TOYOTA NASCAR Sprint Cup Series (NSCS) Post-Qualifying Notes & Quotes Auto Club Speedway — March 25, 2011
2nd, DENNY HAMLIN 3rd, JOEY LOGANO 8th, KYLE BUSCH 14th, DAVID REUTIMANN 19th, BRIAN VICKERS 22nd, KASEY KAHNE 25th, CASEY MEARS 26th, MARTIN TRUEX JR. 33rd, MICHAEL MCDOWELL 34th, BOBBY LABONTE 40th, JOE NEMECHEK 41st, TODD BODINE
DENNY HAMLIN, No. 11 FedEx Office Toyota Camry, Joe Gibbs Racing Starting Position: 2nd How was your race car in practice and qualifying? “It’s been a good day. Focusing on qualifying and things like that, I’ve really never worked so hard to work on just one lap before as much as I have this week. I’m trying to get better. Last week we had issues at Bristol and that was because we qualified bad. We can’t put ourselves in the middle of the pack every weekend. We’re trying to slowly work to get better at qualifying and I felt like I’m taking steps to do that.”
Was your setup similar to your teammate Joey Logano? “We weren’t. I looked just a minute ago and we were really on two different spectrums. It’s tough to say why that is. Usually we’re a little bit different from those guys but we’ve been kind of on our own agenda all day and trying to figure it out. We’ve been the better car in practice, usually but when it comes to qualifying, we’re usually the worse of the Gibbs (Joe Gibbs Racing) cars. We just kind of stay to our own plan today.”
How much do you think luck plays a role in how some drivers have started this season? “I think the luck plays a factor on the guys that have had a bad start of the season because of wrecks and blown engines. I don’t think it’s luck for the guys who have started off good. You started off good because you’ve ran good these first four races. You’ve been solid, you finished in the top-10 and those are the guys that are in the top-10 in points. That’s not luck, them finishing there. What is bad luck is the guys that have had blown motors and tires and things like that. Is it bad luck because the car wasn’t setup right or what have you. The driver couldn’t control that. Luck plays a factor but it’s different for everyone.”
Did having a shorter practice play into where you’re starting Sunday’s race? “It’s probably good for me as bad as I am in qualifying. The least amount of practice everyone else had is better in my favor. We had 45 minutes of practice basically, but most 45 minutes are in race trim of the first practice anyway, so you had about the same amount of time in qualifying trim as you would on a regular day, it’s just people had to cut out their race trim to start the day.”
JOEY LOGANO, No. 20 Home Depot Toyota Camry, Joe Gibbs Racing Starting Position: 3rd How was your qualifying run? “It was more surprising than anything else. I didn’t think it was that great of a lap. I had a terrible time getting up to speed coming to the green. Thought that kind of set me up for a bad lap. I had a better (turns) one and two than I had in practice
