Toyota NSCS Bristol Post-Qualifying Notes & Quotes

TOYOTA NASCAR Sprint Cup Series (NSCS)
Post-Qualifying Notes & Quotes
Bristol Motor Speedway – March 15, 2013

1st, KYLE BUSCH                                                     25th, DAVID REUTIMANN
3rd, DENNY HAMLIN                                                   26th, DAVID STREMME
4th, BRIAN VICKERS                                                  36th, MIKE BLISS
9th, MARTIN TRUEX JR.                                               37th, TRAVIS KVAPIL
12th, MATT KENSETH                                                  38th, JOE NEMECHEK
23rd, CLINT BOWYER                                                  39th, BOBBY LABONTE

KYLE BUSCH, No. 18 M&M’s Toyota Camry, Joe Gibbs Racing
Starting Position:  1st
How are you so good at Bristol?
“It’s just kind of gone that way for me.  After a couple of years of getting used to wrecking here, it sort of all fell into place.  I’ve never sat on a pole here at Bristol and qualifying is not everything here.  Most of my wins come from about 30th or worse, but I think we’ve got a plan for tomorrow which is good to get ourselves a little bit better in race trim. Qualifying trim on this M&M’s Camry right now — so far, so good.”

What does it mean to earn your first pole at Bristol?
“Certainly starting up front here at Bristol can mean good things, but it doesn’t always work that way.  I’ve won plenty of races here starting at the back.  To be able to come out here today — this whole Joe Gibbs Racing team has done a great job.  Dave (Rogers, crew chief) and all the guys unloaded with a really good race car.  We just kept fine-tuning on the M&M’s Camry to make it a little bit better and we were able to get to where it was pretty quick in practice.  We thought we would have a shot for the pole, but we thought that many times here before and we’ve ended up 30th or something.  We backed up our practice time, which was good and the car felt great during the lap.  The track is getting a little bit of age on it so it’s getting a little bit rougher and that’s about all that we felt different from what we’ve had here in the past years.”

Does the tire compound keep the cars from going faster?
“I think a lot of it is probably tire.  You could certainly put a softer tire on here and go lights out, but you’d have trouble making it very much longer after.  You get a little bit better tire on it and start pushing lower lap times and then you start getting higher loads and then you’ll probably start seeing some fatigue in parts and stuff like that.  If it was like the old days where guys would go places and try to do speed runs — you would take the lead out and you would build a car as light
as you could for here just to go make a lap.  I bet you could run somewhere in the low 14’s probably — some teens or 20s.”

What happened in practice with David Gilliland and do you expect the high groove to come in on Sunday?
“We pulled out — my spotter kind of cleared me to go out and I might have lollygagged a little bit and the 38 (David Gilliland) caught me and got to my outside.  Then I was just trying to clear him and get away from him, but he kept racing me.  I ended up getting into the corner a little too much with him on my door and got loose and made contact and spun a little bit, which killed the rest of practice for our race run stuff because it hurt the set of tires so we had to start qualifying practice from there.  As far as the race goes, I think we’ll definitely see the top lane come in for sure.  When or how fast, I’m not sure about that exactly.  I think the Nationwide race we’ll see it come in — you’ll start seeing guys work the middle and then working a little bit higher maybe towards the edge of the grind and then throughout the Cup race we saw the grind area really come into play.  As rough as the bottom is getting because they ground the top, they made the top smoother so it might actually make the top better than what we all originally planned or hoped for.”

Did you know the lap was strong enough for the pole?
“There was a lot of guys that got closer to me than I expected them to.  It’s weird because sometimes you can sit on the pole and be like, ‘Man, I just busted my butt and that was a fast lap — nobody is going to beat that.’  Then somebody beats it or somebody else might even beat it and you end up third or fourth and you’re like, ‘Well, I guess it wasn’t that good.’ Then there’s other times where you’re like, ‘Aw man, that was slow, I don’t think that’s going to be like fifth or sixth.’ Then it ends up being the pole.  You never really know.  I’m never a very good judge at any of that stuff so you just wait until the end and find out if you got it or not.”

How is this the first pole at Bristol for you in NSCS?
“We’ve never really worried too much about qualifying runs or anything like that.  This new car — I like driving it because you can drive it a lot more like the old car that we had years ago where you could just abuse it a little bit and try to drive a little bit harder.  The old car was all about being smooth and precise and this one here, you can make a little more speed by trying a little harder.”

Is this a big race for NASCAR and they need this race to be good?
“No, I think that we actually put on a good show last week in Vegas where there was a lot of good racing.  I thought there was good racing throughout the field.  There was times where guys were side-by-side — there was some passing and there was some passing for the lead on the race track even though I was the one getting passed for the lead — that kind of sucked. Other than that, it was a good show.  I don’t think this weekend here in Bristol needs to be a savior at all.  I think we all just need to go out here and put on a good show and enjoy Bristol for what Bristol is and see what happens Sunday.”

Is your opinion of the track different than last August?
“I think we’ll see again what it all has in store for us.  Like I said, there was times in the race where we all weren’t sure that the top lane was going to come in and then as soon as the grind starting taking a little bit of rubber — boom, everybody was up there and it was smoother to run up there than it was some of the other parts of the race track.  It made it to where it actually became the bottom like the way bottom and then the way top — there really wasn’t a middle so we might see some of that again come Sunday.”

