Aric Almirola in the No. 75 Spears Manufacturing Chevrolet was the Raybestos Rookie of the Race at Lowe's Motor Speedway

Notes:

• Almirola finished ninth and took Raybestos Rookie of the Race honors for the second time this season. He scored his fourth top-10 finish in 10 career Craftsman Truck Series starts. This is Almirola's second top-10 of the 2006 season.
• Almirola scored the best finish by a Raybestos Rookie in four races at Charlotte. The previous best effort was 12th by Carl Edwards in 2003.
• Erik Darnell finished ninth, scoring his third top-10 finish in six career Craftsman Truck Series starts.
• Eight Raybestos Rookies finished on the lead lap, the most ever in a race at Charlotte. The previous record was two in 2004.

Almirola: "We didn't have a very good truck at all, to tell you the truth. We were a lot better in practice. We just got way, way too tight tonight. The Spears Chevy was pretty good, just not good enough to run how we needed to. In practice I thought we had a truck that was capable of winning the race. We fired off the race there tighter than I ever thought we could be. But it's okay. We had a good run. I'm proud of the guys and we'll come back next week and get them."

It seemed like the more you ran the better the truck performed. "I don't know if we maybe didn't scuff them long enough or what, but on restarts we could not go. It's like I had basketballs on for tires. They would just chatter, chatter, and chatter. That's okay. I'm proud of my guys and proud of my team. I had a good truck. I'm looking forward to Mansfield."

This is the second consecutive race where you have scored a top-10 finish. "I owe it all to these guys. These guys put a lot of hard work into these trucks. It's a lot of fun to be racing out here in the Craftsman Truck Series. I never thought I'd be doing this so it's pretty cool to be racing with these guys."

How much did you learn tonight? "I learned a lot. I learned a lot at Atlanta, I learned a lot at California, and learned a lot here. Every week we learn something new and it just helps us. We keep getting better and better."

Marcos Ambrose, No. 20 Team Australia/Aussie Vineyards Ford:
"I was just trying to stay out of the way. I got stuck on the high line there and I'm just letting them go, letting them go, letting them go. You ran only run out there so long when no one else has been up there all weekend. I'm not sure what happened. She just went around on me. I just feel terrible because all we wanted to do is finish and I'm just trying to finish one of these deals. We put ourselves in pretty bad position there starting so far up. I was just trying to ride around and get to the back as quick as I could and just couldn't get there in time."

Erik Darnell, No. 99 Woolrich Ford:
"It was a decent run anyway. We made a couple rookie mistakes in practice there and that got us behind on tires. It hurt us early on in those runs because we had to go on stickers instead of scuffs and scuffs were definitely the hot ticket here with as hard of a tire as it was. We were able to bounce back and get a decent finish out of it."

The more you ran the better the truck performed. "The tires are so hard that you've got to get 50 or 60 laps on them before they really start running good. And then as you burn off fuel the thing starts getting a little bit quicker. We started picking them off there at the end. I know we had a real quick truck. Had we been a little farther up we might have been challenging for second, third, possibly for the win. All in all it was a good, decent finish for us."

Are you happy with where the race team is at right now? "I'm definitely happy with where the race team is at. Those guys do an awesome job for me. For me to come in here as a Raybestos Rookie driver and run as good as we have all year is I think a testament to the hard work that all the guys put in on the truck, not just here at the track but back at the shop. They do an excellent job and I couldn't ask for more."

How much did you learn tonight? "A lot out here tonight. I learned that I don't like those hard tires. I think with a softer tire we probably could have been running side-by-side out there quite a bit. I don't know what it looked like up front but we were getting a little bit dicey there in the back. But I think with the softer tire we could have been racing hard."

Almirola Press Conference
"We had a really good truck in practice. We finished ninth and I'm happy with that but at the same time I'm a little bit disappointed because practice went so well. We ended up too tight tonight. We didn't adjust right for the track conditions when it cooled off and we fought a tight condition all night long and just couldn't get rid of it. Everybody on the Spears team worked real, real hard. My Chevy Silverado was really good there in the beginning of the race but we kept getting tighter and tighter and couldn't get it freed up enough."

What are your plans for the rest of the year? "I'm running the full schedule in the Spears No. 75 Chevy Silverado and I'm also planning on running a few Busch races in the No. 19 car for Joe Gibbs Racing and I'm real happy about that. I'm really looking forward to the rest of the year. We keep getting better and better every week and that's what I'm most proud of with my team and me myself. Each week we learn something new and we take it to the next racetrack and it helps us continue to build as a team and we're getting better and better. For the future it looks pretty good."

Do you feel the new pavement here evens the playing field between the Raybestos Rookies and veterans? "I don't think so. I compare this racetrack to Atlanta and Texas. We ran real well at Atlanta and that's been the same surface for a number of years. Every racetrack that we go to I'm going to be at somewhat of a disadvantage just from the lack of seat time."

Boston Reid, No. 25 Red Rocks Cafe Dodge:
"It's not bad. We'll take it. I don't know if we ended up in thetop-16. We didn't have a superior truck by any means. We didn't have a bad truck. We were okay. We just want to start finishing races and that's what we need to do and we did that tonight. We'll just keep working on it, taking it home, and working on it and see what we can do. I can't thank Mark Nelson and Rick Woodard enough. Those guys have worked really hard to get here. We've got Red Rocks Café on it tonight and you'll probably see the Woodard Racing crew up there tonight. We're just trying to be smart now and race smart."

Erin Crocker, No. 98 Cheerios/Betty Crocker Dodge:
"I feel a little bad because the truck had a lot of speed in it. The team gave me a great truck. I'm still learning. There were some mistakes that I made and I guess that's how you learn. This is our best finish and first top-20. I can't complain but I can't help it. I'm competitive. I just have to thank the guys on the team and Cheerios/Betty Crocker. It's an awesome opportunity and they're behind me and they're willing to work with me and let me learn. I have a great situation. We just need to keep the momentum going. I think I need like a race experience. I can put down a lap by myself and I'm pretty comfortable out there by myself but with all the air and stuff I just need to continue to improve on that."

Chad Mccumbee, No. 06 MRD Motorsports Chevrolet:
Brendan Gaughan was very complimentary of your performance tonight. "It really means a lot. For us to be doing what we're doing, I think people like that really pay attention and it really excites me for people to know what we're doing and know what I'm doing. It's pretty awesome, it really is."

This is the second solid run for you in two races. "You've got to be happy but I'm not. We were better than that on a short run. We had a tire going down there the second long run there and that really hurt us. We were actually lucky and got the lucky dog. We were really blessed with the cautions. Right there at the end I could get going on the restarts and pass a couple of them in one lap. It was like a light switch flicked off after about five laps and it would go to chattering the right front so bad it just wouldn't turn. I just had to kind of hang on from then. But I got what I could when I could and hopefully put on a good show doing it."