Catchfence

2009 Raybestos Rookie Contender

Sauter 5th
Fitzpatrick 11th
Malsam 12th
Buescher 24th
Ickler 25th
Raymer 35th

UNOFFICIAL Raybestos Rookie standings (top-five):

Malsam 71
Sauter 71
Buescher 65
Fitzpatrick 52
Carmichael 45

RAYBESTOS® ROOKIE CONTENDER QUOTES FOR THE AAA INSURANCE 200 NASCAR CAMPING WORLD SERIES RACE AT DOVER INTERNATIONAL SPEEDWAY, MAY 30, 2009.

BRIAN ICKLER, No. 15 SAMSUNG INSTINCT TOYOTA: “We’ve been struggling loose the whole race and it’s my fault, just lost it off of Turn 4. We’re trying to keep Samsung Instinct on board with us for a couple more races the rest of the year and that’s not the way we want to do it.”

WHAT HAPPENED? “We’ve just been free from the get go today. I mean, we had a pretty good truck and we’d get through traffic pretty decent. Just corded the right rear really bad there on the first run and tried to tighten it up a little more and just lost it up off of four and ruined our day there.”

ONE GOOD THING YOU CAN TAKE FROM THIS WEEKEND IS HOW WELL YOU RAN DURING PRACTICE AND THE RACE. “Ah, it doesn’t mean anything for us I don’t think. We’re trying to run well and keep Samsung Instinct on board and this isn’t the way we want to do it.”

BRENT RAYMER, No. 85 BRENTRAYMER.COM FORD: “We can go back to the shop and improve on everything. That’s what we’re trying to do, we’re trying to improve and get to where we can be real competitive in these races. And we definitely will. It’s just going to take a little bit of time with our limited budget here. We’re doing everything we can just to make it right. I think we’re probably going to skip Texas but we’ll definitely be at Michigan. I’m really looking forward to that and just hoping to improve on what we have.” DID YOU NOTICE ANY EXCESSIVE TIRE WEAR IN PRACTICE? “Yeah, we weren’t getting but maybe 20-25 laps and our right front was just getting blistered. There was a lot of people that had the same problem. It wasn’t just us.”

JAMES BUESCHER, No. 10 INTERNATIONAL MAXXFORCE DIESEL FORD: WHAT HAPPENED? “Right front blew out right when the caution before mine came out. I felt it coming. I felt it going down so I was expecting it and all of a sudden it blew out under caution and tore up the right front. When we fixed it the sway bar arm is broke and I think we had a tire rub. I couldn’t talk to the crew because the spotter was talking so much with all the trucks passing me. It caught on fire, I got it stopped and I’m all right. We’re trying to get the thing fixed and get back out there.”

IT COULD BE WORSE. THAT COULD HAVE HAPPENED UNDER GREEN. “I didn’t even hit the wall. The tire just ripped the fender off. We’ll get back out there and see if we can pickup a couple of spots.”

-more-

Raybestos Rookie News and Notes

Dover International Speedway

AAA Insurance 200

Saturday, May 30, 2009

PAGE 9

JOHNNY SAUTER IN THE No. 13 FUN SAND/RODNEY ATKINS/CURB RECORDS CHEVROLET WAS THE TOP RAYBESTOS ROOKIE AT DOVER.

NOTES:

* Sauter scored a fifth-place finish, his second top-five in 18 NASCAR Camping World Truck Series starts and his first of the 2009 season. He claimed Raybestos Rookie of the Race honors for second time this season.

* This is Sauter’s second top-10 finish in the last three races.

* UNOFFICIALLY Sauter is tied with Tayler Malsam (71-71) for the lead in the Raybestos Rookie standings.

* This is the second consecutive Dover race where a Raybestos Rookie has scored a top-10 five finish.

* Sauter is just the FOURTH Raybestos Rookie to score a top-five at Dover (10 previous races). The others:

2000: Kurt Busch, FIRST

2001: Ricky Hendrick, third

2008: Scott Speed, FIRST

SAUTER: “It’s pretty wild. Just real happy with ThorSport with fifth and sixth-place finishes. Thought that we had a better truck than that, just that last call there we got it too tight. I thought I had a good restart. I got by Starr and got behind the 23 truck [Jason White] and just couldn’t get by him. I just couldn’t get going. We got a little bit of damage here on the right side and probably made us a little too tight for the end.”

YOU HAD A TOP-FIVE TRUCK ALL DAY. “Yeah unfortunately we couldn’t race very hard. That’s the way it is. I thought I was going to win that race. I thought I made the right call on adjustments but the racetrack just got so much more grip and we were dragging the splitter too hard. Oh well. That’s how you learn.”

HOW MUCH DID THE TRACK CHANGE FROM THE START OF THE RACE TO THE FINISH? “It just gets more grip. These trucks are just so ridiculously fast through the middle of the corner. It’s crazy. Got to be 10 miles an hour faster than the Cup car. The racetrack gets more grip and obviously we just missed a little bit but man I thought I had this one.”

WERE YOU SURPRISED SO MANY GUYS HAD PROBLEMS IN THE RACE? “No, I knew. Hey man I ran 17 laps in the first practice and they had cords hanging on both right side tires. I knew we were in trouble. These trucks are just going so fast. It just doesn’t compare to the COT or whatever. Our lap times just don’t fall off and obviously we race at night so you get more grip and it’s a double-whammy.”

IS THERE ANYTHING YOU CAN DO TO RACE HARD BUT AT THE SAME TIME BE EASY ON THE RIGHT FRONT? “I’m telling you there for a while they were like ‘Take it easy, take it easy.’ I’m like dude, I’m running 65 percent. I’m lifting at the flag stand. It’s unfortunate it is that way but we survived it and that’s the way it goes.”

