Daytona Beach, Fla. (Feb. 10, 2007) – Paul Menard took his first competitive laps around the Daytona International Speedway during today’s qualifying for the 50th running of the Daytona 500.

“It was a decent lap,” Menard said. “The wind was definitely not on our side, though, and that’s what you need to be really fast on qualifying day.”

Menard rounded the 2.5-mile superspeedway at a speed of 184.158 mph and recorded a lap time of 48.803 seconds to post the 38th fastest time.

Menard’s effort, which was on par with the driver’s expectations,left the team looking forward to Thursday’s qualifying race.

“We knew coming down here that qualifying wasn’t going to be where we showed strength,” Menard added. “Thursday’s qualifying race will be where the 15 team and all the DEI teams will shine. I'm really looking forward to Wednesday's drafting practice. We learned some things from the Bud Shootout last night from Mark and Martin, so we'll learn from that and apply it to Wednesday’s practice.”

Menard and the No. 15 team will start from the 16th position in the first of two qualifying races. The Duels will broadcast live on SPEED beginning at 2 p.m. ET.