At this time all participants are in a listen-only mode. After the presentation we will conduct a question and answer session.

Today's conference is being recorded. If you have any objections, you may disconnect at this time. Before Mr. Rhodes begins, the Company has requested that you listen to the following statement, regarding forward-looking statements.

Certain statements contained in this presentation are forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements typically use words such as believe, anticipate, should, intend, plan, will, expect, estimate, project, position, strategy, and similar expressions. These are based on assumptions and assessments made by our management in light of experience and perception of historical trends, current conditions, expected future developments and other factors that we believe to be appropriate. These forward-looking statements are subject to a number of risks and uncertainties including without limitation competition, product demand, the economy, the ability to hire and retain qualified employees, consumer debt levels, inflation, weather, raw material costs of our suppliers, gasoline prices, war and the prospect of war including terrorist activity, availability of consumer transportation, construction delays, access it to available and feasible financing, and our ability to continue to negotiate pay-on-scan and other arrangements with our vendors. Forward-looking statements are not guarantees of future performance and actual results, developments, and business decisions may differ from those contemplated by such forward-looking statements and such events could materially and adversely affect our business. Forward-looking statements speak as of only the date made. Except as required by applicable law we undertake to obligation to update publicly any forward-looking statements whether a result of new information, future events, or otherwise. Actual results may materially differ from anticipated results. Please refer to the risk factor section of the Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended August 27, 2005 for more information related to these risks. In addition to the financial statements presented in accordance with Generally Accepted Accounting Principles, AutoZone has provided metrics in this presentation are not calculated in accordance with GAAP. For a reconciliation of these metrics, please see AutoZone's press release at the Investor Relations section at www.autozoneinc.com.

This is the conference call to discuss AutoZone's first quarter financial results. Bill Rhodes, the Company's President and CEO, will be making a short presentation on the highlights of the quarter. The conference will end promptly at 10:00 a.m. central time, 11:00 a.m. eastern time. Mr. Rhodes, you may now begin.

Good morning. And thank you for joining us today for AutoZone's fiscal 2006 first quarter conference call. With me today is Brian Campbell, Vice president of Investor Relations and tax. I hope you've had an opportunity to read our press release and learn about the first quarter's results. If not, the press release, along with slides complementing our comments today, are available on our website, www.autozoneinc.com. Please click on quarterly earnings conference calls to see them. Now, let's go into the results. I am pleased to share with you the Company's fiscal 2006 first quarter results. During the quarter, we completed the rollout of many initiatives designed to improve our customer's shopping experience. While the full benefit from these initiatives was not immediate, we are pleased with our progress to date. This resulted in improved sales trends, but lower operating profit and operating margins. We remain focused on managing our financial metrics, while appropriately building a stronger platform for future profitable earnings growth. I am extremely proud of our AutoZoners and their efforts, through three hurricanes, and all their aftermath, our AutoZoners performed with a renewed sense of effort and pride, that permeated throughout the organization. For the 12-week quarter, we reported sales of 1.338 billion, an increase of 4% from last year's first quarter. Same store sales, or sales for stores open greater than one year, were up 1% for the quarter. Gross profit as a percentage of sales for the quarter was up 72 basis points, while operating expenses as a percentage of sales increased by 220 basis points. This resulted in an operating margin of 15.3%, down 148 basis points from last year's quarter. Operating profit decreased 5.1% versus the prior year. During the quarter, we experienced additional expenses associated with the hurricanes and the introduction of…

Thank you, Bill. Regarding gross profits, gross margin for the quarter was 49.0% of sales, up from 48.3% of sales in the previous year's quarter. We continue to be successful in partnering with our vendors to offer the right products at the right prices to our customers. This effort includes supply chain initiatives, tailoring merchandise mix, the continued implementation of our good, better, best product lines all allowing us to price our products appropriately and give our customers great value choices. Additionally I would be remiss if I didn't point out our fuel cost increased over last year's quarter. This alone represented a 6 basis point decrease to gross margin in Q1. We believe there continues to be some margin expansion opportunity, albeit a slower pace than the previous couple of years. We believe we continue to have opportunities in working with our vendors to lower costs and provide the best selection of merchandise for our customers at the right prices. Our initiatives do more, our initiatives to do more direct importing of merchandise from foreign suppliers, has begun to gain some traction. Up to this point, AutoZone has bought virtually all its goods from U.S. vendors that may or may not be buying from foreign sources. We are increasing our efforts to reduce our costs by going straight to the manufacturer where appropriate. This initiative was launched last year and it will take some time to build. As we discussed last quarter, we expect to begin seeing the benefits during this fiscal 2006. SG&A for the quarter was 33.6% of sales. Up 220 basis points from last year. The increase was due to several events and specific actions. A $2.8 million charge or 21 basis points related to charges incurred due to damage in Louisiana, Mississippi, and Texas, from…

Thank you, Brian. Let me take a moment and comment on the hurricane-related events of this past quarter. Our first priority after the storms passed, was to focus on locating our AutoZoners, ensuring they were safe and helping them with their personal recovery efforts. As a result of these storms, over 160 of our AutoZoners lost their homes. We provided extensive support to our AutoZoners from continuing their pay, for those AutoZoners unable to work in the weeks immediately following the storm. To allowing any AutoZoner to work at any AutoZone store across the country. We had over 180 AutoZoners working in other stores all across the country. We also utilized the AutoZoner assistance fund to provide immediate financial assistance to our AutoZoners in need. In total we had over 125 stores that were impacted in some form by the storms. Sadly, 13 stores remain closed due to the damage suffered. While we experienced some financial impact from the storms, I cannot tell you how proud I am of all of our AutoZoners for their extensive efforts to get back to some semblance of normalcy after these awful storms passed. I would also like to address an announcement we made a few weeks ago, regarding our distribution facility in Lafayette, Louisiana. We announced to our AutoZoners in that facility that we would be closing it in January. This event will affect the lives of approximately 300 AutoZoners. However, we have and will continue to work with each and every AutoZoner and have offered each of them the opportunity to relocate to our distribution center in Terrell, Texas. The decision to close this facility was appropriate from a cost perspective. We will be transitioning most of the stores previously serviced by Lafayette to the new Terrell DC and we will be…