TOYOTA NASCAR Sprint Cup Series (NSCS)
Post-Race Notes & Quotes
Michigan International Speedway
Race 15 of 36 – 400 miles, 200 laps
Sunday, June 12, 2016
TOYOTA FINISHING POSITIONS — at Michigan International Speedway
1st, Joey Logano
2nd, Chase Elliott
3rd, Kyle Larson
4th, Brad Keselowski
5th, Kevin Harvick
6th, CARL EDWARDS
12th, MARTIN TRUEX, JR.
14th, MATT KENSETH
22nd, DAVID RAGAN
33rd, DENNY HAMLIN
34th, MATT DiBENEDETTO
40th, KYLE BUSCH
*non-Toyota driver
TOYOTA DRIVER IN NSCS POINT STANDINGS — following Michigan International Speedway**
1st, Kevin Harvick 526 points*
4th, CARL EDWARDS 472 points
9th, KYLE BUSCH 417 points
8th, MARTIN TRUEX JR. 433 points
10th, MATT KENSETH 409 points
12th, DENNY HAMLIN 380 points
29th, DAVID RAGAN 208 points
34th, MATT DiBENEDETTO 158 points
*non-Toyota driver
**unofficial point standings
TOYOTA NOTES
· Camry driver Carl Edwards (sixth) was the top-finishing Toyota in Sunday’s NASCAR Sprint Cup Series (NSCS) race at Michigan International Speedway.
· Martin Truex Jr. led 10 laps (of 200) en route to a 12th place finish at the two-mile speedway after starting on the outside of the front row.
· Camry drivers Denny Hamlin (33rd) and Kyle Busch (40th) were involved in incidents on track with Hamlin blowing a tire and making contact with the wall late in the race and Busch having his engine expire early in the event.
TOYOTA QUOTES
CARL EDWARDS, No. 19 Subway Toyota Camry, Joe Gibbs Racing
Finishing Position: 6th
How was the race for you today?
“Man, I was hoping for a caution there at the end and we got it. Then I had a pretty ugly restart. It’s tough out there today and the restarts were really tough. Once the cars got strung out a little bit, we were a little bit free in spots, but overall the guys did a great job. We rallied back from terrible track position and I was really nervous in the middle of the race. I didn’t think we were going to be able to finish in the top-15 so sixth place is a good day.”
What did you think of the package in today’s race?
“This is a work in progress. I applaud NASCAR for taking downforce away and the speeds are still so high because the surface is good and the Goodyear tires are good and everybody is working hard on their cars. They just keep working in this direction and we’re going to keep having better and better races. Those restarts, as crazy as they were, they were actually kind of fun.”
What direction would you like NASCAR to go moving forward with relation to the package?
“That’s really up to NASCAR. I’m very happy they’re going the direction they’re going, but at the end of the day going back to stock car roots here and we’re able to slide the cars around a little bit and work on them and drive them. That’s really fun.”
MATT KENSETH, No. 20 Dollar General Toyota Camry, Joe Gibbs Racing
Finishing Position: 14th
DAVID RAGAN, No. 23 Weaver Media Toyota Camry, BK Racing
Finishing Position: 22nd
DENNY HAMLIN, No. 11 FedEx Office Toyota Camry, Joe Gibbs Racing
Finishing Position: 33rd
What happened to your car?
“It’s tough to say. There was no smoke inside the car and usually if you’re going to have a cut tire there’s going to be smoke at some point. Everything looked all clear and for it to go that long before it cut – I don’t know if it’s that or we ran over something that cut, either way it’s a tough day for our FedEx Office Camry. Had a top-three car all day, just restarts were awful and couldn’t get through (turn) one without losing eight spots on every restart. Just a tough day, but still proud of the effort and the speed that we had. Moving through the pack we had good speed. We’ll go to work and enjoy the off week and see what happens.”
What happened to the tire that put you out of the race?
“It looked like we cut a left rear tire – I’m not sure if it was from the damage on the restart or we ran something over. I was pretty low on the race track on a line to try to get out of the way of other cars so not sure if it was that or what exactly it was. Proud of the effort, we had a good car – we had a top-three car I thought on speed, just restarts we weren’t very good. That set us back all day and it just took forever for us to get it back. Tough day for our FedEx Office team, but we’ll work on it on the off week, go over some notes and bring it back.”
What did you think of the package in today’s race?
“I think it’s a good package. I think it definitely could be tweaked a little bit. I think that this thing is biased a little more off the rear than the front is so either take some more front off – that would be my guess is to take a little more front downforce away, but I think overall we’ve got something good here that is fun. Track position is a bear out there, every driver is going to talk about that, but it’s not because of the wake I think. There’s something with this left side tire that is very, very hard that makes it difficult and the tires aren’t slowing up as much as we’ve seen in the past so I think those two combinations is making it tough to pass. Overall, happy with the direction.”
MATT DiBENEDETTO, No. 83 Cosmo Motors Toyota Camry, BK Racing
Finishing Position: 34th
KYLE BUSCH, No. 18 M&M’s Red, White and Blue Toyota Camry, Joe Gibbs Racing
Finishing Position: 40th
What happened with the car to put you out of the race?
“At least I had a 30 lap warning that it was coming. It had been shaking pretty bad and going south for a while and it had been building its own heat. It’s unfortunate, not just today, but man the last four races have been really, really bad. It’s a good thing we started off the season as good as we did with a lot of top-fives and we had three wins so it got us a good start and a good foundation, but we have to get this luck turned around and get going in the right direction and get ourselves back to where we feel we need to be. Our cars are fast – Adam (Stevens, crew chief) and the guys have done a great job each and every week, TRD (Toyota Racing Development) power has been great, just unfortunate circumstances have been coming our way a lot lately.”
What were you feeling in the car?
“Just been feeling the motor kind of going south for about 30 laps or so and finally let go. At least there was plenty of warning and I knew it was going to get hot in there and it certainly did once it let go and it was on fire. It’s just been a dismal month, just haven’t been able to hit anything and get good finishes going. Our car has been really fast and Adam (Stevens, crew chief) and the guys have been doing a great job getting us good stuff to the race track, but it just wasn’t our day today. Again, this is six in a row here. We started out the season good and strong and had some top-fives and such so it was a good foundation for us to build off of and fortunately we have all that and this is just a continuation of hurting us in the points, but points don’t matter. We’d like to be able to get out luck turned around and get back to finishing races where we know we can.”
What did you think of the new package?
“Too early to tell, we were kind of premature. We were running single-filed out there a little bit seventh or eighth or wherever we were. When we got back in traffic right there for that one lap of a restart, the motor was so bad and the car was bouncing off the race track so bad that I didn’t know what was going on. I wouldn’t give it a fair assessment.”
Did you have handling issues with the car?
“We had handling problems too, we’re not sure what was going on with that. We’ll have to take a look here and from that, just figure out what was going on with that. We still had a fast race car and felt like we were gaining on the guys in front of us.”
How frustrating is it to have this string of bad races?
“There’s nothing you can do to change it around, you’re not going to go to the luck store and buy any. We had a lot of good fortune go our way at the beginning part of the season I guess. We still had blown tires that hurt us, but we’re either top-four or we’re bottom four. There is no absolute in between for us.”
