Talladega: Brendan Gaughan top rookie quotes

BRENDAN GAUGHAN (No. 77 Kodak Easy Share Dodge) -- Finished 13th

NOTE: Gaughan was the highest finishing Raybestos Rookie of the Year driver, and his 13th-place finish was his career best.

"Buddy Baker kept telling me I'd learn to love this place, and I told him he had to be kidding. I was the top finishing Raybestos Rookie for the first time this year, and it's about darn time.

The guys have really been working hard. We kept coming in patching things up and fixing little things here and there. I think every single wreck happened in front of me today and we were able to drive through it. We had a little bit of luck. We've got a great race team, and here we are. I got here more here today than I did last week at Martinsville, and that was tough to do. This is a big fast racetrack. You've got to have respect for it.

Congratulations to Jeff Gordon. He did a heck of a job. Ryan was right in front of me, and we had good runs. I'm sorry Rusty got caught up in that one deal.

It's amazing how Junior fans there are. They need to just take a break. We may have been able to restart it and go green, white, checkered if they hadn't thrown all those beer cans on the racetrack. It's not my call. It's NASCAR's call. If there's time to finish under green, then let's do it. The fans created that unsafe situation there, and it's a shame. Have a little respect for what we do.

Jeff Gordon won that race. Sorry Junior can't win 'em all. We had a good run, and it was a great day for us. There really wasn't a BIG ONE. A lot of guys had little wrecks, but we all made it through it."

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