Catchfence

Where the Raybestos Rookies finished at Auto Club Speedway:

Carmichael 8^th

Buescher 13^th

Sauter 17^th

Fitzpatrick 22^nd

Austin 23^rd

Malsam 24^th

UNOFFICIAL Raybestos Rookie standings:

Fitzpatrick 26

Carmichael 22

Buescher 17

Malsam 17

Austin 16

Sauter 15

RAYBESTOS® ROOKIE CONTENDER QUOTES FOR THE San Bernardino COUNTY 200 AT AUTO CLUB SPEEDWAY, FEBRUARY 21, 2009, PAGE 1. 

RICKY CARMICHAEL IN THE No. 4 MONSTER ENERGY CHEVROLET WAS THE RAYBESTOS ROOKIE OF THE RACE TODAY AT AUTO CLUB SPEEDWAY.

NOTES:

• Carmichael scored an eight-place finish, his best effort in two NASCAR Camping World Truck Series starts.  He was the only first-year driver to finish inside the top-10.

• Carmichael claimed Raybestos Rookie of the Race honors for the first time this season..

• UNOFFICIALLY J.R.. Fitzpatrick leads Carmichael by four points (26-22) in the Raybestos Rookie standings.   

CARMICHAEL:  “I’m super-pumped and I learned a lot and these worked hard.  I wish we could have done better for them but personally I’m happy.”  YOU RAN TOP-10 WITH A CONSERVATIVE APPROACH.  THAT MUST BE ENCOURAGING.  “Absolutely.  You know, I can’t say enough for this team.  The Monster Energy/Kevin Harvick Incorporated, they got a good piece, there’s no doubt.  Just happy with the way it turned out.  Like I said, I learned a lot.  I need to improve on pit road and I think I’ll keep chipping away.”  HOW MUCH DID YOU LEARN RUNNING BEHIND RON HORNADAY JR.?  “Well, I learned that I should have got my right-front more air because I think that’s where I just exploded it and it just got so heated up.  It’s cool to follow those guys because I learned so much.  Just happy for the team.”       

BILLY WILBURN, CREW CHIEF, No. 4 MONSTER ENERGY CHEVROLET:  “It was an awesome run..  He did a great job all weekend, qualifying and the race.  To say that it was expected would be wrong.  He surprises us every single time he goes on the track.  We’re looking for big things for him.  I would say before the year’s out you’ll have yourself a Raybestos Rookie winner.”  WERE YOU ON THE CONSERVATIVE SIDE BECAUSE RICKY DOESN’T HAVE A LOT OF LAPS HERE?  “Well I think we were conservative there in that one point ‘cause when everybody come in and took gas only, he didn’t feel comfortable at that point.  We didn’t want take tires but we weren’t going to take a chance and throw away something in case he had a problem ‘cause he said the truck didn’t feel right to him and he doesn’t have a lot of experience understanding where these things are at on these longer runs.  We went ahead and took tires early and by the rule, the pit procedure of having to come back for gas, we lost all our track position.  He did a heck of a job working through the traffic in the back of the field to get back in position.  As it turned out we had the best tires at the end but the track position is so critical here that in that respect we were a little conservative.”  AS A CREW CHIEF, HOW DIFFICULT IS IT TO ADJUST TO THE NEW PIT ROAD RULES?  “Well, it’s not what we normally do.  I’ve been so used the Cup deal.  For years you just do what you need to do then they put the tire limit, the amount of tires, that added something to it.  Now the fact that you can’t do the whole sequence together, it’s different [smiles].  It’s just a different poker game now.  Some guys are going to do one thing or the other and it really puts a premium on the driver under a green flag stop because number one, you can continue to run on tires.  You can’t run without gas.  And you throw a load of gas in the back of one of these things will old, hot tires on it at a place running this fast, it’s get their attention really quick.  So we were concerned about that, too.  All those things play into your decisions and every single time you go to the racetrack so far and it’ll be that way for weeks.  We’re going to see a different view of it.  It’s multi-dimensional.  Every single time we turn around well, we should have done this or we should have done that.  It’s definitely added something to the game.  I think they should do it to the Nationwide Series.  I’m telling ya, it’ll add something to the program before it’s over.”           

