Toyota Racing Post-Qualifying Recap
Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series (MENCS)
New Hampshire Motor Speedway
July 14, 2017
TOYOTA STARTING POSITIONS
1st, Kyle Larson*
2nd, MARTIN TRUEX JR
4th, MATT KENSETH
7th, ERIK JONES
8th, KYLE BUSCH
9th, DENNY HAMLIN
15th, DANIEL SUÁREZ
32nd, COREY LAJOIE
35th, GRAY GAULDING
37th, RYAN SIEG
*non-Toyota driver
TOYOTA QUOTES
MARTIN TRUEX JR., No. 78 WIX Filters Toyota Camry, Furniture Row Racing
Starting Position: 2nd
Are you enjoying the rivalry with Kyle Larson this year?
“Oh yeah, it’s been fun. His car’s fast and he’s a good driver and it’s been fun racing with him and practice we were one, two and now qualifying we’re one, two, so yeah. I just I thought we had a little advantage there on tires, you know? We only ran one lap in the first two rounds and I just didn’t quite have it there that third round. Just a little bit too tight, but all in all it was a really good day. Excited to have WIX on the car for the first time this year and hopefully we’ll give them a good run on Sunday.”
Is it any consolation to come up short to Larson as strong as the No. 42 has been this year?
“I tell you, we don’t want to get beat by anybody. We don’t really care who it is, but, yeah, I want to come up here and complain about being second again, but it seems like when we start second we race really well, so we’ll just see what we can do with the car tomorrow for Sunday and excited about the weekend. Have WIX filters on the car – our first and only race with them this season – so hopefully we’ll get them a good run on Sunday and see if we can go get some more points.”
Do you think we’ll see tire fall off this weekend?
“Yeah, you never know. I think for us, we were fast enough to move on with one lap, so why do two? It was more strategy for the third round of qualifying I would say than the race, but any time you have less laps on your tires than the competition in the race I think it’s a good thing, so I thought it was going to help us in Round 3, but for some reason we just got a little bit too tight in the third round and we weren’t able to get it. But all in all like I said, it was a really good effort by the team. Hopefully, we can take advantage of a good starting spot on Sunday.”
Do you think the change in weather by Sunday will change things?
“Well, it’s going to affect everybody. The question is who is going to guess right for Sunday. I think that historically our guys have been really good at guessing on the race tracks especially when you have big weather changes, but more importantly I think the VHT is the big question again. When it gets hot supposedly that stuff gets stickier and tackier and so when it gets hot here typically the normally groove that we used to race that has not been treated yet gets slicker by quite a bit, so I think it was three tenths to half a second difference between the old preferred line in practice and the line that was treated with VHT and the question is if it gets hotter out, will that difference get larger? Will we all be stuck running the same spot in the corners? We won’t know until Sunday because it’s going to be cool again tomorrow, so we’ll just have to wait and see.”
MATT KENSETH, No. 20 DEWALT Flexvolt Toyota Camry, Joe Gibbs Racing
Starting Position: 4th
How was your final round?
“You know, it was good. Yeah, it was good. I thought I got everything out of it, so I wish it were a little bit quicker, but I felt like we got it all.”
What’s your plan for tomorrow’s practice sessions?
“Today we really just tried to work on qualifying trim, which with the changes to the track was kind of difficult – not get a lot of laps and try to figure out where to run with the VHT or whatever they want to call it – so today we were just trying to get qualified and tomorrow we’ll work on race trim.”
ERIK JONES, No. 77 5-hour ENERGY Toyota Camry, Joe Gibbs Racing
Starting Position: 7th
How was your qualifying effort?
“It was good. I think we probably had a little bit better car than that. Just got too free in on the last session, Round 3 there, so seventh is a good starting spot. We can win from there, so we’ve just got to work on it a little bit more in race trim tomorrow. If the track’s going to change a lot, we’ll have to get the 5-hour ENERGY Camry a little bit better and go race for a win.”
