4th, DENNY HAMLIN 9th, DAVID REUTIMANN 17th, KASEY KAHNE 18th, BOBBY LABONTE 19th, JOEY LOGANO 23rd, BRIAN VICKERS 29th, JOE NEMECHEK 31st, MARTIN TRUEX JR. 34th, KYLE BUSCH 35th, CASEY MEARS 36th, MICHEL MCDOWELL 43rd, TJ BELL DNQ, MIKE SKINNER
DENNY HAMLIN, No. 11 FedEx Ground Toyota Camry, Joe Gibbs Racing Starting Position: 4th How did your race car handle today? “We definitely have a good race car. We really don’t expect to qualify awesome here, but it was still a great job by our FedEx team — they’ve just done an amazing job of giving me a good race car each time we come here. We just love coming here to Pocono.”
Will you shift throughout tomorrow’s race? “Pretty much all day I think you probably will. For us, it just depends whether you’re in traffic or not and things like that all come into play. Just going to be interesting to see how it all plays out. With this overcast condition, it kind of played into our favor in a sense that the track was pretty consistent through the whole qualifying session.”
DAVID REUTIMANN, No. 00 Aaron’s Dream Machine Toyota Camry, Michael Waltrip Racing Starting Position: 9th How did the weather affect your qualifying lap? “I think it definitely plays a role in everybody’s speeds. The track has definitely got way more grip. You have to drive this place differently according to that. Certainly a lot different than what we practiced yesterday and we didn’t get much of a second practice yesterday. We had some brake issues and the guys worked really hard on the Aaron’s Dream Machine. Hopefully that speed will get us a good starting position for Sunday.”
Do you have to focus on race wins to get into the Chase? “We don’t have any choice but to gamble at this point. We need to run good and we need to win races. That comes back into the crew chiefs hands and calling the race. That’s a tough deal. You have to gamble sometimes and we’re definitely prepared to do that. That’s the only way we’re going to make up any ground.”
KASEY KAHNE, No. 4 Red Bull Toyota Camry, Red Bull Racing Team Starting Position: 17th How did your car handle in qualifying? “The car seemed pretty good. I got tight in the tunnel part, but wasn’t tight anywhere else. I think we’ll have a decent starting spot and should be good tomorrow.”
BOBBY LABONTE, No. 47 Clorox-Kleenex Toyota Camry, JTG-Daugherty Racing Starting Position: 18th How has your race car handled this weekend? “We unloaded really far off yesterday morning. In that hour and a half practice we had to make our qualifying run or at least get a qualifying run because weren’t sure if it was going to rain or not — we really had a lot of guesswork going into it. In the second practice we got a little bit better. We just unloaded so bad that we just had to go crazy. The lap itself was about as good as we were going to get after not having a lot of confidence yesterday in the race car. We sent Frank (Kerr, crew chief) home for his daughter’s graduation so hopefully he’ll be happy that we got to run today. We picked up from where we were yesterday in practice. The car was much better today and after looking at some pictures and looking at our SIM and looking at a few things — the things that we did I think were better.”
What were the track conditions today? “Just typical Pocono with a ton of grip. The track has a lot of grip to it and you can go fast. It’s better than what we had yesterday.”
JOEY LOGANO, No. 20 Home Depot Toyota Camry, Joe Gibbs Racing Starting Position: 19th How different were track conditions today? “The track was way, way different. It had a lot of grip. I went into one and turned decent and was okay. Then I picked up the gas and the thing just got sideways. I lost a half-second down the back straightaway. You have to turn so much to get off that corner and I just did not. Little too free.”
BRIAN VICKERS, No. 83 Red Bull Toyota Camry, Red Bull Racing Team Starting Position: 23rd How was your qualifying lap? “That lap wasn’t very good or what we wanted. I left a lot out there. The track had a lot more speed on it than we thought.”
JOE NEMECHEK, No. 87 AM/FM Energy.com / Pellet & Wood Stoves Toyota Camry, NEMCO Motorsports Starting Position: 29th
MARTIN TRUEX JR., No. 56 NAPA AUTO PARTS Toyota Camry, Michael Waltrip Racing Starting Position: 31st
KYLE BUSCH, No. 18 M&M’s Toyota Camry, Joe Gibbs Racing Starting Position: 34th
CASEY MEARS, No. 13 GEICO Toyota Camry, Germain Racing Starting Position: 35th
MICHAEL MCDOWELL, No. 66 HP Racing LLC Toyota Camry, PRISM Motorsports Starting Position: 36th
TJ BELL, No. 50 Green Smoke Toyota Camry, Gunselman Motorsports Starting Position: 43rd
MIKE SKINNER, No. 60 Big Red Toyota Camry, Germain Racing Starting Position: DNQ
