1st, JOEY LOGANO 4th, DENNY HAMLIN 6th, KASEY KAHNE 10th, BRIAN VICKERS 14th, MARTIN TRUEX JR. 19th, KYLE BUSCH 21st, BOBBY LABONTE 27th, CASEY MEARS 31st, JOE NEMECHEK 32nd, DAVID REUTIMANN 37th, MIKE SKINNER 38th, DAVID MAYHEW
JOEY LOGANO, No. 20 Home Depot Toyota Camry, Joe Gibbs Racing Starting Position: 1st Did you expect to get a qualifying result like this? “No, no, no. I was surprised it was as fast as it was. I felt like the car had a lot more grip in it, and I felt like we fixed the car, but personally I felt like I screwed up about three times in one lap. I didn’t feel too good about myself after it and I thought I screwed that one up. It was good, car was fast. We’ll work on our stuff in race trim a little bit more tomorrow and see if we can get our Home Depot car fast. This is place is so — you can have a fast race car here and it doesn’t mean a whole bunch here. Obviously your strategy is going to be a big deal and I think the real big deal is staying out of trouble, which is where I need to work on the most than anywhere else.”
What have you done to prepare for this weekend’s race? “We’ve done a lot of things. These road courses for me have been a struggle in trying to get in the corners is probably the biggest thing. So, we went to Road Atlanta and tested with Max Papis. We had a little two-seater car and he gave me a ride and I was like, ‘Wow, you can get in the corner a lot harder.’ It’s cool to see that and learn — think that is definitely paying off right now. Thanks to Max on that one. My Home Depot car is fast. I was really surprised about the speed in it. I didn’t feel like our car was that good in practice at all. The car was a lot better. I’ll take it for sure.”
Are you excited to get your second career pole award? “It’s really awesome, for sure. This is the last place that I figured we’d get a pole. I think obviously if you’re looking at — I’ve never had a top-10 start here and I’ve never finished that good here either. After practice, I felt like we needed a lot more forward drive and a lot more side-bite in our car. Man, they made it happen. I said, ‘Geeze, should have asked for that a long time ago.’ They definitely did a good job of making our Home Depot car fast. I was surprised, I felt like my lap was okay, didn’t feel like it was stellar by no means. Man, a hell of a lap. The last three cars were Kasey (Kahne) who got the pole last year, and Denny (Hamlin), our teammate is really good here, and Kurt (Busch) that was four-tenths faster than everyone else in practice and has gotten the last three poles. Man, I didn’t know — I didn’t think it was going to hold up — I don’t think of my guys thought it was going to hold up. We were pretty pumped up right now, we needed a momentum change with our Home Depot team right now. We’ve been going through a little bit of a drought. This is definitely going to help us a lot.”
Will racing the K&N Pro Series West race tomorrow set you up for a good race on Sunday? “It is an advantage for sure. I run a lot of Nationwide races the day before because I think it helps. I think here is a bit bigger help just because there’s so many more turns and getting used to it. The cars drive so different, you can’t compare the two. You’re looking at a lot lighter car over there. Lower, a lot less horsepower — all that stuff makes a huge different. The tire over there — that’s probably the biggest difference. That car there is a lot of fun to drive. All that makes it cool. I have a lot of fun doing that. I do think it helps. The first time I came out here, I ran the West race and I ran pretty good in the Cup race. Last year I didn’t run so good in the Cup race and this year I am and I got the pole. Hopefully it’s all good and working out for me. Hey, if that’s what it takes, I’ll run that thing every weekend — they’re fun to race anyway. Last time I ran here I got dumped in turn 11 for the win on the last lap, so I need to redeem myself.”
How will being out front benefit you in Sunday’s race? “I don’t know, I’ve never been up front here before. That’s a question I’m going to answer Sunday. I think right now I need to figure out where I’m going to start — on the inside or the outside and kind of think about that. Watching the previous race here, just looking at where those guys started and stuff like that — I’ll try to make the best decision I can. It’s a long race, hopefully we do get out front by the end of turn two there and try to put some distance on them and lead some laps. Right now we’re focused on tomorrow and getting our car the best we can so we can do that.”
