Homestead, FL — November 21, 2009

RAYBESTOS® ROOKIE CONTENDER QUOTES FOR THE FORD 300 NASCAR NATIONWIDE SERIES RACE AT HOMESTEAD-MIAMI SPEEDWAY, NOVEMBER 21, 2009
 
JUSTIN ALLGAIER IN THE No. 12 VERIZON WIRELESS DODGE CLINCHED RAYBESTOS ROOKIE OF THE YEAR IN TONIGHT’S RACE AT HOMESTEAD

Allgaier clinched Raybestos Rookie of the Year with a 20th-place finish in tonight’s Ford 300.  He claimed Raybestos Rookie of the Race honors 11 times during the 2009 season.
 
Allgaier’s best finish of the 2009 season was a fifth-place effort at Bristol (Tenn.) Motor Speedway (race No. 4).
 
Allgaier made his NASCAR Nationwide Series debut in 2008 at Lowe’s Motor Speedway (race No. 31).  
 
Allgaier won one pole and scored three top-five and 12 top-10 finishes this season.  His pole came at Memphis (Millington, Tenn.) Raceway Park (race No. 32) and came in his 36th career start.
 
Brendan Gaughan took Raybestos Rookie of the Race honors tonight with an 11th-place finish.
 
ALLGAIER:  YOU ARE OFFICIALLY RAYBESTOS ROOKIE OF THE YEAR.  “Boy I’m glad you’re saying that.  It feels good.  We wanted that worse than anything when the year started and we knew that was going to be a tough, tall order.  There were a lot of really great race car drivers that were going for it.  Just to be a part of this Raybestos Rookie group and to come out on top means a lot.  I know we didn’t finish where we wanted to in points but to be sixth in points and to be rookie of the year really sums up how great these guys are.  The Verizon Wireless guys do an awesome job week in and week out and if it hadn’t been for my rookie mistakes we’d have probably been a lot farther up. Thanks to Raybestos and NASCAR for giving me the opportunity to do it because it was awesome and Penske Racing and everybody that’s been involved.  It’s pretty awesome.”  HOW MUCH DID YOU LEARN THIS SEASON?  “I don’t think you could put it all in a book what all we’ve been able to learn this year.  We’ve got a lot of notes to go in next year with.  We’ll come back next year and get ‘em.  Our program isn’t exactly where we want it to be right now but I think with the addition of Brad [Keselowski] next year and some of the thing we’ve been working on in the shop I think we’ll get a lot better.  I’m just excited for the opportunity to be with these guys and go back into next year and work with these guys again ‘cause they did a great job all year and I’m glad to have them as my team.”  HOW DO YOU GET BETTER AND IS THERE A LITTLE BIT MORE PRESSURE IN 2010?  “Well there’s definitely more pressure. Obviously we’re going to lose a set of tires and that doesn’t help any.  I think I’m going to run for rookie of the year next year, can I do that [smiles]?  We’ve got to do what we’ve got to do and like I said I’m glad to be a part of this group. I know they’re not going to let me down.  They’re going to work even harder next year.  I don’t know how they work much harder to be honest with you but I know they’ll dig deep.  We’ll come out next year at Daytona and hopefully put it to ‘em.”          
 
PRESS CONFERENCE TRANSCRIPT
 
“I want to thank Raybestos and NASCAR for allowing me the opportunity to do this and especially Roger Penske and Penske Racing.  Last year at this time I wasn’t sure exactly what we were going to do.  I thought we were going to run about 10 races and so to come out of here with rookie of the year means a lot to go back next year and do the same thing again with Verizon Wireless and be back in the 12 car.  It’s going to be a lot of fun next year.  Hopefully we can get our program a little bit better.  They’ve done such a great job and they’ve worked so hard we just feel like we’re missing a little bit and I think part of that is myself and there’s things that we need to work on better.  So I think once we get that accomplished I think we’ll be able to hopefully get up there with these guys and run a little bit more consistently.  There’s been a couple of races that we’ve been able to run up front but the majority of ‘em we’ve just been trying to fight for that fifth to tenth-place spot and tonight we didn’t even do that.  It’s good to get it.  It takes a lot of pressure off.  That was one of our main goals going into the beginning of the season and that’s what we set out to do and we were able to accomplish that especially with six or eight of us that signed up to run for the rookie of the year.  It means a lot to me and hopefully we can com back next year and run that much harder and be that much more competitive.”  WHAT DOES RAYBESTOS ROOKIE OF THE YEAR MEAN TO YOU AND YOUR CAREER?  “Well I mean you only get to do this once.  It may be a different series or whatever but I think at the end of the day I think I’ve been able to accomplish some really cool things and this is definitely right on the top of the list.  It means a lot.  This sport is fun and these guys come over from the Cup side and you get to race with them and have a good time and at the same time it’s still a job.  It’s still tough.  I mean if you ask them they’re having a good time but you know it’s still tough.  It means a lot.  I think with Brendan being a multi-time truck racer and having Cup experience and some of the other talent that was involved I feel good that we were able to come out on top.  It really puts a period on the end of the season for us.”  BRAD KESELOWSKI WILL BE YOUR TEAMMATE NEXT YEAR.  HOW WILL THAT HELP YOU AS YOU GO FOR THE CHAMPIONSHIP IN 2010?  “Well I’m glad that Brad’s coming over.  Having a teammate, it doesn’t really matter who it was, it was definitely good to get somebody in there that has some experience for sure.  I think that it’s going to help our program as well as theirs and like I said I think we’ve still got some room to grow and we can still learn some stuff.  You know the deal between him and Denny, it’s unfortunate.  I’m not going to take sides because I’m not in either one of their shoes and I can’t tell you what I’d do if I was in either one of the other shoes.  It’s a tough situation.  I mean, nobody wants to see somebody get wrecked or wreck somebody else but at the end of the day it happens and like Jeff [Burton] said it’s kind of self-policing.  I’m sure they each felt they were right.  And like I said I’m just glad to have him as a teammate.  Hopefully we can take the information that he can being over and that we’ve learned from the course of this year and it will definitely help.”

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.