TOYOTA NASCAR Camping World Truck Series (NCWTS) Post-Race Notes & Quotes Pocono Raceway – August 7, 2011
Kyle Busch was the highest finishing Tundra driver in Sunday morning’s NASCAR Camping World Truck Series (NCWTS) race at Pennsylvania’s Pocono Raceway with a second-place result.
Busch has recorded eight top-fives and nine top-10 finishes in nine series starts this season.
Tundra drivers Timothy Peters (10th), Max Papis (11th) and Todd Bodine (12th) also earned top-15 results in the 53-lap event, which was postponed until Sunday due to inclement weather Saturday afternoon.
Other Toyota drivers in the field at the 2.5-mile triangular track included Justin Lofton (16th), David Starr (18th), Miguel Paludo (19th), Brendan Gaughan (22nd) and Chad McCumbee (26th). Five Tundra drivers currently rank in the top-20 in the unofficial NCWTS point standings, including Peters (fourth), Bodine (10th), Starr (13th), Papis (14th), Paludo (15th) and Lofton (18th).
KYLE BUSCH, No. 18 CocoaVia.com Toyota Tundra, Kyle Busch Motorsports Finishing Position: 2nd How was your race? “Certainly it was a good run for us. We unloaded here Friday and felt like we were pretty decent off the truck, but definitely somewhat off the 2 (Kevin Harvick) truck. He was stellar and far superior to anyone else yesterday and today. So, we just tried to minimize our losses and come out of here with the best finish we could. Fortunately, we got back up there to second. A few of those cautions helped us and kind of bunched the field back up and got us to where we could make some moves on the restarts and that seemed to be the pivotal turning point to the race on most of these guys. Fun racing the trucks here. It’s certainly entertaining for us behind the wheel. It’s real rough and you’re bouncing all over trying to hold onto it and all of that. Can’t say enough about CocoaVia.com. Another Mars product. Thanks to those guys for stepping up and helping us this weekend. Coming out here putting on a good show for them — and if you guys put out there that fans can go to their website all throughout the whole month of August and use the code ‘Go Kyle’ and get 25 percent off of a product. So, that will be pretty cool to help cardiovascular health and make sure you have healthy blood vessels and everything else.”
What else did you need to have a race-winning truck today? “Needed less drag, more horsepower and better turning capabilities. We knew that on Friday when we practiced we were a little bit off, but the guys did the best they could. We had a great Tundra today. We tried to minimize our losses today and we did that by coming home second. They only gained a few on us. That’s alright, we’ve got a couple more race tracks that are really good for us coming up that we feel like we can win at.”
What happened on the final laps of the race? “We were all over the place just trying to make something out of nothing there. We knew we didn’t have anything there for the 2 (Kevin Harvick) so just making sure that we could at least minimize our losses for the owners points and get back up to second. That was good for us. We didn’t lead a lap so they’ve definitely got some bonus points on us and stuff, but we’ve got some good places coming up for us that we feel like we can run real well at and possibly get a win or two so we’re not worried yet.”
Do you like the character of Pocono Raceway or do you think it needs to be repaved? “I don’t know. That’s a tough question. Too tough for me to call. Certainly for the trucks it needs to be repaved. We’re running on springs so it’s very, very chattery and hard on you. Getting off into turn one if you hit the wrong line it really jars you for a minute. It’s certainly got character and certainly makes it interesting. If they repave it, it will probably make it one lane all around the bottom again. So, it will make it hard to pass and we all wouldn’t want to see that.”
Did the green track change the way you drove during the truck race and will that help you in today’s Cup race? “I don’t think so. With where it was when we first started the day it was pretty green and felt like there was a lot of grip. You could drive the truck a little bit off the corners and it wouldn’t slide as much. Then when you got going more and more the rubber was getting down a little bit and it seemed like mine would kind of slide on exit a little bit more. It’s just kind of a product of this place. You tend to lose a little bit of grip as you put rubber down. That helps tire wear as well as just cut speed back a little bit so you have to have a better handling car. I don’t think my laps here this morning are going to be much more beneficial than anybody else’s. Jeff Gordon has run here 30 times or something, so no need to get too technical.”
TIMOTHY PETERS, No. 17 Red Horse Racing Toyota Tundra, Red Horse Racing Finishing Position: 10th How was your race? “Eventful — that is one good way to look at it. We had a little bit better truck yesterday than what we had today. Just the rain kind of took us for a curve. We got extremely loose with our Tundra. Everybody on this Red Horse Racing Crescent Tundra did a good job all weekend. We’ll take a weekend off and go to Michigan and capitalize on this momentum.”
MAX PAPIS, No. 9 GEICO Toyota Tundra, Germain Racing Finishing Position: 11th How was your race? “We had a really, really good race. We put ourselves in contention to finish in the top-10. Unfortunately, the track really changed on us. We were really, really tight compared to what we were yesterday and that was the reason why we struggled a little bit. I really felt like we put ourselves in a position to finish in the top-five and my Tundra was plenty capable of doing that. Just that we were not so fast in the short runs.”
TODD BODINE, No. 5 International Monaco RV’s Toyota Tundra, Randy Moss Motorsports Finishing Position: 12th Were you happy with your truck today? “We missed the setup. We changed it before the race and we messed it up. It’s my fault, but to spin out and come back and get 12th I can’t complain too much.”
JUSTIN LOFTON, No. 6 Lofton Cattle-Shred TV Toyota Tundra, Germain Racing Finishing Position: 16th
DAVID STARR, No. 81 ASI Limited/Zachry Toyota Tundra, SS Green Light Racing Finishing Position: 18th
MIGUEL PALUDO, No. 7 STEMCO-Duroline Toyota Tundra, Red Horse Racing Finishing Position: 19th
BRENDAN GAUGHAN, No. 62 South Point Hotel and Casino Toyota Tundra, Germain Racing Finishing Position: 22nd
CHAD McCUMBEE, No. 07 Toyota Tundra, SS Green Light Racing Finishing Position: 26th
