Notes: Gaughan finished 10th, his third top-10 finish of the 2004 season. He took Raybestos Rookie of the Race honors for the third consecutive race and for the fifth time this season. A Raybestos® Rookie has now finished in the top-10 in all four races at Kansas Speedway: Kurt Busch (ninth) in 2001, Ryan Newman (second) and Jimmie Johnson (10th) in 2002, and Jamie McMurray (eighth) in 2003. GAUGHAN: "These are the tracks that I have always said that I liked, the mile-and-a-halves, just like my home track in Vegas. This was not the greatest racecar on the track. It probably wasn't even a 10th-place car. But we had great strategy and drove the wheels off the thing. I passed Matt Kenseth and Dale Jarrett there right before that one caution on the outside and kinda pinched a little bit and Baker came on the radio and Roger Penske said 'Nice move.' I said 'Hey, I'm not in the chase for the championship. They've got to be conservative I don't.' I'm trying to get top-10s and we squeaked to that by one spot."

WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO YOU WHEN ROGER PENSKE COMES OVER THE RADIO AND TELLS YOU THAT YOU'VE DONE A GOOD JOB? "I said it early in the season: to be able to drive for Roger Penske and Doug Bawel is awesome. At the end of a race, when you can drive the wheels off the thing like that, that's awesome. Buddy Baker was screaming into the radio. You've got RP up there and he says 'Great job, kid' and Doug Bawel said the same thing. It does do something. I can only imagine what he used to say to Ricky Mears back in the old Indy 500 days. It is pretty cool to know that a guy with that much power in the sport and to have the level of integrity and everything else, that's neat to have that said about you."

DOES THIS HELP YOUR CAUSE WITH SOME OF THE RECENT RUMORS GOING AROUND? "Rumors are just that, guys. That's something that you guys like to write about and something that I'd love to get more Kodak press for. So keep on writing 'em. That gets us in the papers."

COMMENTS ON THE TOP THREE DRIVERS TODAY ARE NOT IN THE CHASE FOR THE NEXTEL CUP. "First of all, I want to say great job by the armed forces. Army, Air Force, National Guard, they were all represented in the top-three. You guys are making the big bally-hoo about the Chase for the Cup and it's supposed to. It's doesn't mean that they are going to win every race, guys. Doesn't mean that they are going to be top-10 every race. There's 43 teams out there and we're all racing. The Chase for the Nextel Cup guys are there, but that's what we've been saying all along. They're not the only ones there. It's good that it gets extra press. It's going to try to compete with the NFL at the end of this year and I think we all know why it's there. I think it's a great deal. But there's more than just those teams out there. Don't be surprised when somebody else wins a race. There are great race teams all throughout the field."

COMMENTS ON TURN TWO AND ALL THE SPINS. "Goodyear does a great job with their engineering but I flat out hate this tire, man. I'd love to go back to last year's Goodyear tire. I was actually sponsored by Goodyear in the off road days with Walker Evans. They've been my sponsor and I did testing for 'em and I love Goodyear. But, man, I just hate the tire that we have now. It reminds me of that Goodyear that we had from 2000, 2001; the one that we used to call the 'Death-twitcher.' That's what it has. I went into turn two and one time in particular I was heading toward the wall. A lot of guys were doing and some guys get a better handle on it and some guys don't and we're a team that's still trying to get a handle on this tire. You've just got to drive it. Everybody else has to. You've got to drive it."