10-28-2005 | TruckSeries.com Report
Todd Kluever, No. 50 Shell Rotella T Ford: Did you focus on long runs in the first practice? "Not so much. We focused on getting the thing to drive good on old tires and making it do what I want it to do. Everybody here and go out for the first 10 laps of a run and run on the floorboards; it's just the way it is. It's the guys who start falling off after that that are in trouble. We're pretty decent. We can be better, don't get me wrong, but we're pretty good and I'm pretty happy with the truck right now so we'll see how it goes." Both practice sessions were held at the same time of the day that you will race tommorow. "Absolutely. I think we're going to race at 3 o'clock tomorrow if I'm not mistaken. That will be good for us. I think tomorrow's race will be really good. It's nice to go in there with the same setup, instead of practicing earlier this morning. It'll be a good day." Timothy Peters, No. 4 Bailey's Dodge: This is your first Craftsman Truck Series race at Atlanta. "We came here and tested a couple of weeks ago and got it driving real good, we still needed that speed. We got the speed now we just need to get it driving like it was the other week and I think we'll be all right. Right now, we're not driving as well. They'll get it right. I've got confidence in them." You will qualify and race on Saturday. Do you like that format? "That's fine. It doesn't matter. As long as I'm racing somewhere, I don't care. It could be four days." You will race on your qualifying setup. Does that put more emphasis in this last practice? "Right now we just need to get it driving good because if we don't get it driving good we definitely aren't going to qualify good. They're working really hard on the Bailey's Dodge when we roll out on the grid tomorrow morning for qualifying and tomorrow afternoon for the race. This next hour is critical [final practice session] is really critical for us. We need to get it driving better and I think they'll get it done."
"It was okay. The first practice session was good. That's a brand new truck for us. We tested it at Chicago and I've been really, really happy with it. We're only 14th fast but the tires fall off a lot here so that's kind of who goes right out does something spectacular right away. I'm really happy with it, though. It drives good, even on older tires. We were kind of just feeling it out there, not worried so much about speed. It's comfortable, it drives good, and I know from the other mile-and-a-half stuff that we've raced on where we've been really competitive, I just have a feel that I really want. That's kind of how I go by now and it feels pretty good so I'm excited about it. We'll go out next practice and we'll see where we stack up but really I'm not too concerned because being out here by yourself running around wide open on the floorboards is different than being stuck in traffic and making your truck do the things that it needs to do to pass people. It's a great truck and it's going to be really good come race time and I'm really excited about it."
"The truck's not bad, just a little loose right now. They're working on it trying to get us better. I think we'll be all right when we roll out for the next practice and hopefully we'll be good for tomorrow's race. I'd love to have a repeat of last week."