1st, MATT KENSETH
3rd, CARL EDWARDS
5th, DENNY HAMLIN
7th, DAVID RAGAN
17th, KYLE BUSCH
24th, CLINT BOWYER
41st, JJ YELEY
42nd, MATT DiBENEDETTO
DNQ, JEB BURTON
MATT KENSETH, No. 20 DeWalt Toyota Camry, Joe Gibbs Racing
Starting Position: 1st
How do you feel after that qualifying effort?
“Happy – the DeWalt guys did a great job on our Camry today. They made some great adjustments and they worked hard on it the last couple weeks to get it ready to come here. I feel like we’re gaining on it. I thought we had good speed today. Jason (Ratcliff, crew chief) had a plan and they all executed it well. Just try to get a good lap today and then try to get it driving good Saturday.”
What did Joe Gibbs say to you following qualifying?
“He (Joe Gibbs, team owner) was just happy all our cars qualified really well. Obviously, last year was a little bit of a down year and feel like we’ve all been getting better this year. It’s nice to see the cars had some speed. Of course Denny (Hamlin) won everything last weekend so we’re hoping we can carry that momentum and keep all four cars up front.”
How strong was the car in qualifying?
“That was a good lap for us – all three laps were pretty good. The second run we missed the balance a little and Jason (Ratcliff, crew chief) did a good job adjusting it for that last lap. We thought we knew what the track did last time we were here and missed it a little bit. We made the right adjustments and had it good enough there for the pole.”
Did you feel you had plenty of speed in the car?
“You like to have speed in your cars – if you have cars driving good and they’re slow then you’re probably not going to win with them. Your goal is to always have a lot of speed and get them driving good. Today we had speed, the car reacted pretty good to change and hopefully we’ll get it driving good on Saturday for good race trim balance for Sunday.”
How important is it to start up front for this race?
“I guess you can look at that two different ways – it’s the longest race on the circuit so you have the most time to get to the front. I think starting in front is important. The track typically always goes through changes here, especially if the sun is out from the beginning of the race to the end of the race. You want to have good track position, good pit selection and all those things. If you do get a little off and you’re chasing the setup a little with the track changing, you have a little bit of buffer being toward the front hopefully. Track position is always important, you always want to start as far forward as you can. Excited we’re on the pole, excited that all the Joe Gibbs Racing Toyotas had some speed tonight that was encouraging. We’ll get to work Saturday and try to get a good race balance.”
Are you looking for the same result from starting on the pole in Bristol?
“I hope so. They asked me before qualifying if I thought I had a shot at the pole and I was like, I don’t know. I’ve only won 13 poles in I don’t know how many seasons I’ve raced, but I know it’s more than 13 so I said that I thought we already hit our quota for the year from Bristol. I wasn’t really expecting to get another one. We doubled up.”
Do you see improvement in the Joe Gibbs Racing Camrys on the intermediate tracks?
“I feel like we were off and on. I felt like we’ve been gaining on it for sure. I feel like we’re a lot better than we were last year. We’ve been trying to get some better cars built and always trying to get better setups. TRD (Toyota Racing Development) has been doing a great job of getting us more power. I feel like we’ve been gaining on it. Certainly, we all had good speed today. Denny (Hamlin) cleaned up last weekend and our cars all ran pretty decent. Certainly that’s really encouraging. I think we had three cars in the top-five. You still have to get it driving good Saturday and you still have to be able to be there for 600 miles and do all those things, but it’s nice to have the speed. When you come to the race track and you’re just off on speed every time you look at the speed chart you’re in the high teens, low 20s then you know that things are going to have to go pretty spectacular to have a shot at a win. It’s nice to have the speed and know that it’s there if you do the rest of the things right that you can have a shot at winning.”
Do you put more effort into qualifying now with track position so important?
“It’s been a little better lately because I think my first 10 years I probably only had four or something so the average has been coming up. Certainly I think that track position is probably at a bigger premium than it’s ever been. Through the years, you can look up and down the scoring sheet and see how close all the cars are in speed and the closer they are in speed, the harder its going to be to pass somebody. Back when I started, we worked hard on qualifying, but we worked way harder on the race because even if we started 20th we knew if we had a really good car we could drive up to the front and after a couple pit stops we’d be up in the top few. That’s not necessarily the case today. You can start in the middle and you can be stuck in the middle all day sometimes. It’s hard to make ground. I think qualifying is definitely more important and when you’re actually qualifying, you’re always putting 100 percent effort in, but we probably put more effort in as far as dedicating more practice time for qualifying and things like that because it seems that it has become more important.”
Is track position more important at Charlotte than other intermediate tracks?
