Key questions from the second quarter earnings call conducted by Advance Auto Parts, Inc. on August 9, 2007.

Anthony Cristello (BB&T Capital Markets): Could you comment on your guidance which given the good quarter you had seems to be conservative?

Jack Brouillard: The main driver of where the company has placed its guidance is the sales environment that it is in right now, and it hopes that it improves beyond what it is seeing right now. The company is conservative, but this is the reality now as it is difficult to generate any sustained comparable sales momentum. The concern the company has is that while it feels good about many of the initiatives, the external environment weighs more heavily in the near term than the ability of these initiatives to give it traction. While it is going to get those SG&A savings, the concern it has is the external environment and what the sales momentum will be.

Jim L. Wade: The comparables in both areas, both DIY and commercial were less than what the company has been running in the second quarter, and that is the basis for the direction on the guidance. The other thing is less gross margin percent improvement as Advance Auto Parts makes all the changes in the implementation of these initiatives from pushing out more parts and the related cost of doing that. That is an area that the company is not as optimistic over the second half of the year as it was before, not because anything fundamentally has changed, but because of the activity that is going to be going on in those two quarters.

Anthony Cristello (BB&T Capital Markets): What do you see aside from what you think you can do internally, just from mixing things around?

Elwyn G. Murray III: The company has increased the intensity and focus on parts availability at a greater level, particularly since May. It had some energy going on prior to that, but in the back half of the year, it was introducing 2 to 3 times what it would have introduced on a regular run rate when it came to inventory related specifically to parts. There are lead times required in this industry in particular with hard parts so it will take Advance Auto Parts longer to get some traction on that, but it is encouraged about the significant emphasis and amount of parts inventory that it is going to be able to get into its stores in the back half of the year.

Jeffrey Sonnek (Friedman, Billings, Ramsey & Co., Inc.): You are cutting advertising spend. How do you communicate to the customer if they are only shopping three times a year and what they are going to find in advance or why should they shop your store versus one of your competitors?

Elwyn G. Murray III: The company is working to determine what is effective in what it spends on advertising and what is not. From that, it is identifying the vehicles that it thinks are going to be critical to deliver its message. It wants to deliver that message when it is poised to deliver for the customer. It is thinking about how it is going to craft its message in and what medium it is going to use to communicate it.

Jack Brouillard: The work the company is doing in reducing the advertising, does not have much bearing on telling the customers about parts availability. The TV network and the store addressed only the people who are already in the store, and the company is finding that it has opportunities in the print side which was not driving that business either.

Jeffrey Sonnek (Friedman, Billings, Ramsey & Co., Inc.): Could you quantify these expense savings and the order of magnitude where advertising falls versus the headcounts reductions?

Jim L. Wade: The biggest impact in the advertising area for this $50 million of cuts for next year was around the Advance TV. That was one of the bigger items within the list, and it is $7 million to $8 million on an annual basis. The remainder of the items was all equal to or lower than that number, and that was the only significant large number that came out of the advertising by itself.

Matthew J. Fassler (Goldman Sachs): To what degree, through timing or through the area of weakness, have you been able to essentially tie the slow down to potential disruptions from steps that you have taken to make changes in the business?

Jack Brouillard: The company has had a CEO change and there is always some potential disruption with that. Advance Auto Parts operates in a variety of geographies, but some concentrations are different at O'Reilly and other places. Commercial is 25% of the business and that has been better than the DIY. The stores are being well maintained and well led and well executed, and this week it has turned and business is good this week.

Matthew J. Fassler (Goldman Sachs): There has been management transition. Is the company looking for a permanent CEO?

Jack Brouillard: The company continues to have its search process for a permanent CEO. Russell Reynolds is working closely on the search and is tracking on progress.

Matthew J. Fassler (Goldman Sachs): The changes that you are making are significant. How have you weighed the magnitude of the changes that you want to make to the business versus the fact that you will have a successor at some point who will want to put own stamp on the business?

Jack Brouillard: The company is addressing the issues in a way that would not be adverse to the decisions a new CEO would make.

Danielle E. Fox (Merrill Lynch): Have you made or contemplated as part of the strategic review any changes to the compensation structure either at the manager or the store associate level?

Jack Brouillard: That is all under evaluation at this point. The company can not give any details, but it isopen to developing new scenarios and testing them and see if they are good for the business and for the team members.

Danielle E. Fox (Merrill Lynch): What are your sources in terms of gross margin expansion this quarter and whether pricing is contributing at all to the gross margin expansion?