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Raybestos Rookie Dollar General 300 Advance: Michael Annett

Monday October 19, 2009

 

Raybestos Rookie Michael Annett enters the Dollar General 300 fresh off a sixth-place finish at Auto Club (Fontana, Calif.) Speedway, his best effort in 31 NASCAR Nationwide Series races.  The Des Moines, Iowa native has grabbed top rookie honors in the two of the last three races.

 

MICHAEL ANNETT, No. 15 UMBER LIQUIDATORS TOYOTA:  “Over the summer we got on a roll there after Milwaukee.  We knew we had to be better.  We went to New Hampshire and they made it better and we ran decent there.  We went to Gateway after that and ran really good and got an eighth-place finish and ever since then it seems like we keep making our cars better during the week and unload knowing that we’re going to be fast.  At California we unloaded and we weren’t even close and we made it fast.  I think that says a lot about the team, that they’re not going to give up.  I think it was a two-and-a-half hour practice and we weren’t even close until about two hours into it.  It gave the guys a lot of confidence going into the race they next day knowing that if we’re off a little bit we can make it better and it make it exciting coming here.  They know we’re either going to unload really good like we usually do and if we’re not they can make it better and get us there.  It’s just confidence.  I’ve got a lot more confidence as a driver.  We’ve had momentum through the summer and we’re not stalling out .  We’re getting better and better.”  HOW DIFFICULT IS IT COMING IN TO THE NATIONWIDE SERIES?  “I think I grew up under a lot of pressure.  Playing hockey you’ve got 35 guys on a team and a three or four man coaching staff and there’s a lot of pressure when you’re on the ice every 45 seconds you’re know you’re coming back to the bench you get scrutinized every time.  That helped me.  There’s definitely not a lot that contributes between racing and hockey.  I grew up pretty quick playing hockey like that.  At 14 I moved away from home to play and that’s something a lot of these guys didn’t do until they got to this level.  It’s something that I already had in me, performing in front of a bunch of people and that pressure brings.  It’s something that I already had and I had to learn to take everything that I’d grown up doing and learning and how I can use it to help me here.”  HOW IMPORTANT ARE THESE FINAL RACES OF THE SEASON AS YOU PREPARE FOR 2010? CAN YOU WIN A POLE OR MAYBE WIN A RACE?  “I think after Kansas, where we were running in the top-10 and then California, when you’re starting on these double-file restarts toward the end of the race and you’re only three or four rows from the lead, you start to realize that one lucky break and we’re going to be right there.  And then it’s just going to be a matter of us earning it after we get that break.  Like last weekend, everybody saw that we were capable of being there.  I don’t think it’s going to be a matter of scaring anybody knowing that we’re going to be right there.  They’re starting to realize that we can run up there consistently week in and week out.  And these mile-and-a-halfs are suiting us really well and they’re a few of them left on the schedule.  We’re looking forward to it and definitely each weekend we go into a race shooting for pole.  The first half of the season we were qualifying 20th to 30th consistently and I told the guys ‘I’m sick of qualifying back there.  We’re going for it or we’re going to be in the fence.’  At Dover if we hadn’t got in the fence we would have been on the stob and qualified really well at Kansas.  At California we struggled so long we really didn’t to work on qualifying.  We knew we weren’t going to be great but it’s better than what we had a lot of times and definitely better than what we had the last time at California.  We got to the track every weekend going for the pole and qualifying the best that we can.”  YOU HAVE LOST A LOT OF PRACTICE TIME HERE TODAY.  HOW BIG OF A CHALLENGE IS THAT GOING INTO THE RACE FRIDAY NIGHT?  “We’re a little bit short-handed than some of these guys.  I have hundreds and hundreds of laps here and veteran crew chiefs that know exactly what changes are going to do here for these conditions.  That’s one thing that I think we do really well is adapt quickly so I’m not too worried.  We had a pretty decent car when we were here in May and it’s going to be close to the same conditions.  They’ll be a bunch of grip.  This track is not real tough.  It can maybe bite you a little bit here and there.  It got me in May but like I said we had a good car up to that point.”      


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.

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This report was provided by an outside PR source and posted by Beth Lunkenheimer.

 

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