(Before Qualifying)
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Gary Smith
Driving Bernie Hilber's Car #7 Pontiac Grand Prix, that used to be owned by Ray Claridge, the 07, that Sean Woodside ran for the last two years. So it's a great car. Ron Hornaday ran two races at Vegas and Phoenix and got 2nd and 4th. It's going to be a good racecar, if it ever shows up. [Laughs]

Darrell Krentz
We are real happy to be back at the California Speedway. We've had horrible luck here the first few times and we are looking forward to doing well on Saturday. I'm thankful for the new guys Groves Fischer, Mosaic Paving and Top Notch guys have come on board and God bless them for helping us make it here to California Speedway. Hopefully with a good qualifying run here today we will do real well on Saturday.

Tony Toste
Getting ready to qualify, practiced real well. New car, 15th this morning, got faster as the day went through. Feel like we are going to qualify top-5 and get ready for Saturday.

Steve Portenga
We're just hoping to put the Roto Rooter Chevrolet in the top-10. We were practicing in the top 20 and hopefully we can pick up a few tenths. Qualifying will be good. We are pretty early to qualify so I think that will be an advantage for us. I think the Roto Rooter Chevrolet with the Goodyear Tires will be able to put it up front.

Kenny Smith
What happened to us there at turns three and four, we had a shock go bad on us. And entered the corner real smooth. Then the whole back of the car wobbled, spun right out and hit the wall.

(During Qualifying)
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Mike Duncan
I thought we made a real good run. I was kind of surprised that the time clock didn't work for us. We seemed to be the only team that didn't have a time flash. Kind of disappointed on where they placed us on qualifying. But the car felt really good and I think we should have real good car for the race.

Jason Small
We had a pretty good qualifying run. I got in real good, got to the center and we just kind of missed it a little bit. We drug the skirt from the right side; We're alright, we're in the middle of the field but this racecar really races good, so that's what it is all about, that last lap. I just want to hang around and be there at the end, to be there to win.

Joe Nava -- car owner for Joe Bean We left a little bit on the table. We made some changes right before qualifying that we felt helped the car, however we were bouncing the motor off the rev limiter. So we feel that we left probably 3/10s out there. We are looking for a good race.

Bill McAnally
We didn't do a lot to set up for qualifying; we are really working on our long race set-up so we will be in the top ten. We are falling now with (Ken) Schrader and those guys qualifying but we should be in the top ten.

Bill Sedgwick
We are somewhere in the back. I think we beat 5 or 6 cars that's about it. Super-speedway racing is a new thing for me. I got my feet wet on Short tracks. That is where I got all my experience, and I am learning. I'm happy with the car; I just need to drive it harder. And if we get in the race, we will get a lot of valuable experience.

Scott Gaylord
Well we went out and in two laps the 00 blew a motor. We've got to find another one for the race tomorrow, so we can get a provisional. It's hard to say how it will race Saturday; we don't even have a motor yet. If we get a good motor, we will be right in this thing. We have a good handling car, it's just finding a motor and getting it in and starting the race. We'll be just like everyone else if we get it running right.

Butch Gilliland
We were a little disappointed with the qualifying run; I am in myself. In practice we were 2nd fast and I guess I felt a little over confident and we drove it in a little too deep. The car pushed up out of the groove a little bit; couldn't get in the gas quite as quick as we would like to have. But in practice we didn't get too much practice, so we didn't know where that limit was. Really we are still happy with a top 7, I think we're sitting seventh right now. The car is a good car it is brand new, never been on the track. We only had about 15 laps of practice so we are pretty confident and happy wit it.

Kurt Busch
I knew our little Ford Thunderbird wouldn't qualify too well because its an old car. But hey, right now we are 6th and I think we can keep it in the top ten. Its more of a race car; It picks up so much downforce in the back; it likes to drive on long runs. We'll see what we can do with the Quality Mechanical Ford. Star Nursery is helping us out and Mac Tools. We are just having a good time at the California Speedway.

(After Qualifying)
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Rick Carelli
Qualifying, it was good I mean thought we left a little bit the first lap. I messed up in one and two, I don't think we had enough for the pole, but we probably could have been third and moved up one position. The car is driving good, drove good in practice, hopefully it will race well too. We have some stuff I want to try in the morning and see where we're at.

Brendan Gaughan
We know we had a fast racecar we stepped on ourselves a bit in qualifying, but we will be all right for the race. We know we got a real fast racecar. We will make a change and sometimes it will work, ours didn't work so we are going to go back. We got lucky we have a practice tomorrow so we will fix it in practice.

Jerry Cain
We have American International Travel, Ramada Resorts and DreamTime Tours. Qualifying wasn't bad, I think that normally when you pull a field in the back, we drew 37, you would be really happy about that. What happened was the weather came in and it cooled down a ton and the wind picked up. So, on a speedway track like this, you come out of turn two if you get any wind going down the chute at all, it picks the nose up on the car. So, when you' re on the gas it heads towards the fence. And that's what happened. We filled it in a ton probably as far as anybody did, but that wind down there got us. We made a respectable run. We picked up 3/10s from practice, I think we went a 40.40 which is pretty respectable that would have been the pole last year. So well take it; were pretty happy. We tested about a week ago and we've got a really good race setup that where putting in the car.

Source: RacingWest
Posted: 4/28/99