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The Frontstretch Foto Funnies! Phoenix, November 2009

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Where the Raybestos Rookies finished at Lowe’s Motor Speedway:

Allgaier 12^th

Annett 13^th

Gaughan 15^th

McDowell 23^rd

Townley 28^th

Darnell 34^th

Butler 35^th

RAYBESTOS® ROOKIE CONTENDER QUOTES FOR THE DOLLAR GENERAL 300 NASCAR NATIONWIDE SERIES RACE AT LOWE’S MOTOR SPEEDWAY, OCTOBER 16, 2009

ERIK DARNELL, No. 6 NORTHERN TOOL + EQUIPMENT FORD:  “I guess the 38 just lost it underneath us.  Looked like he bottomed out and, you know, got loose and then come up the track and we were on the outside of him at that point.  Just kind of a racing deal, kind of frustrating.  I didn’t really know what happened.  I knew the 38 was underneath us and then going into one I knew the 5 was down on the bottom and I thought he might have crowded him a little bit but after seeing the replay it looked like the 5 backed off, the 38 bottomed out and just kind of lost it and unfortunately we were on the outside of him.  Just a tough break for our whole Northern Tool + Equipment team.  The guys did a really good job in practice putting a good car underneath us.  We qualified well and I feel like with our first couple of pit stops we were heading in the right direction with adjustments and thought we were going to get a pretty good finish out of it but to get taken out that early, it stinks.  It seemed to be pretty wild out there.  Where we were at before that pit stop it was kind of calm down there back where we were at.  We were just kind of single-file riding around biding out time.  We knew we had to make some pit stops to make some adjustments.  I guess some guys were racing pretty hard and we saw it when we got going with that double-file restart.  These tires here are so hard.  Unfortunately you get one of these things sideways out here it’s hard to save it and that’s what happened.  We just got caught up in somebody else’s mess.”

JUSTIN ALLGAIER IN THE No. 12 VERIZON WIRELESS DODGE WAS THE TOP RAYBESTOS ROOKIE IN TONIGHT’S RACE AT LOWE’S MOTOR SPEEDWAY.

• Allgaier scored a 12^th-place finish and took Raybestos Rookie of the Race honors for the tenth time this season and for the second time in the last three races.

ALLGAIER:  YOU HAD AN UP AND DOWN NIGHT.  “We did.  Unfortunately we had a tire go flat on us there with about three to go.  We thought we could have held off the 29 and maybe finish ninth but just wasn’t meant to be.  These Verizon Wireless guys did such a great job. We felt like we had a good car we just didn’t get exactly where we needed to be at there at the end.  It’s a good points day.  I think that probably gives us more points for the Raybestos Rookie of the Year battle and definitely moves us farther ahead of the 66 in points so that’s a big plus.  Can’t say enough about these guys.  They did a great job all day.”  YOU QUALIFIED THIRD AND RAN WELL IN THE RACE TONIGHT.  IT SEEMED LIKE YOU WERE FAST ALL WEEKEND.  “I tell ya, the guys back at the shop have been working their butts off to try to build new racecars.  The engine shop has been giving us great engines and that’s all the kind of stuff that you’ve got to do. We’ve got to build a better program for next year even more so and I think getting some information with a teammate next year is going to be a big help.  We’ve got a lot of good things going on and I think we’ve learned a lot over the course of the last couple of races this season.  I’m definitely glad that we’re able to do what we do.”  HAS YOUR INTERMEDIATE PROGRAM IMPROVED THIS SEASON?  “I think our program period is getting better but I think where you’re seeing it the most is the mile-and-a-half program just because this is the majority of our racetracks and I think you can prove it a little bit better here.  I think we’re getting better everywhere and I’m looking forward to next week. I think we’ll have a good car going into Memphis then we get to go test the COT car I guess on Talladega weekend.  There’s a lot going on.  We’ve got an exciting couple of weeks coming up and I think that we’ve got a real shot at staying fifth in points and really going for the Raybestos Rookie of the Year battle.”  THE RACE TONIGHT LOOKED INTENSE AT TIMES WITIH TWO AND THREE-WIDE RACING.  “It was really weird.  You’d start after a restart and everybody seemed to get in line right away and nobody was really being all that crazy and then you’d run about 10, 15 laps and everybody just lost their brains.  We caught a bunch of cars and passed some guys because they were getting two-wide.  They were probably faster than we are but we caught ‘em and passed ‘em because they were trying to race each other.  Tonight was a big night for patience trying to do everything we could do and I think it turned out well in the long run.  I mean you can’t ever predict a flat tire but it happens and just glad that we finished.  The last two laps were scary as all get out trying to get down in the corner.  To lose the spots that we did is disappointing but at the end of the day it is what it is and we’ll go on next week to Memphis.”