DENNY HAMLIN, No. 11 FedEx Freight Toyota Camry, Joe Gibbs Racing Starting Position: 4th Are you happy to be starting the race from near the front of the field? “That’s a good starting spot for us. We definitely made some big strides in our road course program. Obviously, it showed up there at the end. We’re looking forward to it. Obviously, starting this far in the front we should have a shot at it.”
KASEY KAHNE, No. 4 Red Bull Toyota Camry, Red Bull Racing Team Starting Position: 6th
BRIAN VICKERS, No. 83 Red Bull Toyota Camry, Red Bull Racing Team Starting Position: 10th Did you run the speeds in qualifying you thought you were going to? “It’s pretty close. We had a 17.30 in practice coming into 11 and then I tried to get a little more out of the brake and I wheel hopped, so we didn’t have a good time in practice. We felt really good about the car, we made some adjustments. The adjustments were a plus. We picked up a little bit.”
How was your qualifying lap? “I felt pretty good about it. We made some changes from practice to race and they were good changes, probably even better than I anticipated. I probably could have gotten a little bit more out of the slow corners, but you never know. If you push it too much and you wash the front out, then you’re done and you miss the curb. In practice, coming to turn 11 we had a 17.30 and then I wheel hoped getting into turn 11. We were trying something and it didn’t work and it made my braking zones worse. We felt like we had at least that in the car. I felt like we at least had a 17.30 in the car. Clearly thought we were better than what our practice speeds showed because of that wheel hop situation as long as that didn’t happen again. We were able to best that. I felt like it was a pretty decent lap, we were on the pole there for a bit.”
MARTIN TRUEX JR., No. 56 NAPA AUTO PARTS Toyota Camry, Michael Waltrip Racing Starting Position: 14th How was your qualifying lap? “It was okay. We had a good practice today. We were fighting a few issues that we didn’t really straighten out. We had them again at the beginning of qualifying so we had to straighten those out, so that was disappointing. We picked up a 10th from practice which is always a good thing here. It’s difficult when you only have one shot at it, one lap to back it up. So, we did that. We just need a little more speed but our car was pretty good today in practice. I’m looking forward to it.”
KYLE BUSCH, No. 18 M&M’s Pretzel Toyota Camry, Joe Gibbs Racing Starting Position: 19th
BOBBY LABONTE, No. 47 Clorox/Kleenex Toyota Camry, JTG-Daugherty Racing Starting Position: 21st How was your qualifying lap? “It was okay, the biggest struggle that we had for whatever reason that time was it just never got cleared out. It was — the carburetor just doesn’t get cleared out, I don’t know why. It just didn’t run right. But the lap itself, car wise was better than we were in practice. For whatever reason we fight that and we fought it all day. We went back and forth on it and never could get it right. I hate it for the guys because I think we could have been faster if we would have had something — nothing we could do about it, just to go faster down the straightaway would have been better.”
CASEY MEARS, No. 13 GEICO Toyota Camry, Germain Racing Starting Position: 27th How did your car feel during your qualifying run? “It wasn’t bad, really. I really tried to keep the thing in shape, I didn’t want to get too out of control. It was a clean lap, we just had a real hard time with forward bite. I wasn’t sideways, but I was half throttle and I needed to be wide open off of turn 11 and out of turn seven. A little loose in the high-speed corners. I’m pretty happy with it. Our GEICO Toyota, these guys have done a really good job, we’ve made a lot of progress as a team. It’s fun to come back to a road course — I really enjoy shifting gears and having a little change of pace. The weather is beautiful, we’re ready to have a good day on Sunday.”
JOE NEMECHEK, No. 87 NEMCO Motorsports Toyota Camry, NEMCO Motorsports Starting Position: 31st
DAVID REUTIMANN, No. 00 Aaron’s Dream Machine Toyota Camry, Michael Waltrip Racing Starting Position: 32nd
MIKE SKINNER, No. 60 Big Red Toyota Camry, Germain Racing Starting Position: 37th
DAVID MAYHEW, No. 66 HP Racing LLC Toyota Camry, PRISM Motorsports Starting Position: 38th
