUCK SERIES. DOES THAT GIVE YOU CONFIDENCE ENTERING THIS SEASON?

“Yeah, definitely. The testing policy is going to hurt us a little bit I’m sure on tracks that I’ve never been to. But with running the ARCA Series last year and the truck series I’ve been on a lot of the mile-and-a-halfs and you can kind of take those to each place. But California and Michigan I’ve never been on and they’ll be a challenge. But there’s a lot of people that I can go to in our team and it give a Raybestos Rookie driver a lot more confidence showing up to the racetrack.”

WILL YOU BE COMPARING YOURSELF TO THE OTHER RAYBESTOS ROOKIE DRIVERS EACH WEEK?

“I want a top-five points finish so it’s going to be after a race look at who is running in the top-10 during the whole race and those are the guys that I need to look at and I need to be racing with them week in and week out. We’re going to go weekend by weekend. Daytona is going to be a huge start but we’ve got a good speedway car. Just really looking forward to getting a good start there and then go on to our mile-and-a-half program.”

WHAT IS GOING TO BE THE HARDEST PART OF COMPETING IN THIS SERIES?

“I think it’s going to be racing against Cup guys. They race so hard. Racing against Carl Edwards and Kyle Busch, they’re two of the best in the Cup Series and they run in Nationwide Series but if you want to be the best you’ve got to race against the best. This is what I want to do for the rest of my life so I might as well start racing against them now.”

MAX PAPIS, No. 13 GEICO TOYOTA: HOW EXCITED ARE YOU ABOUT THIS OPPORTUNITY?

“It’s huge. When I found out as well that I could compete for Raybestos Rookie of the Year it gave me another special goal. To me, that’s what I’ve been working on all my life. I like to try to achieve big goals in my career. I felt that I’ve done a lot of different things in my career between Formula 1, sports car, Indy car, Indy 500, and this is definitely the biggest challenge I had in my career together with debut in Indy car. I feel I’m putting all my soul, all my effort, all my experience and I’m going to make this work because I’ve started people that didn’t make it happen before. I kind of feel, already, welcome in NASCAR in a way.

I’m not one of those guys that was driving something else and got popped in to do into doing this. I’ve been walking the garage for a few years and I think the thing that taught me a lot was how to handle people and what that you need to do. I know that I have a tough task ahead of me but let me tell you something, when I didn’t make the race in Homestead last year the first person who sent me a text message was Mark Martin. He wrote me ‘Max, I know that this is tough. Don’t feel bad about it, keep pounding.’ To me that means that there is support even from people that are like my hero. That’s makes me [feel] special.”

WHAT WOULD MAKE 2009 A SUCCESSFUL SEASON FOR YOU?

“I’ve got my goals. A good season for me would be, I’m going to compare myself with the other Raybestos Rookies and I’m going to compare myself with my own performance. What I want to do, I want to see consistent improvement in myself and in my team. Improvement means anything from a little bit better position in qualifying, from a better average in the race and that’s how I’m going to judge my year. I feel it would be nice to score some good results. Everyone talk about the road courses but I want my first big results to be on an oval.

It’s kind of like what I did in Indy car. When I came here everyone was talking about me doing so good on road courses and I won my first-ever race in Homestead-Miami Speedway. I would like to surprise people in this way as well in NASCAR, to have them say ‘oh, he’s a road course guy but look at what he’s doing on oval.’

BRENDAN GAUGHAN, No. 62 SOUTH POINT HOTEL AND SPA CHEVROLET:

“I have run one Nationwide race. It was California Speedway in 2001. It was a start and park for Ed Whitaker. Shane Wilson was my crew chief then and they needed a field filler and he had a car sitting there. We were the Winston West champions and offered us to start and park it. I don’t disbelieve in start and park. I just wasn’t at the stage of my career where I wanted to be start and parking. So I made a deal with him that I could drive until the thing went a lap down and he let us take the car to our garage on the Winston West side to work on it. So I had Shane Wilson and the whole crew doing everything we could to get this thing raceable. It was just an old backup car that Mr. Whitaker had. Sean Woodside was the ’99 Winston West champion and I was the 2000 Winston West champion and he was in the race as a start and park and the battle was to see who could last longest. I won. I think I finished 41st [smiles]. We always joked about that, that we had a race to see who could make it the longest without being lapped.”

HOW DIFFICULT WAS IT TO LEAVE THE CAMPING WORLD TRUCK SERIES?

“You know, it was difficult to leave Circle Bar. I really had a good time with Rick Crawford and I really do enjoy the Mitchell family, which is the highlight of anybody’s life, I’m telling you. Mr. Mitchell is a hoot. If I had to think of places that I wanted to go to, Nationwide Series was never one of those things that I was that high on trying to get to but driving for Rusty Wallace in the Nationwide Series gave it a little different ring. Rusty helped me a ton when I drove for the Raybestos Rookie deal in Sprint Cup and had a great time with him as my teammate and mentor and for me and now it’s my turn to go there and take some of what he taught me years ago and show him that I can finish races, I can run hard, I can win races and I can do it for him now.” CAN YOU WIN? “I believe we can.”

DO YOU HAVE AN AFFILATION WITH A SPRINT CUP TEAM?

