Toyota NSCS Dover Post-Race Notes & Quotes

[media-credit name=”doverspeedway.com” align=”alignright” width=”100″][/media-credit]TOYOTA NASCAR Sprint Cup Series (NSCS) Post-Race Notes & Quotes Dover International Speedway – June 3, 2012

Camry driver Clint Bowyer (fifth) was the highest-finishing Toyota driver in Sunday’s NASCAR Sprint Cup Series (NSCS) race at Dover International Speedway.

Mayetta, N.J., native Martin Truex Jr. (seventh) and Joey Logano (eighth) also earned top-10 finishes at the one- mile concrete oval.

Mark Martin (14th) earned his third NSCS pole of the season and led the field three times for 43 laps (of 400).

Other Toyota drivers in the field included Denny Hamlin (18th), Bobby Labonte (20th), Travis Kvapil (23rd), Kyle

Busch (29th), David Stremme (33rd), JJ Yeley (34th), Mike Bliss (36th), Landon Cassill (38th) and Joe Nemechek (39th).

Following Dover, four Camry drivers are in the top-10 in the unofficial NSCS driver point standings — Hamlin (fourth), Truex (sixth), Busch (ninth) and Bowyer (10th).

CLINT BOWYER, No. 15 5-hour ENERGY Toyota Camry, Michael Waltrip Racing Finishing Position:  5th What did you think of your finish today at Dover? “It was a good weekend, all in all , for our 5 -hour ENERGY Toyota. That outside line on the restarts at the end kind of cost us a couple spots.  The 29 (Kevin Harvick) got around a bunch of cars right there on the outside and kind of settled in with the top-five there.  Great weekend, good points day, but you want to win when you get that close.  Nobody had anything for the 48 (Jimmie Johnson), but I felt like between (Matt) Kenseth and Junior (Dale Earnhardt Jr.) and even (Jeff) Gordon was probably in a league of his own.  We had a good day.”

How close are you to getting to victory lane? “We just have to keep digging.  We have to keep getting better.  This was a great confidence-booster for our team — a young team together and everything else.  I’m proud of the guys, proud of the progress that we’ve made.  We still have some room to grow.”

How did you recover from the trouble on pit road to get a top-five finish? “We were struggling on pit road, we have been a little bit all year with our 5-hour ENERGY Toyota.  This is a solid weekend.  This is what we needed.  It was a good confidence-booster for a young team.  I think we were a little bit better than a fifth-place car.  On the outside on the restarts really prevailed for the first corner.  Just slipped up and lost a couple spots there and battled back from the tough pit road.  It was a good day for us.”

Are you pleased to be inside the top-10 in points after Dover? “It was a solid weekend for our 5-hour ENERGY Toyota.  I had a tough day on pit road.  I was able to battle back on restarts and get positions back.  It’s just hard to make them up when you lose them.  I’m proud of the guys, proud of the effort.  MWR (Michael Waltrip Racing) had good cars all weekend long. Mark (Martin) sat on the pole and we had a top- five car pretty much all day long.  We’ll go on.”

MARTIN TRUEX JR., No. 56 NAPA Auto Parts Toyota Camry, Michael Waltrip Racing Finishing Position:  7th How was your race at your hometown track? “Oh my goodness — beginning to not like this place so much anymore. It was tough.  Man, we started in the back there 18th.  I say it’s the back, but it’s not that far back, but it was tough back there.  Track position is huge.  We’d get out there by ourselves in clean air and I could run as fast as the leader and the car didn’t drive so bad.  Then, I’d catch the next guy ahead of me and I’d get to him and I’d about crash.  It was just all I could do to hang on today a couple times.  It was just a crazy day.  This place is tough.  You get in traffic and these cars are so sensitive that you just can’t do nothing with them.”

Were you able to get your Camry better later in the race? “I would say probably the second half of the race we were really good on the long runs, as long as we could get some clean race track.  There were times when we were faster than the leader. Not the very last run, but the one before that when I went green for a long time, we had dropped back on the restart to 17th or so and by the end of that really long run I think we were back to seventh or eighth.  The car was good on the long runs.  It’s just tough in traffic.  Chad (Johnston, crew chief) did a good job.  We did a good job in the beginning — we made a lot of changes.  Chad did a good job adjusting on it and hanging in there with me.  I was yelling at him a little bit and it was tough.  It was just one of those long days where you drive your guts out for a top-10.”