MICHAEL ANNETT, No. 15 LUMBER LIQUIDATORS TOYOTA:  “We were really good on the first 10, 15 laps and then we needed a better car for the long runs.  We had a bunch of them which normally here you think a caution is going to breed another caution and it really didn’t.  I think there was a 30-lap run there at the end and a couple 50-lap runs.  I think we’ll take this car to Texas and we know exactly what we need to do make it better for a long run which was something that we couldn’t take out of it on a pit stop.  We did the best with what we had and we’ll go on and get a top-10 hopefully get a Raybestos Rookie of the Race next weekend.”  HAVE YOU SEEN YOUR INTERMEDIATE PROGRAM GETTING BETTER THIS SEASON?  “At Kansas we ran really well we just didn’t have the finish to show it.  We ran in the top-10 for most of the day.  One thing we’ve prided ourselves on was having long-run cars and tonight when we needed it it was completely opposite.  Like I said we know what we need to do to fix it, just couldn’t do it under a pit stop.”  YOU AND ALLGAIER RACED HARD IN THE CLOSING LAPS OF THE RACE.  “I’ve raced clean with Justin all ye ar.  He got by me and I tried to move up a groove and get momentum to get back by him and the 29 and I killed the wall coming off of four, just killed the car for the rest of the race.  I think we lost two more spots because of it.”   

BRENDAN GAUGHAN, No. 62 USFIDELIS CHEVROLET:  “Earl Barban was spotting for me tonight.  That’s Jimmie Johnson’s spotter and used to be Rusty’s spotter back in the day.  I tell you what, that man has got some talent.  We missed that first wreck but when we went through the grass, unfortunately, right where I went through the grass is one of those big drainage grates.  It popped the USfidelis car up and it made the boys have to do some damage control on the right side.  Just missing a wreck, I mean, nothing you could do there, just racing.  Then that one wreck off of Turn 2 man Earl started screaming where to go and this and that and I think I might have closed my eyes and just listened to what he said.  And then the 6 come just diving in front of me.  I’m like ‘Oh my God, this is going to hurt’ and somehow I missed him.  We brought it home in one piece. This is our first Kevin Harvick car.  In the rookie battle, I think Michael Annett did another great job tonight.  Michael Annett has really been on fire lately.  I saw the 12 fade in the end but it’s almost too little too late in the Raybestos program for us.  We need either two wins in the last couple of races this season to make a strong run.  I’m proud of Michael.  He’s done a great job especially with limited funds at the end of this year.  We’ll head on to Memphis.”  TONIGHT IS A PERFECT EXAMPLE OF HOW ROTTEN YOUR LUCK HAS BEEN THIS SEASON.  “We’ve got good racecars.  Rusty Wallace is giving us very good race cars.  It’s almost the story of my career the last couple of years.  I always believe that you make your own luck and I must be doing something wrong.  The guys work hard, the fab shop works hard, everybody works hard and we go to miss a wreck and we pile through a grate, you know, nobody’s fault.  You go to California and you get wrecked not on your own and running up front.  We’ve had some tough deals but Dale [Ferguson, crew chief] and all the boys are working hard.  Not body is quitting over here.”

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.