YOU MADE THE OUTSIDE LINE WORK A TIME OR TWO THROUGH THE CORNERS. “I watched Kyle do it all day long but man, he’s pretty brave.”

HOW IMPORTANT IS IT FOR THE TEAM TO RUN WELL AND FINISH IN THE TOP-FIVE? “It’s totally important. I’m telling you, we’ve had speed all year and most guys say ‘Oh we’ve been better that what we’v e finished’ and they’re really talking a bunch of BS but I really feel that way. I thought we had a legitimate shot at Martinsville to win the race, Daytona, and I feel like with the right adjustment, my call, we probably could have got this one. But that’s it goes.”

CAN YOU TELL THAT THE ORGANIZATION IS MOVING IN THE RIGHT DIRECTION? “We’re getting our truck figured out. That’s the biggest thing. Obviously we’ve got a good teammate in Crafton and we can rely on a lot of their stuff but drivers are different, too, and sometimes I want to feel something different. We’ve just got to figure what that is and I think we’re getting closer.”

YOU’VE GOT MORE LAPS HERE THAN THE AVERAGE RAYBESTOS ROOKIE. DID THAT HELP TODAY UNDER THESE CIRCUMSTANCES? “I think so. Don’t kid yourself though. I’ve been here before where I’ve gotten lapped 10 times and I couldn’t stay out of the way fast enough so. This place is just very crucial to have a good piece and stable piece and we had that right off the truck.”

WILL YOU USE THIS SAME TRUCK AT TEXAS NEXT WEEK? “That’s what I’m lobbying for. I hope they can fix it and we can do that.”

SAUTER PRESS CONFERENCE

“It was good. There for awhile I was running about 65 percent. They told me after the first pit stop that we had cords hanging out of both right side tires and the left rear so I was afraid to keep going. Fifth-place is all right. I mean, I felt like on that last restart we got by I don’t who it was, a couple of them trucks, and I thought with the fresh right side tires I was going to be able to make a charge at ‘em pretty hard. I figured they had cords hanging out of the right sides of theirs but just got way too tight. I got some damage early on from Rick Crawford and bent the splitter down really, really far on the right front corner and just drove the splitter the rest of the night. And as the racetrack got more grip and cooled off, speeds picked up and it just kept dragging and dragging. That’s the way it is. I’m happy. I mean, fifth-place is good. We just got to get better.”

WITH EVERYONE HAVING PROBLEMS IS IT A SURVIVAL RACE AT THAT POINT? “We ran practice and in 17 laps I had cords hanging out of the right front and the right rear. I knew obviously that the racetrack was green. We were the first ones on the racetrack and I thought it would get a lot better. Obviously it rained yesterday, probably got a lot of that rubber off. I don’t anybody puts enough emphasis on how fast these trucks are going through the corner. & nbsp;Yeah I know we run about the same lap time as the COT car but I think our corner speeds are exceptionally faster. Just a lot more load I think we’re putting on the tire and working it pretty hard. The race pace seemed to stay pretty quick. I know I could run 24.70s at will, you know what I mean, when I wanted to. I think you’ll see the COT cars slow down to mid 25s tomorrow. A lot of grip and trucks are hauling the mail through the middle of the corner that’s the bottom line.”

J R FITZPATRICK, No. 4 EQUIPMENT EXPRESS CHEVROLET: YOU SPUN OFF TURN 2 EARLY IN THE RACE BUT KEPT IT OFF THE WALL. HOW DID YOU DO THAT? “Oh no, it hit the fence all right but I still don’t know how it happened. The track was definitely a lot slicker than we were practicing and it doesn’t help when you miss a couple of days worth of rain. I felt really bad when that happened because it was a little too hard a little too early. It felt like a tire went down because it went around on me so quick but it might just be this track. I’m surprised we even got up to 11th. We were comfortably sitting 15th to 16th all day trying to save our right front ‘cause everyone else was having problems so we were saving, saving and when it was time to go we got up to 11th. Actually I think we were 10th until the last lap or something. Lost of good experience here, I can’t wait to come back here. I guess you can now I know why they call it the Monster Mile.”

YOU MUST BE PLEASED TO BRING THE TRUCK BACK IN ONE PIECE WHEN SO MANY OTHERS WERE NOT THAT FORTUNATE. “It is in one piece. It’s a little more beat up than I wanted it to be but it’s in one piece so they can work on it and make it better. That’s all that counts is taking the truck back and getting it better.”

TAYLER MALSAM, No. 81 ONE EIGHTY TOYOTA: “We had an easy top-five truck today. The Randy Moss Motorsports team did a good job. We just had a miscue on pit lane and the right rear went down and we went two laps down and got back up into the top-10 and it just stinks for all the guys. It wasn’t meant to be.”

WHAT IS THE MAIN THING YOU LEARNED TODAY THAT WILL HELP YOU WHEN YOU COME BACK HERE? “Definitely just watch out for tires, I guess, and watch out for wrecks. Just be consistent and stay out of trouble, pretty much.”

HAVE YOU EVER BEEN IN A SITUATION WHERE YOU HAVE TO TAKE CARE OF THE RIGHT FRONT AND RACE HARD AT THE SAME TIME? “Yeah we do it in dirt cars all the time; you watch the right rear and stuff. You have to watch it but it’s hard to when you’re trying to run for fifth, fourth or for the win, depending on what truck you’re in. It’s definitely frustrating. It’s like trying to tell you to save fuel. It’s kind of hard to do.”

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 Raybestos, Press Release