KEVIN LEPAGE --16-- TV Guide Taurus -- "The TV Guide Taurus was a little free this morning. I had to get out of two mock-up qualifying runs because the car almost wrecked getting into turn three. I came in and said to Pat Tryson and the guys, I said we've gotta do something I can't drive this car. We put our heads together and we came up with a setup that was good for qualifying. I watched my teammate Chad Little go off into turn one and he went in a little bit different than I had, so I tried it and when I got through where he went in the car just stuck real good. That Roush powerplant pulled me down the straightaways and I just can't say enough. This is a brand new race car. We came here a few weeks ago and tested and we weren't sure if we were gonna be decent in qualifying. We thought we'd be a top 25 car, but I never in my life thought we'd be sitting here on the pole." YOU'VE BEEN A 20TH-PLACE QUALIFIER MOST OF THE YEAR. WHERE DID THIS COME FROM? "I think two weeks ago when we tested down here (helped). This car is a brand new race car. I ran it one other time which was at Charlotte and had a ninth-place finish there and it's our new latest creation of a Liberty race car. I was really happy with the way the car performed at Charlotte, so we figured we'd bring it here. We tested very well, but when I got here I was too loose. To know what we had in the setup for qualifying it should have stuck and it did. Pat made the right decision and the car was good. Also, I think the clouds helped us. We went out and it was cloud covered, which tightened the race track up and we were just hoping we could stay right there." WHAT IS THE STATUS OF TV GUIDE'S SPONSORSHIP? "This may secure our sponsorship, but right now we have no commitment from TV Guide for next year. We still have two more appearances that I have to do with them in December, but, right now, we do not have a sponsor for next year." SO PEOPLE COULD SAY HE'S QUALIFIED 20TH-25TH ALL YEAR AND WHEN HE NEEDS A SPONSOR THE LAST RACE OF THE YEAR HE SITS ON THE POLE. "Well, no because if you look at Darlington I think I qualified in the top 10. At Dover we qualified fourth or fifth, so there have been race tracks this car has run well at. For me coming here testing two weeks ago, I think, was the deal. We came here and we tested a lot of things and we were pretty happy when we left here. To say they gave me the best motor this week or the best car, I've been hearing that all year long. The 16 team is not an R&D team. We have the same equipment week in and week out that Mark and Jeff has and everybody else, but I don't have the experience as a Winston Cup driver that they do. I don't have the years of experience with my crew chief Pat Tryson that they have with Jimmy Fennig and Frankie and Buddy. I have nine weeks with Pat Tryson and if you go back and look at what Pat Tryson's done for our race team in the last nine weeks, this would not be a surprise to you." WITH ALL THOSE TEAMMATES, HOW DO YOU NOT GET LOST IN THE SHUFFLE? "Because the man in the hat comes and sees everybody every week and several times during the weekend. He's there to be a springboard to lean on if you're struggling. He's there to pat you on the back when you're doing well and he's the guy who is a straight shooter. He's not a guy that just wants to have five, six, seven, eight race teams, he wants to make sure that the drivers that driver his cars week in and week out will be the guys that will represent Roush Racing in the right way for a sponsor. We're not lost in the shuffle." JOHNNY BENSON TALKED EARLIER THIS YEAR ABOUT BEING BASED IN LIBERTY AND HOW HARD IT IS BEING SO FAR FROM MOORESVILLE. HOW DO YOU FEEL ABOUT THAT? "There's no doubt that being an hour and a half from Mooresville to Liberty, North Carolina is a hindrance for our race team. Personnel is an issue. Being lost and out of the loop is an issue and Jack is working on that. Our shop right now is under construction, our new shop, which will be by the Concord airport will be right across from the 97 and the 17 shop that's already built. They moved in this week. It'll be just down the road from the 6 and the 99 shop, about 20 minutes, so Jack realizes that there's always been a little bit of a problem being up in Liberty and he's working on it. We expect to be in our building probably when we go to Daytona." MARK SAID THIS TRACK REWARDS DRIVERS WHO HANG IT OUT. DO YOU CONSIDER YOURSELF THAT TYPE? "I've never been known to hold anything back that's for sure. If you go back and look at last week in Homestead, we were the third or fourth fastest car in Happy Hour and wrecked the race car. We hit the wall pretty hard. Again, I contribute a lot of my success here today setting up the car with all the guys, watching Chad's line into turn one, and I never lifted. This was the first time I never lifted here in practice because when I got up to speed going into three and four coming to take the green the car stuck. And I knew if I could get through three and four coming up to speed as good as it was the car was gonna be real good. We got over the bump (in turn one) and the car was perfect so it was a good lap for us. It was nerve-wracking, believe me. I wouldn't want to do it again, not today anyway."