1st, DAVID REUTIMANN 12th, KASEY KAHNE 13th, KYLE BUSCH 16th, JOEY LOGANO 24th, BRIAN VICKERS 28th, DENNY HAMLIN 29th, MARTIN TRUEX JR. 30th, CASEY MEARS 31st, MICHAEL MCDOWELL 32nd, BOBBY LABONTE 39th, JOE NEMECHEK
DAVID REUTIMANN, No. 00 Aaron’s Dream Machine Toyota Camry, Michael Waltrip Racing Starting Position: 1st How does it feel to be sitting on the pole for Saturday’s race? “It feels great. This is our first pole here and the first pole in a while for the Aaron’s Dream Machine. We’ve went from getting a couple a year to it being a little while. It’s been a dry spell for us so it feels good. I’ve got to thank everybody at Aaron’s for sticking with us here. Things haven’t gone quite the way we wanted them to this year, but we’re working hard to get things turned around and I think what you’re seeing is a direct result of some of the stuff that we’re doing different.”
How much does this pole mean to your team? “It’s great to get that in the Aaron’s Dream Machine and the guys have been really, really working hard. It’s no secret that we haven’t had the season we wanted to have, so this definitely starts the weekend off right anyway and gives us obviously good starting position and great pit selection. Hopefully, we’ll have the Aaron’s Dream Machine up front and keep it up front and that’s the name of the game. I’m really proud of my guys — Rodney Childers (crew chief), everybody that works on this thing, Toyota, Toyota Racing Development. Good horsepower today, so we’ll see where we end up tomorrow.”
How was your qualifying run? “We did have a pretty good Aaron’s Dream Machine in qualifying trim, so I felt like we were going to be okay. The track getting cooler always helps, but that’s why you go out there and try to post a lap early and try to get a good starting position. Not a lot has gone good for us this year, so hopefully this gives us a good start for the weekend and I’ve got to mention that the Aaron’s Freedom Ride, these guys rode their bikes over 1,000 miles ending up in New York tomorrow to raise awareness for all the stuff that happened on 9-11. We support them. Over 1,000 miles on a bike, that’s a lot of ground to cover and they’re going to be in New York tomorrow, so that’s pretty cool.”
Is it an advantage to run the race without having to worry about the Chase? “I guess you could look at it as being an advantage, but obviously we didn’t do what we set out to do this year so that’s a huge disappointment. Now, your only choice to turn your season around is to go and just get wins and get top-five finishes because that is the only thing that’s going to make a difference at this point. You’re not going to be in the Chase and you’re not going to win the championship so the only thing that could make your season feel a little bit better is go out and get a couple of wins and carry yourself through the off-season so you can come back a little bit stronger.”
Is your team already focused on working toward 2012? “Yeah, the thing about it is you follow us well enough to know that it seems to never stop anymore. Everything changes so much and it’s constantly evolving. The car that you came here with earlier in the year is probably going to be completely different than the car you come back with just because things change so much. So, it’s not a situation where you write off any point of the year because you can’t. I think the answer to your question is, our stuff constantly evolves and we have new hybrids and new different things coming out almost every other week in different situations. Not always huge things, but different things we’re trying. Some stuff works and some stuff doesn’t, but then hopefully you can apply that to the end of the year and use it to help you a little bit to start your year next year because it’s just going to change all year next year too.”
How do you approach this race since you don’t have a chance to get into the Chase? “No different than any other race. You just go out there and you try to outrun them and hopefully you don’t want to mess with anybody’s day, but I’m out for me, man. You’ve got a job to do so we need to go and do it. Just race everybody with respect which is something I’ve tried to do all year long and just try to outrun the guys we need to outrun, which is everybody in our situation.”
What are your memories of 9/11? “At that point, I didn’t even have a ride in any series for that matter. I was racing dirt cars and pavement cars at a local level and I was actually with Joe Nemechek — Brian Pattie was his crew chief at the time. I was with Joe Nemechek at a test back when there was some open testing and you could test. I wasn’t driving anything. I was just there helping. We were just unloading the cars and stuff like that when the news came through and man, it was obviously — everybody remembers what they were doing that day, but I actually happened to be at a race track for a test that particular day.”
KASEY KAHNE, No. 4 Red Bull Toyota Camry, Red Bull Racing Team Starting Position: 12th How is your car handling this weekend? “We’ve had to make a lot of changes and things to make it close because it was way different than the first race here. Everything we did there hasn’t worked here at all so we just basically guessed on qualifying there and ended up alright. We easily could’ve been a lot faster than that.”
KYLE BUSCH, No. 18 M&M’s Toyota Camry, Joe Gibbs Racing Starting Position: 13th How was your qualifying lap? “The lap wasn’t bad. Just a little off what we wanted. It seemed like the entry was kind of particular in how you got in the corner but other than that it’s a really good car. The ‘Stars and Stripes’ scheme, we’re really looking forward to that and to running it in the race obviously. We feel like we’ve got a really good race car. We’ll take it.”
JOEY LOGANO, No. 20 Home Depot/Celebration of Service Toyota Camry, Joe Gibbs Racing Starting Position: 16th Are you happy with your race car? “I think it’s pretty good. I think it’s pretty good in race trim. I don’t think we turn enough RPM. I’m not sure anybody turns quite good enough, but I feel like we need a little bit more speed here. I think when the track turns and the sun goes down and it gets dark it will get a little bit tighter in the race. I feel like we were kind of on edge there. We don’t have a whole bunch of adjustments until the race starts. I felt like we could’ve gone a lot faster on that lap. I just got loose a couple times off the corners.”
BRIAN VICKERS, No. 83 Red Bull Toyota Camry, Red Bull Racing Team Starting Position: 24th How was your qualifying lap? “It was okay. I wanted it to be better of course, but we were significantly better than where we were in practice. I’m really happy with the car in race trim and I think we will run pretty good.”
DENNY HAMLIN, No. 11 FedEx Express Toyota Camry, Joe Gibbs Racing Starting Position: 28th
MARTIN TRUEX JR., No. 56 NAPA Brakes Toyota Camry, Michael Waltrip Racing Starting Position: 29th
CASEY MEARS, No. 13 GEICO Toyota Camry, Germain Racing Starting Position: 30th
MICHAEL MCDOWELL, No. 66 HP RACING Toyota Camry, Gunselman Motorsports Starting Position: 31st
BOBBY LABONTE, No. 47 Scott Brand Toyota Camry, JTG-Daugherty Racing Starting Position: 32nd
JOE NEMECHEK, No. 87 AM FM Energy Toyota Camry, NEMCO Motorsports Starting Position: 39th
