NASCAR SPRINT CUP SERIES
FEDEX 400 BENEFITING AUTISM SPEAKS
DOVER INTERNATIONAL SPEEDWAY
TEAM CHEVY QUALIFYING TRANSCRIPTS
MAY 29, 2015
MARTIN TRUEX JR. TO START ON FRONT ROW AT DOVER
Five Chevrolet SS Drivers Qualify in Top 12
DOVER, Del. – (May 29, 2015) – Martin Truex Jr. earned his best start of the 2015 NASCAR Sprint Cup season today by qualifying his No. 78 Furniture Row/Visser Precision Chevy SS second quick for Sunday’s FedEx 400 at Dover International Speedway. Truex, Jr., currently ranked second in the point standings, ran a lap of 159.723 mph at the place he considers his home track, which is near where he grew up in Mayetta, NJ. He also scored his first career Cup victory at the ‘Monster Mile’.
Kyle Larson, who drives the No. 42 Target Chevrolet SS posted a stout 159.681 mph effort, which was fast enough to qualify third in the 43-car field. It is Larson’s seventh top-10 start in 12 races this season.
Defending Sprint Cup champion and current point leader, Kevin Harvick, will start sixth in his No. 4 ditech Chevrolet SS. Jamie McMurray, who pilots the No. 1 McDonald’s/Cessna Chevy SS qualified 11th, and Austin Dillon will start 12th in his No. 3 Dow Chevrolet SS to give Team Chevy five spots in the top-12. Nine-time Dover winner, Jimmie Johnson, qualified his No. 48 Lowe’s Pro Services Chevy SS in the 14th position.
Denny Hamlin (Toyota) was the pole winner, Matt Kenseth (Toyota) qualified fourth, and Joey Logano (Ford) was fifth to round out the top five starting positions.
The 400-lap/400-mile FedEx 400 Benefitting Autism Speaks at Dover International Speedway is scheduled to begin at 1 p.m. ET on Sunday May 31. Live coverage will be available on FoxSports1, MRN, Sirius NASCAR Radio Channel 90 and NASCAR.com.
QUALIFYING TRANSCRIPTS:
MARTIN TRUEX, JR., NO. 78 FURNITURE ROW/VISSER PRECISION CHEVROLET SS – QUALIFIED 2ND
ALWAYS NICE TO COME HOME, BUT ALWAYS NICE TO COME HOME AND QUALIFY ON THE FRONT ROW:
“I feel like I just left here (the media center). Didn’t I just leave here? (Laughs) It’s been a good day. We unloaded off the trailer and felt pretty good about the car. We didn’t think it was a front row car, but worked on it between practice and qualifying and the guys made some good adjustments. Felt like the first two rounds we ran and just left a little bit out there, tried to save a little bit of tires. Felt like the car was right where it needed to be and really felt like we had a shot at it the third round. Just for some reason the car got tight. Missed it just a little bit there for round 3, but all-in-all second is good. We can get to work tomorrow. I’m really excited to see what this thing will do in race trim. Typically we race better than we qualify. So that is a good sign for us and hopefully the rest of the weekend will go well.”
THIS IS YOUR BEST QUALIFYING EFFORT OF THE SEASON. TALK A LITTLE BIT ABOUT THE TEAM AND HOW SPECIAL THEY ARE TO YOU AND THE ORGANIZATION:
“Well it’s just awesome to see the effort put in. I think everybody is just really excited about how we have been running. I feel like everybody on the team can just taste that victory and is willing to really put it on the line and work extra hard and do whatever it takes to get over that hump. I’m just really thankful for all the hard work back in Denver (Colorado). This car got home from Charlotte Monday night after midnight and had to leave to come here Tuesday at midnight; awesome job by them to turn the thing around and obviously bring it here and have some speed again. Just thanks to those guys. I love driving their cars and it’s been awesome lately to see what they have been able to give me.”
HOW BIG OF A PRODUCTION IS IT TO CHANGE A CAR FROM AN INTERMEDIATE CAR TO A CAR THAT IS GOING TO RUN AT DOVER? IS IT UNUSUAL THAT YOU HAVE RUN THIS CAR THREE TIMES IN A ROW NOW? IS IT JUST THE COMFORT OF THE CAR THAT YOU LIKE?
