TOYOTA NASCAR Sprint Cup Series (NSCS)
Post-Qualifying Notes & Quotes
Dover International Speedway – September 27, 2013
2nd, MATT KENSETH 23rd, CLINT BOWYER
10th, MARTIN TRUEX JR. 30th, TRAVIS KVAPIL
14th, KYLE BUSCH 33rd, COLE WHITT
17th, AJ ALLMENDINGER 39th, DAVID REUTIMANN
18th, DENNY HAMLIN 41st, JOE NEMECHEK
22nd, BRIAN VICKERS
MATT KENSETH, No. 20 Home Depot “Let’s Do This” Toyota Camry, Joe Gibbs Racing
Starting Position: 2nd
How was your qualifying lap?
“Man, this Home Depot ‘Let’s Do This’ Camry has been really fast all day. Has had a lot of speed, been a lot of fun to drive. You feel like, especially with me driving the car, we don’t get that many chances at the pole so I hate that we missed it by that little bit. I probably steered Jason (Ratcliff, crew chief) wrong a little bit and warmed up a little and just got too free. Anyway, excited about my car. Congratulations to Dale (Earnhardt) Jr. for sitting on the pole. Looking forward to getting her tuned in tomorrow for race trim.”
Can you put in perspective the momentum the two Chase wins gives your team?
“I really can’t because it’s still difficult for me to believe we won last week and really the week before to be honest with you. It’s just been unreal. Really it’s just one week at a time. There’s so much racing left to do. Eight weeks is a ton of racing. There’s a lot of things that can happen here in the next couple months, so we’re just going to take it one week at a time. I’m excited about the car that everybody at JGR (Joe Gibbs Racing) built me and these guys prepared and brought to the track today. It seems to have obviously a lot of speed. It seems to drive pretty good, so I’m excited to get on track tomorrow and try to get her dialed in and go racing on Sunday.”
When is the last time you were on a roll like this?
“I don’t think I’ve ever been on one exactly like this. I’ve been enjoying it. You never know when it’s going to end. Hopefully we can keep it going.”
MARTIN TRUEX JR., No. 56 NAPA Shocks Toyota Camry, Michael Waltrip Racing
Starting Position: 10th
Did the cloud cover impact your lap?
“I’m not sure. Obviously, the conditions are a lot different than this morning in practice and three hours of Nationwide practice I would say is probably the biggest change. I think it changed the track. It’s obvious they got a lot more rubber on it. We just missed the balance a little bit there, so we’ve had a great car all day. The guys did a super job in practice. I really felt like we had a shot at the pole here. With all that rubber out there, it was a little bit different than we expected so missed a little bit. All in all, still a good lap for us.”
What do you plan to work on tomorrow?
“Tomorrow’s the typical things here. You’ve got to be good on the long run. You’ve got to be good at taking off though as well. It’s trying to find that balance of short run speed, long run speed and typically that’s a product of good balance. If you car’s turning well and you can keep the rear underneath it, you can typically be pretty good here. So, that’s what we’re working on and we’ll see where we can get.”
Are you getting a new cast on your wrist each week?
“Yeah, just kind of beat it up and sweat and it just gets nasty. Basically, every single weekend I’ve broke it right in here where it’s thinnest just from squeezing the wheel and driving the race, so it just kind of gets nasty here and it starts to break, so I got a new one. But I don’t like this one as much as the rest of them, so I’m not sure what I’m going to do about that yet. It’s a little bit thicker and it’s kind of annoying right now.”
Is your wrist healing?
“Yeah, we started to see this week it looked a little bit better, so that was good news. He’s pretty — the doctor was pretty certain we won’t need surgery now, which is a great — great news after all the bad news I’ve gotten here lately. So, hopefully we’ll keep a cast on it obviously until it heals completely and then I’ll probably wear some sort of brace at least in the race car for the remainder of the year just to make sure everything’s good just because my wrist will be weak when I first get the cast off. Right now when I get my cast switched out each week, it’s like my wrist is really stiff. It doesn’t have a lot of mobility already, so it will take me a few weeks to get that back to 100 percent so we’ll probably have some sort of brace for the last few races at least.”
KYLE BUSCH, No. 18 Interstate Batteries Toyota Camry, Joe Gibbs Racing
Starting Position: 14th
How was your qualifying effort?
“We were hoping for a little bit better lap there with our Interstate Batteries Camry. The car was just a little too loose. We can still see the front from there and I felt like our car was pretty good in race trim off the truck earlier today in practice. We have two more practices tomorrow to get our stuff where we want it. We’ll just keep working on it and try to learn what we can tomorrow to help us on Sunday.”
AJ ALLMENDINGER, No. 47 House-Autry Toyota Camry, JTG-Daugherty Racing
Starting Position: 17th
DENNY HAMLIN, No. 11 FedEx Freight Toyota Camry, Joe Gibbs Racing
Starting Position: 18th
BRIAN VICKERS, No. 55 Aaron’s Dream Machine Toyota Camry, Michael Waltrip Racing
Starting Position: 22nd
How was your qualifying lap?
“It was decent. I feel like I probably got a little loose coming to the green which surprised me because the remainder of the time we were probably a little too tight to the gas just kind of waiting on the front tires a little bit but got most of it the second lap and really got all of it the first lap other than just coming to the green.”
Is this a fun track to race at?
“It is. It really is. I’ve always enjoyed Dover, especially from a driver’s perspective, for a lot of reasons. You get to really hustle the car, you get to drive hard, you get to move around in the race. As the track rubbers up you really get a lot of line options which I think matters. The bottom is still typically the fastest, but as the track rubbers up you definitely get opportunities to move around.”
Can you learn something from the NNS race that you can use in Sunday’s NSCS race?
“Yeah, of course. I think a lot of it is probably from my perspective just finding a little bit of a line. Kind of avoiding the rubbers, see where the track goes in the long run as it rubbers up but it could change. The cars are different.”
CLINT BOWYER, No. 15 Raspberry 5-hour ENERGY Toyota Camry, Michael Waltrip Racing
Starting Position: 23rd
How tough is qualifying at Dover?
“It’s right up there with the hardest ones. You just have one lap. I think the first lap is going to be your money lap. Some of these may make that a little bit different, but you’ve got to hit your marks. This is the one track you really have to attack and be aggressive with everything. You’ve got to jerk on that wheel in the center of the corner and sometimes she wants to participate and sometimes she doesn’t.”
TRAVIS KVAPIL, No. 93 Burger King/Dr. Pepper Toyota Camry, BK Racing
Starting Position: 30th
COLE WHITT, No. 30 Swan Energy Toyota Camry, Swan Racing
Starting Position: 33rd
DAVID REUTIMANN, No. 83 Burger King/Dr. Pepper Toyota Camry, BK Racing
Starting Position: 39th
JOE NEMECHEK, No. 87 Toyota Camry, NEMCO Motorsports
Starting Position: 41st
