TOYOTA NASCAR Sprint Cup Series (NSCS)
Post-Qualifying Notes & Quotes
Las Vegas Motor Speedway
400.5 miles, 267 laps
March 4, 2016
TOYOTA STARTING POSITIONS
3rd, MATT KENSETH
9th, DENNY HAMLIN
10th, MARTIN TRUEX JR.
23rd, KYLE BUSCH
24th, CARL EDWARDS
31st, DAVID RAGAN
34th, MATT DiBENEDETTO
TOYOTA QUOTES
MATT KENSETH, No. 20 DeWalt Toyota Camry, Joe Gibbs Racing
Starting Position: 3rd
How was your qualifying effort?
“It was good. I thought we made improvements every run. The last lap we got a little tight in turns one and two, a little tighter than we were and we were really good in three and four. It was a good lap, he (Kurt Busch) had us by a bit the whole time. Overall I was happy. We weren’t nearly that fast in qualifying trim earlier today, so I thought it was a good lap.”
What are your expectations for Sunday’s race with the new downforce package?
“I don’t know. We’ll have to see how much the tire drops off. The weather looks to be drastically different than it’s been all weekend, at least what it is forecasted to be. If there’s quite a bit of falloff, I think it will be a good race, just hard to know what to expect since we haven’t done it much yet.”
DENNY HAMLIN, No. 11 FedEx Office Toyota Camry, Joe Gibbs Racing
Starting Position: 9th
MARTIN TRUEX, JR., No. 78 Furniture Row/Denver Mattress Toyota Camry, Furniture Row Racing
Starting Position: 10th
How do you feel about your starting position?
“After a so-so first round, we made some good adjustments for the second round and put down a pretty good lap. We knew we had to pick it up in the final round. We got it perfect in turns one and two and at that point I felt like I had a top-five car going down the backstretch. I got down in (turn) three perfect and everything was going the way I wanted it to for a shot at the pole. But the car just got tight in the middle of (turns) three and four and bogged the engine down. Qualifying 10th wasn’t too bad considering the way the first round of qualifying and practice went for us today. I sure would have liked to have gotten a little more.”
KYLE BUSCH, No. 18 M&M’s 75 Toyota Camry, Joe Gibbs Racing
Starting Position: 23rd
What is your race outlook after Friday’s qualifying results?
“Obviously we were pretty disappointed with qualifying. We struggled with qualifying trim in practice earlier along with qualifying itself. The front tires were chattering and there wasn’t much we were going to do to fix that out there. Our race trim car was okay on Thursday, so I expect our M&M’S Camry will race a lot better than that. We have two practices tomorrow to get it better for the race on Sunday and I know Adam (Stevens, crew chief) and the guys will work hard tomorrow to try and get us where we need to be.”
CARL EDWARDS, No. 19 ARRIS Toyota Camry, Joe Gibbs Racing
Starting Position: 24th
What happened during qualifying?
“I think the right rear tire went down and we ended up hitting the fence. We have a really good backup ARRIS Camry that we we’ll work on tomorrow. This will be another test for our guys. They are good dealing with adversity, so it should be good.”
What will it mean to start Sunday’s race from the rear of the field after going to a backup race car?
“In a way starting the race from the rear is kind of fun, other than the fact that it’s harder, it’s kind of a neat challenge. I’ve done it a bunch in my career. I think statistically when we start in the rear we do pretty well. We’ll just go for it.”
DAVID RAGAN, No. 23 Dr. Pepper Toyota Camry, BK Racing
Starting Position: 31st
MATT DiBENEDETTO, No. 83 Cosmo Motors Toyota Camry, BK Racing
Starting Position: 34th
