Toyota NSCS Pocono Post Qualifying Notes & Quotes

[media-credit name=”poconoraceway.com” align=”alignright” width=”207″][/media-credit]TOYOTA NASCAR Sprint Cup Series (NSCS) Post-Qualifying Notes & Quotes Pocono Raceway – June 9, 2012

1st, JOEY LOGANO 27th, BOBBY LABONTE 4th, KYLE BUSCH 28th, MIKE BLISS 5th, DENNY HAMLIN 32nd, JJ YELEY 6th, MARK MARTIN 33rd, JOE NEMECHEK 15th, LANDON CASSILL 37th, TRAVIS KVAPIL 16th, CLINT BOWYER 41st, DAVID STREMME 23rd, MARTIN TRUEX JR.

JOEY LOGANO, No. 20 Home Depot Toyota Camry, Joe Gibbs Racing Starting Position:  1st How does it feel to get the pole? “We had a great car.  Jason’s (Ratcliff, crew chief) done a great job with this thing — all week being here.  It’s cool to get a pole here — get a new track record here too.  So, that’s really neat.  Hopefully, it holds up for a while.  Man, I felt like I left a little bit out there too.  I’m excited to start this thing and hopefully bring home a big ‘W.”‘

What was the ‘issue’ with the track during qualifying? “The track was really dirty and you saw the first few cars go out in turn one and one of the ARCA cars must have blown up in the practice.  They just couldn’t get the track clean enough.  I went down into (turn) one and barreled in there and got loose and went up the race track, so I feel like I left a couple tenths (of a second) out there.  We purposely wanted to go out pretty early, because it was just going to keep getting hotter throughout the day, but it’s so overcast I don’t think with the rain and wind it kind of didn’t go as planned.  Either way, we have a really fast car that is capable of winning this thing — just got to be smart with it.”

Are you surprised how fast you were on a dirty track? “Yeah.  It’s also a lot cooler out — so you expect to be a little bit faster and I think it would have been even faster if it wouldn’t have been for that stuff.”

KYLE BUSCH, No. 18 M&M’s Toyota Camry, Joe Gibbs Racing Starting Position:  4th How was your qualifying lap? “Missed just a little bit.  You’re kind of tentative going out there knowing everybody has been a little bit slick, but a couple of guys started to back up their times from practice.  We backed up our time from practice too.  But just a little bit off in qualifying trim for some reason — just not being to get all the speed we need out of it.  Solid lap.”

How do you feel about tomorrow’s race? “I think we’re pretty good for the race.  It’s just a matter of how well you can work traffic and how much these cars going through the corners the aero-affects are going to upset them.”

DENNY HAMLIN, No. 11 FedEx Express Toyota Camry, Joe Gibbs Racing Starting Position:  5th How was your qualifying run? “We were on pace for the pole and just got loose in turn three and lost a bunch of time.  I wanted to get below 50 seconds. We have a great car for tomorrow and should be up front throughout the day.  Hopefully, we can get the first win at Pocono on the new pavement.”

MARK MARTIN, No. 55 Aaron’s Dream Machine Toyota Camry, Michael Waltrip Racing Starting Position:  6th Was that a fun qualifying lap? “It’s fun.  I’m still shaking, but it’s fun.  I really love driving for these guys and just having a good time with these guys.  I feel good about our race car and we missed it a little bit there, but I’m sure everybody else did too a little bit.  Conditions were a little different than what we anticipated.  Feel real good about our race setup, so we’ll see what we can do tomorrow.”

LANDON CASSILL, No. 83 Burger King Toyota Camry, BK Racing Starting Position:  15th What did you say to your crew chief Doug Richert after qualifying? “I can’t tell you yet.  No, we were just trying to anticipate what the track was doing, but I don’t want to do any touchdown dances yet.  This Burger King Toyota was really good yesterday and was really proud of what we did in the second session in qualifying trim.  We’ll just see where it shakes out.  Either way I’m really proud of my guys for working hard in the five days that we’ve been here.  They’ve done an amazing job.”

CLINT BOWYER, No. 15 5-hour ENERGY Toyota Camry, Michael Waltrip Racing Starting Position:  16th

MARTIN TRUEX JR., No. 56 NAPA Auto Parts Toyota Camry, Michael Waltrip Racing Starting Position:  23rd How are things going without crew chief Chad Johnston here this weekend? “It’s been interesting.  It’s been a good couple days.  The guys have all done a good job of stepping up and making things happen.  So, they’ve been in constant communication with computers and all that.  But, it’s never the same when they’re not here.  You can’t see exactly what’s going on and kind of feel things out.  He’s done a good job of getting everybody prepared and everybody is doing a nice job.  Looking forward to having a good starting spot for tomorrow — it’s going to be real important.”

BOBBY LABONTE, No. 47 Bubba Burgers Toyota Camry, JTG-Daugherty Racing Starting Position:  27th

MIKE BLISS, No. 19 Humphrey Smith Racing LLC Toyota Camry, Humphrey Smith Racing Starting Position:  28th

JJ YELEY, No. 49 JPO Absorbents Toyota Camry, America Israel Racing Starting Position:  32nd

JOE NEMECHEK, No. 87 AM/FM Energy Wood & Pellet Stoves Toyota Camry, NEMCO Motorsports Starting Position:  33rd

TRAVIS KVAPIL, No. 93 Burger King Toyota Camry, BK Racing Starting Position:  37th

DAVID STREMME, No. 30 Inception Motorsports Camry, Inception Motorsports Starting Position:  41st