“Yeah, to the second questions, this is a brand new car that we brought to Kansas. It is kind of the latest and greatest that they could come up with. Honestly, it’s the only one we have right now. That is kind of the reason we keep turning it around. We don’t have a second car that is like this one yet. They are still building it. That is the first part and the second part; I don’t know how much is really different. I think the biggest thing is they have to strip all the parts and pieces off the thing and almost take it down to a bare chassis, fix the body work, this and that. Paint job and all that stuff, so they really kind of strip the car down and rebuild it. Suspension pieces all come off and everything comes off. It’s quite a lot of work to do in just a short amount of time.”
KYLE LARSON, NO. 42 TARGET CHEVROLET SS – QUALIFIED 3RD
TALK ABOUT THIS TRACK AND WHY IT SUITS YOUR DRIVING STYLE:
“Dover I guess suits my driving style. It’s a pretty aggressive racetrack for whatever reason we have qualified well here every Cup start I’ve had even I think Nationwide now XFINITY I think I qualified okay then too. We raced well here at the end of last year, so hopefully we will have a good weekend. It’s been a good start. It’s been awhile since I’ve been in a media center, so that is nice. I thought our car was good in race trim too. Looking forward to tomorrow to try and tweak on somethings, make the Target Chevy even faster. We will have a good pit selection, which is nice and then a good race, hopefully, on Sunday.”
WHAT IS FUN ABOUT A LAP HERE?
“Well especially in qualifying you just run as hard as you can. You carry a lot of speed into the corner. I really don’t feel like the drop off into (Turn) 1 is quite as… I mean it’s fun, but I have a bigger issue into (Turn) 3. Because into (Turn) 3 is a lot rougher, so that corner to me is a little bit more wild than (Turns) 1 and 2. It’s pretty technical too. You can carry a lot of speed in and through the middle, but then you will hurt your exit so a lot of different driving styles work well here. You can be aggressive in, but then you lose time off. Or you could take it easy through the center of the corner and gain a lot of speed on exit and still run the same time with either driving style. I don’t know. It is a fun track because you can drive it different ways kind of every lap.”
WHAT HAVE BEEN SOME OF THE REASONS WHY YOU HAVE MAYBE BEEN HAVING A LITTLE BIT OF A SOPHOMORE SLUMP THIS SEASON? CAN THIS EFFORT START TURNING THINGS AROUND A LITTLE BIT?
“I hope so. I hope we can get some solid runs going. But I don’t know we have just been struggling this year. I don’t know if the rule changes have affected us. I think they have affected us, but then we have also had races where we have had a lot of speed. Whether it’s something I do at the end of the race that gets up a bad finish or just whatever it may be. I don’t feel like any race we have ran this year we have finished where we deserved, maybe other than last week at Charlotte. We have been running well a lot of times and finished outside the top 10. Kansas we ran top three most of the race and finished 15th. I could name a handful of them where our finish wasn’t where we probably should have been. A lot of it has been our fault. Just have to get a little bit quicker. I feel like we haven’t challenged for many wins yet this year, or any wins really. Where last year we had been close a couple of times already. We have some work to do. We have been getting a little bit better and then we kind of got off the last couple of weeks. Hopefully, starting now, we are getting the speed back in our cars.”
DO YOU MISS RACING AS MUCH AS YOU DID LAST YEAR WHEN YOU RAN THE XFINITY SERIES ON SATURDAY? IT SEEMS WHEN YOU RAN WELL ON SATURDAY IT HELPED TOWARD THE SUNDAY PROGRAM:
“It didn’t help my Sunday program last week (chuckles). Sometimes I miss running double duty, but it is nice when I look at my calendar leading up to the week and I see big gaps in the schedule. Where I’m used to just doing in and out of cars – Friday’s and Saturday’s are really tough when you are doing double duty because you are constantly in a racecar and stock cars are really hot. I like not running as much in the XFINITY series, but then again I do think it helps my Sunday stuff out because you get to come down pit road three or four times in an XFINTIY race which helps a lot getting that practice before your main job on Sunday’s. Getting to learn different lines and stuff helps too, but it is relaxing when you only run one car.”
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