Toyota NSCS Charlotte All-Star & Showdown Post-Race Notes & Quotes

[media-credit name=”charlottemotorspeedway.com” align=”alignright” width=”199″][/media-credit]TOYOTA NASCAR Sprint Cup Series (NSCS) Sprint All-Star & Showdown Post-Race Notes & Quotes Charlotte Motor Speedway – May 19, 2012

Camry driver Kyle Busch (fourth) was the highest-finishing Toyota driver in Saturday night’s All-Star NASCAR Sprint Cup Series (NSCS) race at Charlotte Motor Speedway.

Clint Bowyer (14th), Bobby Labonte (19th), Denny Hamlin (20th) and Mark Martin (21st) also competed in tonight’s non- points race at the 1.5-mile oval. Labonte earned his spot in the All-Star race by winning the Sprint fan vote — which was held online. Busch started from the pole in tonight’s All-Star race — his third pole in the 100-lap special event.

Sprint All-Star Results

KYLE BUSCH, No. 18 M&M’s Toyota Camry, Joe Gibbs Racing Finishing Position:  4th Were you surprised with the race ending? “Nope — it went exactly like everybody thought it would.  Anybody who wins the first segment will win the race.  We were just a little bit off.  Unfortunately, we just didn’t quite have what we all needed for tonight with the M&M’s car.  I hate it — I thought we were really good in practice.  I guess just little minute subtle changes change these things so much and we just were off a little bit.  Hate it for the guys — they worked really hard.  We wanted to win this thing.  Just got out run.”

Was there anything you could have done differently? “About the only thing we could have done was stayed out between the first and second segments and seen if we could have won the second segment.  I think that was about our only chance.  I was just so loose right there.  Just really hanging on getting into the corners and I just couldn’t finish the throttle coming off the corners the way Jimmie (Johnson) was — that’s why he was able to beat me in the first segment.  I was out there a ways and he just ran me down and blew by us and took off.  There was a straightaway from first to third.  That just shows you how far out we were.”

Did you learn anything from the race to use in next Sunday’s race? “Just what not to do — setup stuff mainly.”

CLINT BOWYER, No.  15 5-hour Energy Toyota Camry, Michael Waltrip Racing Finishing Position:  14th How was your race? “Really, when it comes down to it , at the end of the Sprint All -Star Race you only have to ask yourself one question, ‘Did I win a one million dollars?’  Tonight we didn’t and that’s really all that matters.  Our 5-hour ENERGY Toyota was good at times, but it was pretty inconsistent.  We had good pit stops. Hopefully, we learned a little something for the 600 -mile race next Sunday.”

BOBBY LABONTE, No. 47 Kingsford Toyota Camry, JTG-Daugherty Racing Finishing Position:  19th

DENNY HAMLIN, No. 11 FedEx Office Toyota Camry, Joe Gibbs Racing Finishing Position:  20th

MARK MARTIN, No. 55 Aaron’s Dream Machine Toyota Camry, Michael Waltrip Racing Finishing Position:  21st How was your race? “That was tough.  It was just so hard to pass tonight and new tires didn’t make enough of a difference to get up front.  We were about 10th, but on the 10-lap run we had something wrong with the car.  I don’t know if we had a broken wheel or not. We’ll have to figure out what happened and be ready for next weekend.”

Sprint Showdown Results

MARTIN TRUEX JR., No. 56 NAPA Auto Parts Toyota Camry, Michael Waltrip Racing Finishing Position:  4th

JOEY LOGANO, No. 20 Home Depot Toyota Camry, Joe Gibbs Racing Finishing Position:  6th

LANDON CASSILL, No. 83 Burger King Toyota Camry, BK Racing Finishing Position:  9th

TRAVIS KVAPIL, No. 93 Burger King Toyota Camry, BK Racing Finishing Position:  10th

BOBBY LABONTE, No. 47 Kingsford Toyota Camry, JTG-Daugherty Racing Finishing Position:  12th What does it mean to get the Sprint fan vote into the All-Star race? “Well, I obviously got to thank Sprint and all the fans.  That’s awesome.  That’s probably the only word I can really use that sums it up.  To have that happen is obviously great — just hoping that we can excel in the big race.  Everybody on our team’s really done a good job this weekend to get our car here.  Actually, the story is two weeks ago we weren’t even going to show up here because this is not in our budget to run this race.  Guys stepped up, so we got this far.  Hopefully we can just keep going.   Again, just thank the fans for doing that.  That’s really a great deal.”

MIKE BLISS, No. 19 Toyota Camry, Humphrey Smith Racing Finishing Position:  16th

JOE NEMECHEK, No. 87 AM/FM Energy Wood & Pellet Stoves Toyota Camry, NEMCO Motorsports Finishing Position:  17th

DAVID STREMME, No. 30 Inception Motorsports Toyota Camry, Inception Motorsports Finishing Position:  18th

JJ YELEY, No. 49 JPO Absorbents Toyota Camry, America Israel Racing Finishing Position:  22nd