“I have an affiliation with Rusty Wallace. What he has an affiliation with is everybody in the NASCAR world [smiles]. I believe they have a team that can win. Last year between David Stremme and Max Papis they finished top-10 in Nationwide points; David missing three races was 11th in driver points. Steven finished 14th in points and at the end of the year really looked strong where he got consistent, started finishing races. So they have two race teams sitting there, complete already built, not like we’re scavenging around trying to find parts and in a hurry to get stuff built. They have everything built, everything done. I have the road course car that Max Papis had kind of built for them. And come on, road courses, we all know that Rusty Wallace was just as good on road courses as any other NASCAR regular. We have really good equipment at Rusty Wallace Racing. They’ve got Chevy bodies on and I’m happy to be back with Chevrolet. They’ve got a ton of wind tunnel time, the pull down rig time, the shaker rig. They’ve been doing all the engineering stuff since they changed the policy to only the teams with money that can test program. We’re doing everything we can to do it right and I believe we can win races.”

HOW IMPORTANT IS THIS SEASON FOR BRENDAN GAUGHAN?

“You know, I’ve never put all this pressure on that it has to be right now, it has to be this year ‘cause if you do that and you have a bad year it just kind of kills you. I want to win races for Rusty. I want to prove that Rusty did the right thing by helping me out all those years ago, by trying to get me to drive for his team the last couple of years and I want to go win races for them and get me back on top and put Chevrolet back on top of the board and put Rusty Wallace’s Chevrolets on the top of the board. I think that would be a special deal. If you win for Richard Petty, you know that’s going to be a special deal. If you can win for Rusty Wallace, it’s just about the same. It’s going to be a special deal.”

SCOTT LAGASSE JR., No. 11 AMERICA’S INCREDIBLE PIZZA COMPANY TOYOTA:

“This is the opportunity that I’ve been dreaming for, wishing for. I can’t quit grinning, I really can’t [smiles]. Pinch me. It’s been an amazing offseason for me. I’ve been able to relax and enjoy seeing my family and spending some time with Paul Wolfe [crew chief] and the general manager and team owners and the guys on the team. What I’m pretty excited about and I think that’s going to surprise a lot of people with the small, young team we have is just hungry and working hard and I think we’re going to be pretty decent this year.”

DO YOU HAVE A TECHNICAL ALLIANCE WITH A BIGGER TEAM?

“We do. It’s real young and it’s like everything it’s real young in the relationships and where the lines are drawn and what we’re going to get but Gibbs has been great and they’re just great people. Joey [Logano] and I have created a relationship. He’s a great kid, I mean, he’s younger than I am and it’s awesome for him. You’ve got to be just excited for him. He’s very sharp and he’s got a lot of experience so from the driver’s side that’s neat for me to be able to chat with him. And I’m sure the other drivers will be the same I would imagine. And then from the technical side I don’t know where that line is nor did I really ask it. It’s not my department. I’m the driver now so it’s cool but I know the crew chief and engineer have been very happy with the support and the back and forth they’ve had with them and with Toyota. Toyota has been great. I’m real excited about what they have to offer, too. It’s just really a lot of things coming together here that you’ve just got to kind of wonder how it’s all coming together the way that it is.”

IT MUST GIVE YOU GUYS A LOT OF PRIDE TO BE ABLE TO BE COMPETITIVE WITH THE BIGGER TEAMS.

“It’s neat. Very, very neat to be a part of and see it grow because a lot has changed. They had a great race team and with the passing of Big Guy, really took a hard hit. And when I ran the last few races with ‘em last year, you could tell there was something there really heavy on everyone and wasn’t how everybody was hoping it’d be. It’s been a very, very refreshing offseason. There’s that little click kind of coming together that we’re the little guy. We’re going to beat the big guy and hasn’t been talked about. In fact, I just kind of came to this conclusion on my own and may be way off base. Just a week ago when I came into the shop and they’re head down, digging, working hard. They didn’t even want to stop and eat lunch. I went and got ‘em lunch ‘cause they just wanted to keep working. It’s a very, very neat opportunity and for me the last three or four years have been huge character builder, we’ll just put it that way [laughs], for good reasons and for bad. The whole time my Mom kept telling me everything happens for a reason and I started to see that kind of coming together.”

IS IT FARFETCHED TO THINK YOU CAN WIN A RACE?

“I don’t think so. We’re going against tough guys. I’m a Raybestos Rookie and I haven’t seen a lot of these places but the group that we have right now that’s what we’re going after. So no, I don’t think it’s out of the question by any means. I think it’s very possible. I think we’re going to have to work a lot harder than a lot of people and that’s not easy to do because these guys work hard up here. It’s not out of the question by any means.”

WHAT WOULD BE A GOOD SEASON FOR YOU?

“For me, I obviously want to win Raybestos Rookie of the Year. I want that and I want to say that I did that, especially racing against a guy that Brendan who’s got all this experience. There’s very, very good equipment here that we’re going to race against. Again, on the performance side, I want to win some races but also kind of on the personal side is to have the relationships and fun doing it. If I’ve learned anything over the last couple of years, call is stubborn, call it whatever, but I’m going to kind of do it the right way in my mind, what’s right in my mind. I want to sleep at night, I want to enjoy life but it’s going to be easy because of everything that’s around me. I really do believe so.”

®Raybestos® brand brakes are produced by the Affinia Under Vehicle Group, the leading manufacturer of braking systems and components for the automotive industry. The line includes everything from brake drums to rotors, pads, shoes and hydraulic parts. Affinia Under Vehicle Group is at the forefront of research and development in brake technology and operates manufacturing and distribution facilities throughout North America.

Camp & Associates, Inc., For Raybestos, Press Release