“I don’t know that it’s really that much worse necessarily than other places or way better or any of that stuff. I think that in general when you qualify in the middle and get stuck there all day, I can’t remember which track it was anymore, but I guess it was Texas and usually Texas is one of the best tracks to pass and I didn’t have a very good handling race car, but I was kind of stuck in the teens and I ran there all day long and just couldn’t really go anywhere. I really do feel like yes track position is going to be important, but the All-Star race everybody has four tires, it’s 10 laps and that’s probably going to be quite different than what you have at the end of the 600. People have been driving for four hours and cars that have been out there for four hours and some people are going to drop out. Things are just going to be different. I don’t know that I would put too much stock in that, certainly it’s always at a premium to pass and you have to have your car handling better than a fair amount of other ones to pass them for sure.”
Does starting on the pole change your strategy for the race?
“No, not really. Strategy is a little different question. It doesn’t change our approach as far as setup and how we want the car to drive and that kind of stuff no matter where we start. If there was a magic setup that I could put in that would make me pass cars way better, I would run it whether I was leading or behind people. That part is not any different, but strategy maybe. It depends on how cautions fly and that type of thing. If you’re in the top-five or seven cars and you can run there most of the day then your strategy is going to be a little different than if you’re stuck in the middle and you get a short caution then maybe you’ll gain on tires and try to get some of that track position and hold on. If you’re the front guys, typically you watch them and they get four and even if they lose two or three spots, they’ll typically get them back because they’re close enough to the front.”
How special is Charlotte for you considering you won your first NSCS race at the speedway?
“It’s crazy that it’s been that long. For a lot of us it’s been a special race track. For me, it certainly has been. I made my first XFINITY Series start here, first test I ever did in a big car was here and won my first Cup race here. I’ve had some good races here and had a lot of great memories. The 600 has always been my favorite event or favorite race on the circuit in a way just because it’s always been so challenging. Things have certainly changed over the years, but it’s always been challenging to run 600 miles and be decent in the beginning and be really good at the end when you need to be. I’ve always looked forward to this race and I always like racing at this race track.”
CARL EDWARDS, No. 19 Subway Toyota Camry, Joe Gibbs Racing
Starting Position: 3rd
How was the car in qualifying?
“That was good – that’s a good day and we have some fast race cars. I’m really excited about racing. Now we’ve got no pressure and we can just have a little bit of fun. We can work on the balance and get ready for the race. We have a good pit stall and this is just good.”
What does it mean to see the speed Denny Hamlin showed Saturday night and now having Matt Kenseth on the pole?
“It’s huge – I’m in good company right now. I’m really enjoying that.”
DENNY HAMLIN, No. 11 FedEx Office Toyota Camry, Joe Gibbs Racing
Starting Position: 5th
DAVID RAGAN, No. 55 Aaron’s Dream Machine Toyota Camry, Michael Waltrip Racing
Starting Position: 7th
Are you happy with qualifying?
“You know I am happy. If you would have told me this morning we would have known we were going to qualify in the top-10 this morning, I would have been pleased. Our Aaron’s Dream Machine had some really good speed and we were really fast all day in practice and our team made some great adjustments for qualifying here. The track has cooled off a lot and it’s windy and cloudy and we just missed it a little bit that last round. Some of that is just experience, we have to build a notebook together and be in the final round at some of these mile-and-a-halves to get the scenarios played out and make the proper adjustments. I’m real proud of our qualifying effort. To have a top-10 spot to start 600 miles is a good day.”
What are your thoughts about the 600?
“The Coca-Cola 600 is mentally and physically a tough race for a driver. It’s tough on our pit crew and tough on the team for making the calls. I’m excited to have a good jump to the weekend. Our pit crew is really going to help us out on Sunday – they are one of the best on pit road and we’re going to have 10-12 pit stops on Sunday so I’m looking forward to leaning on them a little bit. We’re going to go out and race and have some fun.”
KYLE BUSCH, No. 18 Skittles Camry Toyota Camry, Joe Gibbs Racing
Starting Position: 17th
How was the car in qualifying?
“The Skittles Camry was okay – I would have thought we were better than that. Just a tick off on speed and balance was off the first segment and then the second segment, the first run it was way too tight. We adjusted on it and I felt like we made a really good change. The car drove good, it just didn’t pick up any speed. Kind of just stayed the same.”
CLINT BOWYER, No. 15 Cherry 5-hour ENERGY Toyota Camry, Michael Waltrip Racing
Starting Position: 24th
JJ YELEY, No. 23 Hope for the Warriors Toyota Camry, BK Racing
Starting Position: 41st
MATT DIBENEDETTO, No. 83 Dustless Blasting Toyota Camry, BK Racing
Starting Position: 42nd
JEB BURTON, No. 26 Maxim Fantasy Sports Toyota Camry, BK Racing
Starting Position: DNQ
