UNOFFICIAL Raybestos Rookie standings
Kluever, 28
Murphy, 20
Earnhardt, 17
Hattori, 16
Smith, 16

TODD KLUEVER IN THE No. 50 SHELL ROTELLA T FORD WAS THE RAYBESTOS ROOKIE OF THE RACE AT CALIFORNIA SPEEDWAY.  Notes:  Kluever finished fourth, his best finish in two career Craftsman Truck Series starts.  A Raybestos® Rookie has now finished in the top-five five times at California Speedway.  The others: Kenny Irwin (third in 1997), Kurt Busch (first in 2000), Jon Wood (third in 2001), and Brendan Gaughan (third in 2002).  This is the best finish by a Raybestos Rookie this season in the Craftsman Truck Series.  "After Daytona, this feels like winning a race.  I'm just really happy for my guys.  Everybody did an awesome job with this.  We came here and unloaded really good off the truck and that makes my job so much easier.  I hope this will be sweet for the guys back at the shop.  There's a lot of guys back there in the fab shop and the body shop and where our trucks are and so many people working hard back there right now because Daytona went so back for us and trying to get us caught up again.  It's just really cool."  THE TRUCK SEEMED TO BE GOOD ALL NIGHT.  "The middle set of tires we had just got real tight.  We were a little bit loose there at the beginning but John , my crew chief is a smart man.  We came in and he said no adjustments.  I was complaining about the truck being real tight and he said trust me, we're not changing a thing and we're going to put on this set of tires and you're going to be fine and man, he wasn't lying."  WHAT DID YOU DO TO GET TRACK POSITION?  "We had some pretty good fuel mileage.  There were a lot of guys that didn't think they could go as far as we could and I'm happy for that.  We just came in and we weren't that good on our second set of tires so John Monsom, my crew chief just said 'we're going to make it; we're going to go to the end from here and we're going to put on tires and turn you loose and that's it.'  We had known early in the race that we were running as fast as the leaders."  WHAT DOES THIS DO TO MAKE UP FOR THE ROUGH WEEK AT DAYTONA?  "Man, it feels so good.  My guys were jumping around like we had won the race.  That's cool.  There's a lot of guys back at the shop right now, all the guys in the fab shop, the body shop, and the truck shop, just so many people working hard right now because Daytona went so bad for us.  Hopefully this is sweet medicine or whatever you want to call it for them.  Our trucks are always the same that's cool. I can't say enough about those guys.  We unloaded really well here and it makes my job so much easier when you unload off the truck well and you can concentrate on learning the racetrack and not resetting up the truck."  DID YOU FEEL MUSGRAVE GIVING YOU A LITTLE TAP COMING ACROSS THE LINE?  "Yeah, that's cool though.  I don't want anything given to me.  I want to earn their respect and hopefully I'm doing that.  I don't get out there and run into nobody and I try to make as many friends as possible.  I hope this is a permanent thing.  I hope that we're going to be running up front all the time so I need to make as many friends as I can."  HOW BIG OF A CONFIDENCE BOOST IS THIS FOR YOUR TEAM?  "It's a big confidence booster, I'm not going to lie.  Anybody who comes into a situation like I did does wonder.  I always believed that I could do it when I got here but there's always doubts in the back of your mind.  This is just a really good confidence booster.  This will get some momentum going for us for the rest of the season.  To run fourth in our second night out is pretty cool."  HOW MUCH FUN DID YOU HAVE TONIIGHT?  "Man, I was having a lot of fun but the racer in me in the same sense, we're still getting passed and I'm not catching the guys in front of me.  I was getting frustrated but that's because I want to win races and given my opportunity we should win races.  We had a good night."

HOW LONG HAVE YOU BEEN IN RACING?  YOU SAID YOU WERE DISAPPOINTED WITH YOUR EFFORT LAST WEEK.  "I've been in stock car racing since the last half of 1999 but I've been racing since I was 13.  Daytona was obviously a disaster for us.  We were there for two weeks and had a really good car in the ARCA race and that went bad for us with two laps to go, flipping down the back straightaway, and then I got in a mishap in practice and lost our primary truck.  We unloaded our backup truck and got caught up in the accident on lap 49.  I was 100 percent on my crash rate with the three vehicles they brought for me to drive.  I was just really disappointed.  I didn't think any of them were my doing but I was just excited to come here and come back.  When I got back to the shop the guys were really excited.  I felt terrible for them.  They've been working six, seven days a week all winter long trying to get us ready to go and of course I go out and have a god-awful weekend like that.  I was really disappointed and felt terrible for those guys knowing that they were seeing the light at the end of the tunnel for the six or seven day a week thing and I just completely put it out for them.  But they were right behind me.  They said you were running good and don't worry about it.  None of it was your fault.  We're behind you as long as you are running at the front we'll fix whatever you break.  They were so supportive and for us to come out and have a good run like this is awesome." 
        

KERRY EARNHARDT, No. 15 KRAFT FOODS/ALBERTSONS CHEVROLET:  "We ran every lap of the race and that was our first goal.  We completed every lap and got some seat time under us.  The truck kept running hot and I don't know why.  We got up to 280 the last 20 laps and just kind of run from there and just held on to it.  We started losing a little power because we were running hot but all in all we finished.  We had a lot of rubber on the grill, a lot of tire rubber.  It was like tape all the way across the grill when I came in." 

SEAN MURPHY, No. 07 AUTO-AIR COLOR CHEVROLET:  "We did come home in one piece.  The truck didn't handle like we wanted it to.  It had a real had aero push to it.  It was fast when we could get it in clean air.  We could run the guys back down but as soon as I got up behind them it just got real, real tight.  We held on and came from a lap down and finished 19th so I guess it's not that bad."  WHAT WAS THE MAIN THING YOU LEARNED TONIGHT THAT WILL HELP YOU LATER THIS SEASON?  "Mainly it's just hitting the marks the same time.  I've never been on these big cookie cutter tracks.  I just learned how you move around and get different lines.  At these big places there's a lot of racetrack to use.  We're happy.  We came home both weekends so far in one piece with not a scratch on the truck.  We had little faults during the race but we'll work on it for Atlanta."

REGAN SMITH, No. 19 X-PRESS MOTORSPORTS CHEVROLET:  "We got a little bit warm there at the beginning of the race and evidently it might have hurt the motor or something.  We lost a motor.  Mark Smith and Tri Star build great motors.  It's just one of those deals.  It kinda stinks this early in the race and still this early in the season and we haven't even completed a hundred laps yet.  We'll just go on with it and see what happens.  I've just got to thank Chevy Silverado, X-Press Motorsports, and Curb Records.  The truck was good by itself.  I was having a little bit of trouble in traffic with the air and stuff but I think if I could have ever got a little bit of clean traffic I could have got some track position.  That's how it goes.  When I got out there by myself after we made a pit stop it was good by itself and in traffic everyone has got the same issues.  They're fighting with the air and with the nose pushing and stuff like that.  We'll go on to Atlanta and see what happens there."