Michael Annett, 13th
Erik Darnell, 17th
John Wes Townley, 18th
Brendan Gaughan, 19th
Ken Butler, 23rd
Justin Allgaier, 25th
Michael McDowell, 29th
RAYBESTOS® ROOKIE CONTENDER QUOTES
FOR THE DOVER 200 NASCAR NATIONWIDE SERIES RACE
AT DOVER INTERNATIONAL SPEEDWAY, SEPTEMBER 26, 2009,
MICHAEL ANNETT IN THE No. 15 PILOT TRAVEL CENTERS/LUMBER LIQUIDATORS TOYOTA WAS THE TOP RAYBESTOS ROOKIE IN TODAY’S RACE AT DOVER.
NOTES:
- Annett scored a 13th-place finish and took Raybestos Rookie of the Race honors for the fourth time this season and for the second time in the last three races.
- Annett was the only Raybestos Rookie to post a lead lap finish in today’s race.
ANNETT: YOU OVERCAME AN ACCIDENT IN QUALIFYING AND FINISHED STRONG IN A BACKUP CAR.
“I think we ended up 13th and whenever you get Raybestos Rookie of the Race honors you know you had a good day because we have such a stiff rookie class this year. It was just a testament to my guys and how hard they worked today. We tore up a really good racecar and they unloaded one that was probably 90 percent of that last car and after one pit stop it was right there. That’s awesome that our backup cars are that close and we could unload and know that we have something. To start at the tail end of the field and get back up there is pretty cool. This is the first time that we’ve had Lumber Liquidators on the car and it was a good showing for them and of course Pilot who is with us all the time. We had a pretty good day for ourselves.”
THIS IS AN INDICATION OF HOW DEEP THIS TEAM IS TO HAVE TWO QUALITY CARS.
“We bring two cars to the track each weekend that could win the race otherwise we’d be selling ourselves short. I knew as soon as we rolled that thing out we put in our notes what we learned all day yesterday in practice and as soon as the green flag fell I knew we’d be right there.”
YOU HAD A GOOD RUN AT BRISTOL AND NOW HERE AT DOVER. DO YOU LIKE THESE CONCRETE TRACKS?
“We do.
For some reason Nashville always bites me so if we can go into next year and run good there I think we’d have them all covered. We’re looking forward to Kansas. I ran well there in the ARCA Series and we’ve shown that we run well at mile-and-a-halfs so we’re looking forward to next weekend.”
WHAT WOULD YOU LIKE TO ACCOMPLISH IN THE REMAINING RACES THIS SEASON?
“We sat down at dinner the other night and kind of said we’re in the middle of an eight-race chase right now. We know we can get to eighth-place in points and I think 15th in owner’s points. We can’t say top-five in points. We know exactly where we can get to and that’s what we’re striving for. And today I think other than [Mike] Bliss we beat everybody that we needed to.”
JUSTIN ALLGAIER, No. 12 VERIZON WIRELESS DODGE:
“We just ran out of fuel. Coming in I let off the gas and went to pull into the pit box and it died. I didn’t know we were quite that close. I didn’t think we were going to be that close. It wouldn’t refire and they kept trying to get fuel in it. Unfortunately it just wouldn’t refire. It wasn’t meant to be today. It’s just a bad day. We struggled all weekend. I don’t know what we missed. We were fairly decent here in the spring and felt like we’d come back and have a good race and boy that just wasn’t the case at all.”
IT IS SURPRISING THAT YOU STRUGGLE HERE AFTER RUNNING SO WELL AT BRISTOL.
“It really is and I don’t really know exactly what we were missing. I think that’s more frustrating than anything. When you know what you did wrong you can fix it but even after we had our problem and went multiple laps down we come back and tried making some changes just to see if we could do anything to pick the car up really and nothing really seemed to help it. We’re going to have to go back to the drawing board on this one. We’ve got until next May to come back. We’ll work really hard in the offseason I’m sure and see what happens.”
YOU WERE IN A TOUGH SPOT BECAUSE EVERYBODY KNEW THERE WAS A CHANCE OF RAIN PLUS THE RACE WAS NEARING HALFWAY.
“Obviously we wanted to run as long as we possibly could. We were running some really good lap times at the end of that run and we thought, well, we’re not going to run any faster if we come in and put tires on so we might as well just go ahead and stay out and keep running. We tried going all the way as far as we thought we could and we felt we had a good fuel mileage number from practice. It just come up a little bit short.”
ERIK DARNELL, No. 6 NORTHERN TOOL + EQUIPMENT FORD:
“Decent, frustrating. This had never been one of my better tracks in the truck series. I always seemed to struggle here a little bit. I really feel our Northern Tool + Equipment Ford was better than I was today. Mike Kelley [crew chief] and all the guys did a good job adjusting on it throughout practice, throughout the race today. We just fought being really loose in practice and then just tightened it up too much for the race.
I never dreamed we’d go 105 laps under green and it just killed us on that long run. We were just too tight and got two laps down through with the pit stop cycle and just fought it from there. We never were able to get back on the one lap down cycle to get the lucky dog. I feel like we had a really good car at the end. Those guys adjusted the heck out of it. We were just too far back at that point to really do anything with it.”
BRENDAN GAUGHAN, No. 62 5-HOUR ENERGY CHEVROLET:
“You play with dogs and you’re bound to get fleas. We had a good racecar. The 96 car cut our tire. He moved up to my line to block me. He’s battling for rookie points, he’s having a tough year so he doesn’t want to let it go and cut my tire so I had to come in. I tell ya, for a cut tire the 5-Hour Energy team got really lucky. We were down like four laps at one point ‘cause we had to pit. Who could have thought that Dover would have stayed green that long and it got us at least back to one lap down for a minute. If we’d been real lucky we’d have caught a caution but two laps down at least battling for some spots.
Dale [Ferguson, crew chief] did a great job. Our communication was good but just like I said when I found out that Bryan [Berry, former crew chief] wasn’t here anymore: it’s just the luck I have right now. I don’t know what we have to do to change it but Dale has to deal with the luck now. We’re trying to find something to do to change it.”
HOW DID THE COMMUNICATION GO WITH DALE FERGUSON, YOUR NEW CREW CHIEF?
“We got to go to a test at Rockingham last week and that helped us a little bit. Dale and Bryan had some time together this year so that helped. Dale is a great crew chief. Bryan and I both liked Dale and I liked him when I got there so I think a lot of him. He did a great job this weekend. He’s just going to have to deal with my luck. We’ve got to do something about it.”
KEN BUTLER, No. 23 AARON’S DREAM MACHINE CHEVROLET:
“I guess 23rd is what we had. We had a long green run and that just killed us. We were just so loose getting in the corner. I mean I was just holding on for dear life pretty much and then real tight off. So we came in, made adjustments and we pretty much worked on it all race. We finally got it pretty comfortable getting in. I think we ended up pulling the left front fender out to get it down in the track. It’s just something that you don’t usually do in the pit stop and it worked. We’ll build on this. I learned a lot this race. It was good experience for me.”
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- Camp & Associates, Inc. Press Release