TOYOTA NASCAR Sprint Cup Series (NSCS)
Martin Truex Jr. — Notes & Quotes
Texas Motor Speedway – April 11, 2013
MARTIN TRUEX JR., No. 56 NAPA Auto Parts Toyota Camry, Michael Waltrip Racing
How was today’s first practice session?
“I thought so far, it’s been a good day. We’ve had good speed with our NAPA Toyota. Been looking forward to coming here all week. Always enjoy coming to Texas. We’ve had some good runs here over the years. Certainly last year this was one of our better race tracks. Looking forward to the rest of the weekend. The car’s got good speed so far. It’s driving really good. We’re doing a little bit of testing — trying some things. The new car is definitely different here. We’re still learning a lot about the car, especially on these bigger mile-and-a-half tracks with the aero package and things. So far it’s been a good test. We’ve tried a lot of things. We’ve learned quite a bit already this morning and things are going well.”
Has the 2013 car contributed to making the races more entertaining?
“Well, obviously that’s been the biggest change from last year and the races seem to be causing some excitement — that’s a good thing. The car’s definitely been different than we expected at some places and they put on a good race at the big tracks where we thought passing was going to be more difficult than we had last year. So far so good and hopefully it will be more of the same this weekend.”
How much of the car is the same as what was utilized in Las Vegas?
“That’s a good question. Obviously, the cars are evolving. Things are different. We worked very hard on our cars even since California. I think set-up wise — I don’t think they’ll be a lot different. I think guys will — we certainly worked a lot on the aero package and body stuff and trying to find more downforce, and more sideforce and things that pretty much guys are always working on. Set-up wise, I don’t think we’re too awful different than we were at Vegas and we had a pretty good run there. Just try to continue to make the race cars better. If you come to the track with a car with more downforce and more sideforce usually they go faster without changing the setup in them.”
Do you expect the speeds to increase as we go through the race weekend?
“I would say probably slow down. Normally when we come here — the more you run the slower it gets. That would be pretty normal for a race weekend. I honestly don’t even know what we ran here last year time-wise, so I’m not sure how today compares. It didn’t feel out of the ordinary to me here. Normally you’re on the gas a long time here and that’s kind of the way it felt here. Definitely had a lot of grip to start off with I felt like with the tire and the aero package we have.”