MARTIN TRUEX JR., No. 56 NAPA Auto Parts Toyota Camry, Michael Waltrip Racing (continued) Do you enjoy Dover even though it’s a tough place to race? “I like the track, it’s just hard when you’re off a little bit.  If your car is off just a little, it’s a damn handful and it’s all you can do to hang on to it.  There were times today — there was 25, 30 times — that I thought I was wrecking and just got lucky and saved it.”

JOEY LOGANO, No. 20 Home Depot Toyota Camry, Joe Gibbs Racing Finishing Position:  8th How was your race? “It was okay from the get go.  We were free to take off, we were decent.  Just tried to tighten our car up for entry and our exit was too loose on entry/exit all day.  Then we got it pretty good there towards the end and we were up to sixth or seventh.  We were running pretty good.  Was just a little too tight in traffic, really hard to pass and then under caution our motor shut off and I couldn’t get it refired and lost seven spots or so with 50 (laps) to go, so it cost us a lot.  We were able to work our way back up to eighth, which is a good finish considering we had a top-five we could have got.  Just have to look into it and see what happened.”

Would you consider it a good weekend? “Overall, yeah — good weekend overall.  Winning a race and finishing eighth here, I feel like we should have finished even better.  I felt like we could have been a little bit better.  We’ll take it.  It’s a solid finish and a good points day.  We just have to keep doing that all season long.”

MARK MARTIN, No. 55 Aaron’s Dream Machine Toyota Camry, Michael Waltrip Racing Finishing Position:  14th Are you satisfied with the way your Camry ran at Dover? “We did run well.  I’m proud of the effort by the guys.  We had a pretty strong Aaron’s Dream Machine Toyota.  We need race cars like that to be a contender.  We’ll keep working on it. We’re learning these race cars.  I think it’s one of the best performances that we’ve had.  I think we’re making some progress.”

DENNY HAMLIN, No. 11 FedEx Autism Speaks Toyota Camry, Joe Gibbs Racing Finishing Position:  18th

BOBBY LABONTE, No. 47 Scott Products Toyota Camry, JTG-Daugherty Racing Finishing Position:  20th

TRAVIS KVAPIL, No. 93 Burger King Toyota Camry, BK Racing Finishing Position:  23rd

KYLE BUSCH, No. 18 M&M’s Toyota Camry, Joe Gibbs Racing Finishing Position:  29th What happened to bring your Camry into the garage? “Valve spring and then we dropped a valve.  It’s real unfortunate. You know we had good car — we were running up front there.  We were biding our time trying to see if we couldn’t keep up with the race track.  This M&M’s Camry was good, just didn’t have enough for the front couple I don’t think, but a third -place car.  I hate it that we give a post-race interview this way rather than finishing.”

What made you bring your Camry to the garage? “Just catastrophic engine failure.  Unfortunately, they had a valve spring break and then dropped the valve which hit  the pistons.  All kinds of things went wrong.  I just hate it for these guys, they’ve worked so hard.  We had some really good runs going as of late, finishing in the top-five.  I hate it that we give an early post-race interview this way rather than somewhere in the top-five.”

DAVID STREMME, No. 30 Inception Motorsports Toyota Camry, Inception Motorsports Finishing Position:  33rd

JJ YELEY, No. 49 JPO Absorbents Toyota Camry, America Israel Racing Finishing Position:  34th

MIKE BLISS, No. 19 Humphrey Smith Racing LLC Toyota Camry, Humphrey Smith Racing Finishing Position:  36th

LANDON CASSILL, No. 83 Burger King Toyota Camry, BK Racing Finishing Position:  38th What happened on the race track and did Tony Stewart make contact with your Camry? “I actually didn’t even feel him (Tony Stewart) touch me.  I don’t know if he did.  Tony is one of the most patient drivers and especially in this part of the race.  I was just passed by the 1 (Jamie McMurray) and I was trying to dive in the corner a little bit more.  He was just barely there.  If he got me, if he even touched me or if he didn’t, when there’s a car there it gets you real loose and I was already loose.  Tony is a super patient driver — he’s one of the best.  It’s just too bad that it tore up that many race cars.  I really hate it for my guys and all the other teams out here.  We have a long month of June ahead of us.  We’ll just keep working hard and we had a great run last week at Charlotte with the Burger King Toyota.  We’ll keep working towards Pocono and Michigan.”

JOE NEMECHEK, No. 87 AM/FM Energy Wood & Pellet Stoves Toyota Camry, NEMCO Motorsports Finishing Position:  39th