Catchfence

2009 Raybestos Rookie Contender

Speed 2nd
Logano 24th
Bean 45th (DNQ)

RAYBESTOS® ROOKIE CONTENDER QUALIFYING QUOTES FOR THE LIFELOCK.COM 400 NASCAR SPRINT CUP SERIES RACE AT CHICAGOLAND SPEEDWAY, JULY 9, 2009.

SCOTT SPEED IN THE No. 82 RED BULL TOYOTA WAS THE TOP RAYBESTOS ROOKIE QUALIFIER AT CHICAGOLAND.

Speed earned the second-place starting position, his best start of the 2009 season and he equaled his best career qualifying effort in 23 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series races.

This is Speed’s best qualifying effort since he started eight at Richmond (race No. 10) and his fourth top-10 start.

Speed’s teammate Brian Vickers won the pole in tonight’s qualifying session. This is the first time that Team Red Bull has claimed both front row starting positions.

SPEED: YOU WERE THIRD IN PRACTICE THIS AFTERNOON AND BACKED THAT UP IN QUALIFYING. “We got a great draw obviously being able to go out at night. Brian’s lap that he did was incredible. I didn’t really think that we had a shot to beat that but I knew we had a shot to be at the front but we also have to make the race. You’ve got to be smart about it. It was a nice solid lap. The car was handling great. It’s a good start to the weekend anyway.” THIS IS YOUR FIRST NASCAR SPRINT CUP SERIES RACE AT CHICAGOLAND. HOW MUCH DID YOU WORK ON RACE SETUP IN PRACTICE? “We generally, just to get a feel for the track, run at least a couple of runs in race trim and those were really good earlier. We’ll see.”

SPEED PRESS CONFERENCE

“Well both of our cars obviously ran well since we unloaded so going into qualifying I knew we had a shot certainly for a top-five qualifying spot but you’ve also got to be a little bit cognoscente of making the race and honestly after the lap that Brian put up there was really no point to really push it to the absolute edge. In any case it was a solid lap. The car has been great all weekend. It’s honestly a lot easier to drive the car on the front row than it is sometimes when you qualify 30th.”

HOW DO YOU TEMPER THE FACT THAT YOU’RE GOING FOR THE POLE AND TRYING TO RUN AS FAST AS YOU CAN AND ALSO KNOW THAT YOU HAVE TO GET INTO THE RACE ON SPEED? “I tell you what, if Brian would have posted somewhere around a .60 or .70, I think we would have tried to put it a little harder [smiles]. But I mean after that lap it’s like if you’re not going to get the pole, you might as well make sure that you make the race. So I mean it’s always in the back of your mind but sometimes you take a little bit easier are faster anyways. It’s probably not that big of a deal.”

DID YOU MNAKE ANY RACE RUNS IN PRACTICE? “Actually we didn’t start off in race runs and honestly towards the end I mean we made a solid eight-lap run and it was fairly competitive. If we do happened to get rained out all day tomorrow and we have to start the race with what we ended practice with I feel reasonable confident that we’ll be all right.”

JOEY LOGANO, No. 20 THE HOME DEPOT TOYOTA: “I underestimated it. I didn’t think this place would gain that much grip at night. As soon as I went into one I was like I screwed the whole thing up. I just really underestimated how much grip it had and messed up. My second lap was faster and it shouldn’t be. That’s how much I screwed up the first lap. I probably should have ran at least a tenth quicker, at least an .84, maybe a .70. Oh well, live and learn.”

IS THAT JUST PART OF THE LEARNING PROCESS? “Yeah, I’ll write that down for next time that it’s going to get a lot of grip. I mean I didn’t think it would. I thought it was going to but man, shoot, I still picked up fourth-tenths of a second from what I ran in practice. We’ll be towards the back.”

COMMENT ON FINDING OUT HOW TO ADJUST THE CAR FROM DAYTIME PRACTICE TO QUALIFYING AT NIGHT. “Yeah, it’s just how much and what to do and all that. Most of the time I screw myself when I overdrive it so I’m thinking I’m not going to overdrive this thing but I overdrove it.”

DEXTER BEAN, No. 51 LIVEWIRE ENERGY DODGE: “That was probably as good as we were going to run today I think. We just unloaded a little bit off in practice and you only get an hour-and-a-half in practice and you’ve got to be right when you get here. We had to put a little bit of a different setup in the front end and got a lot better, that’s for sure, but just a little bit short I think. If anything we learned a lot. It’s tough to go and do anything and do any testing especially for a new team like us with a new driver and no experience. You’ve almost got to come to these places and take the practice and use it as a test session and then you get sent home which is real tough to swallow. I’m a real competitive guy. It’s been a real tough year for me to be able to come to these tracks not be able to make but one race so far this year.”

CAN YOU ANYWHERE AND TEST? “I’ve got a local short track, Lacrosse Fairgrounds Speedway that’s my home track. It’s a half-mile, not a lot of banking, and you can go there and you can get your brakes and stuff right. There’s nothing that compares to a place like Chicagoland or nothing that you can get the banking or the speeds that we carry at the places that we do go to so it’s real tough.”

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-Camp & Associates, Inc., for Raybestos, Press Release