DENNY HAMLIN, No. 11 FedEx Freight Toyota Camry, Joe Gibbs Racing
Starting Position:  3rd
How was your qualifying lap?
“Yeah, it was good.  Our car has really had a lot of speed since we got here.  We haven’t been able to really mess it up too bad with any adjustments.  It’s really for us been more about getting our car off the race track, so we’re pretty happy with what we’ve got and where we’re headed so far this weekend.”

Did you like the way the high line worked in the last race?
“During the race it was like it was just a battle for the high line.  The only way really you could — you had to be extremely faster than the guy in front of you or someone had to go try to make a pass and you would just that freight train would — it was almost like a superspeedway-type race like you saw at Daytona.  Somebody would try to make a move low and you just freight train then on the top.  This time around I think it’s going to be different.  The lower line has got more grip than I’ve ever felt here in the past, so I think that — I just said in the hauler I think we’re going to see one of the best races we’ve seen in a long time here because the low line does have a lot of grip and we know everyone is going to start making their way higher just to make their car work, so it’s going to be a good mix of both I believe.”

Will the top lane be used more in the race?
“Yeah, I think it will.  I think today you didn’t see the high line do anything simply because everyone on tires starts on the very bottom and this tire is laying rubber down and it’s giving off marbles, so no one could really had enough time to work the high line in.  You’ve got to sweep really — you’ve got to get within a foot of the marbles to push the marbles up higher to then go higher, so everyone’s car was just stuck.  We were so good today on the bottom.  In the race it will for sure go all the way to the fence.”

Is it nice to put last week behind you?
“It’s good.  To really have everything behind you is obviously a relief and really for my team’s sake we need to focus on running as good as we can and trying to make this Chase, so any distraction is something that you don’t need — especially when the competition is so close you just can’t afford anything that hampers your ability to go win, so this is going to be a step in the right direction for us.”

BRIAN VICKERS, No. 55 RK Motors Toyota Camry, Michael Waltrip Racing
Starting Position:  4th
How was your qualifying lap?
“I’m really proud of the guys — everyone at MWR (Michael Waltrip Racing) gave me a great car.  It’s good to be back in the Sprint Cup Series.  The car was good — it was really good, better than practice.  Rodney (Childers, crew chief) did a great job all weekend.  I was trying to get too much out of the car and we ended up at a .90 or .91 — I think it probably had a mid to low .80 and trying to get a .70 was just too much.”

MARTIN TRUEX JR., No. 56 NAPA Auto Parts Toyota Camry, Michael Waltrip Racing
Starting Position:  9th
Were you pleased with your qualifying lap?
“Only because we weren’t that good in qualifying trim during practice.  We had a really good car in race trim — the NAPA Toyota was awesome.  The last couple times we’ve been here, we’ve always been really good in race trim.  We haven’t qualified better than 15th I think in the last three years.  We’ve really wanted to change that and we were terrible in qualifying trim and practice again and really good in race trim so we were like, ‘Man, what the heck are we doing wrong?’ We changed some things there and it was definitely a lot better than in practice.  We were still a little too tight, but it was a good pickup for us so I’m definitely happy with it.  It will be better than we’ve been lately in qualifying.”

Will this still be a three-groove race?
“With the weather like it is and the same tire as the fall, I expect that we’ll get up top in the race.  I think the high side will come in.  It looked like the second groove was starting to come in during practice.  I think as we get through practice tomorrow it will start moving up and in the race it will end up being up top like it always does.  The progressive banking just lends itself to that.  The slicker it gets, the slower it gets, the more the tires wear out and the more we’re going to start moving up.”

MATT KENSETH, No. 20 Home Depot/Husky Toyota Camry, Joe Gibbs Racing
Starting Position:  12th
How was your qualifying lap?
“It was our worst lap of the day for being in qualifying trim.  Just had a little miscalculation there, but we had a real fast car.  We didn’t have it quite right there for qualifying, but all three cars seem like they had a ton of speed.  Hopefully, we’ll hit it for Sunday.”

Do you expect the top groove to come in for the race?
“Everybody seems to be in the middle to the top as the race goes on, but it’s a new car with a lot less weight.  It might be different — today it’s been on the bottom all day, but I would suspect that everybody will be on the top in the race.”

CLINT BOWYER, No. 15 NAPA Filters Toyota Camry, Michael Waltrip Racing
Starting Position:  23rd

DAVID REUTIMANN, No. 83 Burger King Toyota Camry, BK Racing
Starting Position:  25th

DAVID STREMME, No. 30 Toyota Camry, Swan Racing
Starting Position:  26th

MIKE BLISS, No. 19 G-Oil/Plinker Tactical Toyota Camry, TriStar Motorsports
Starting Position:  36th

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

JOE NEMECHEK, No. 87 MaddiesPlaceRocks.com Toyota Camry, NEMCO Motorsports
Starting Position:  38th

BOBBY LABONTE, No. 47 Bush’s Beans Toyota Camry, JTG-Daugherty Racing
Starting Position:  39th