TOYOTA NASCAR Sprint Cup Series (NSCS)
Post-Qualifying Notes & Quotes
Atlanta Motor Speedway
500.5 miles, 325 laps
February 26, 2016
TOYOTA QUALIFYING POSITIONS
1st, KYLE BUSCH
8th, CARL EDWARDS
10th, MARTIN TRUEX JR.
13th, MATT KENSETH
14th, DENNY HAMLIN
34th, DAVID RAGAN
36th, MATT DiBENEDETTO
TOYOTA QUOTES
KYLE BUSCH, No. 18 M&M’s 75 Toyota Camry, Joe Gibbs Racing
Qualifying Position: 1st
How does it feel to win the pole in Atlanta?
“It feels really good. Just real proud of these guys on this whole M&M’s team. They gave me a really fast Camry everyone at Joe Gibbs Racing and TRD (Toyota Racing Development) – great engines obviously. This is a place that’s a lot of fun for the drivers and a lot of hard times that you kind of have being able to get grip here and to work with your crew chief as well as you can and to be able to get a good starting spot for Sunday – that helps. Good pit selection obviously, but 500 miles here is entirely different than one fast lap around Atlanta, so we’ll take what we got.”
How will you use tomorrow to dial in the new package?
“You’ve got to focus on long runs. You’ve got to have take-off speed, but you also have to have long-run speed – you can’t have your tires fall off too quickly. This place is tricky though. You can find yourself in a box and dial yourself out pretty easy, so we don’t want to do that. Adam (Stevens, crew chief) and these guys are really smart. They’ve done a great job for me last year obviously and then of course starting off this year real well at an open track – that’s what we call these places – so excited to have the speed that we do right now again thanks to Joe Gibbs Racing and all these guys. Pumped about it and hopefully it’ll stick after 500 miles on Sunday.”
CARL EDWARDS, No. 19 ARRIS Toyota Camry, Joe Gibbs Racing
Qualifying Position: 8th
MARTIN TRUEX, JR., No. 78 Furniture Row Toyota Camry, Furniture Row Racing
Qualifying Position: 10th
Where could you have improved your lap?
“There’s a lot of stuff we could have improved there. I didn’t think – I thought we made a good improvement from the first round to the second round to back up our speed and then the third round made a few more changes and went the wrong way, so the car was quite a handful that last run – just sliding, not much tire left. This place is tough to run three runs on tires and expect to back up those speeds. We just missed a little bit there at the end, but all in all a good day. This is a lot of new parts and pieces for us today – first time on a downforce track with our Toyota, so all in all I think it was a good day. Wish we’d have qualified a little bit better, but it’s pretty easy to pass here, so we’ll just have to work hard tomorrow to make sure we get out car good for Sunday.”
MATT KENSETH, No. 20 Dollar General Toyota Camry, Joe Gibbs Racing
Qualifying Position: 13th
DENNY HAMLIN, No. 11 FedEx Ground Toyota Camry, Joe Gibbs Racing
Qualifying Position: 14th
DAVID RAGAN, No. 23 Dr. Pepper Toyota Camry, BK Racing
Qualifying Position: 34th
MATT DiBENEDETTO, No. 83 Sewanee/ZAK Products Toyota Camry, BK Racing
Qualifying Position: 36th