CARMICHAEL PRESS CONFERENCE

“It was a great day looking back.  We qualified really good, obviously.  I spun the tires on the first start so everyone kind of had some momentum and went on by me.  Kind caught back up.  I think I was running maybe sixth or something; I think I was running eighth and caught back up to sixth and got behind my teammate Ron Hornaday was just following him, really, and didn’t get aggressive enough and make the move on him.  I thought something had went wrong with my right-front so we pulled in and that put us off-sequence.  We lost a lot of track position so that was totally my fault.  There ended up not being anything wrong and we were just kind of out there and had to fight back..  Came out 19^th and ended up eighth so very happy, very happy with the way it ended.  I learned so much, so much today just racing up front with those guys and really happy with the way it turned out looking back.”  WHAT HAS BEEN THE BIGGEST ADJUSTMENT AS FAR AS A FEEL?  “Well, the thing for me as far as this race was it’s so fast.  It took me 50 laps of the race and counting all practice and all qualifying to just get used to the speed.  And then once I got used to the speed then I could focus on the truck and try to improve it, which I really didn’t have to.  The thing was so good.  It took me a long time to get acclimated to that.  It was a huge learning curve for me. That was the thing, man, just trying to get used to the speed.  Then once you get used to the speed then you can start focusing on what the truck and stuff is doing [laughs].  Until then you’re just like making it around.  I don’t know, it was like lap 75, or something like that and I was running some really good lap times and Kevin [Harvick, team owner] was on there saying ‘You’re doing good’ and then I kind of got just out in no man’s land there and really dropped off the pace and he got on to me pretty good.  He said ‘You’re running 44.30s and that ain’t going to cut it.  You just need to go on there.’  I said ‘It feels like my right rear’s going.’ He said you go ‘til the thing blows up but these lap times ain’t cutting it.  So I dropped it back down to where I was and at one stage I was the fastest truck out there.  I learned a lot.  I really learned a lot and we can carry on to my next race will be Kansas, unless we get a sponsor.”  YOU RAN FIFTH EARLY IN THE RACE WHEN YOU WERE BEHIND HORNADAY.  DID THAT TEMPER YOUR AGGRESSIVENESS?  “In a way it did because I just feel comfortable around Ron.  I didn’t even know I was fifth so that was pretty neat.  But I knew if I was up there I was going to be able to learn a lot.  I really trust him and really wanted to latch on to him and follow his lines and when I did that I just heated up my right front, smoked it and that’s when I thought something went wrong.  Next time, they kind of got on to me, next time they said if you’re that much faster you caught up to ‘em you need to go on past ‘em and I probably would have if it wasn’t Horn but at the same time I wanted to learn.      

JAMES BUESCHER, No. 10 INTERNATIONAL MAXXFORCE DIESEL FORD:  “It’s solid.  It was real solid.  I don’t really know the way they’ve got this tire deal, the pit stop situation is not going to work out I think in the long run because sooner or later, all we did was take tires one time like 20 laps into the race.  We were skating around for the rest of the race because nobody wanted to pit because it was green flag pit stops.  You lose too much track position.  I think eventually it’s going to be become a safety issue because sooner or later tires are going to start popping from getting worn out.  Other than all that the truck was handling great until the tires got worn out.  Held on to it, finished in one piece and go to Atlanta.”   

TAYLER MALSAM, No. 81 ONE EIGHTY TOYOTA:  “We got caught up in that new pit rule.  I don’t know if I like it or not.  It was good.  The truck was probably top –five truck easily.  After we got a lap down I was just hanging out and didn’t even want to run because that right-front blew once I was afraid it was going to blow it again.  This One Eighty Tundra did a great job.  All these guys killed it out there and Randy Moss Motorsports put another fantastic truck under us.  Not meant to be today for us.”

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.,For Rabestos, Press Release