ToyotaRacing_Stationary_02
Toyota Racing Post-Race Recap
Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series (MENCS)
Charlotte Motor Speedway
Race 29 of 36 – 248.52 miles, 109 laps
September 30, 2018
TOYOTA FINISHING POSITIONS
1st, Ryan Blaney*
2nd, Jamie McMurray*
3rd, Clint Bowyer*
4th, Alex Bowman*
5th, Kurt Busch*
12th, DENNY HAMLIN
14th, MARTIN TRUEX JR
21st, DANIEL SUÁREZ
26th, JEFFREY EARNHARDT
28th, JJ YELEY
30th, ERIK JONES
32nd, KYLE BUSCH
38th, TIMMY HILL
*non-Toyota driver
TOYOTA DRIVER POINT STANDINGS**
1st, KYLE BUSCH 3055 points
4th, MARTIN TRUEX JR 3038 points
15th, DENNY HAMLIN 2056 points
16th, ERIK JONES 2046 points
19th, DANIEL SUÁREZ 566 points
**unofficial point standings
· Camry drivers Kyle Busch and Martin Truex Jr. advanced to the second round of the 2018 Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series (MENCS) Playoffs following Sunday afternoon’s race at the Charlotte Motor Speedway road course.
· Truex Jr. led five laps (of 109) in the MENCS debut at the ROVAL before an incident in the final turn on the final lap resulted in a 14th-place finish.
· Denny Hamlin was the highest-finishing Toyota driver, posting a 12th-place finish.
TOYOTA QUOTES
MARTIN TRUEX JR, No. 78 Auto-Owners Insurance Toyota Camry, Furniture Row Racing
Finishing Position: 14th
What happened on the last lap with Jimmie Johnson?
“Last corner desperation behind us, that’s what you get. I gave him (Jimmie Johnson) the inside lane and he had the run through (turn) four and I was real tight down there. I let him have the inside going down inside coming out of four there to the chicane. He just over-drove it and was never going to make it and used me as brakes and turned us both around. It sucks, we could have raced side-by-side off the last corner for a win and that would have been cool. The fans would have been digging it, but instead we finished 14th and he’s locked out of the Playoffs. I guess that’s what he gets.”
What do you make of how you were raced at the end?
“He (Jimmie Johnson) wasn’t ever going to make it through that corner whether I was there or not. Just desperation on his part and pretty stupid really if you think about it because he was locked into the next round and now he’s out. I guess if there’s a silver lining, that’s it. Want to thank Auto Owners and all their associates with what they did with this race car being teal for Ovarian Cancer Awareness month and it was a big day for us. It would have been really fun to take it to victory lane, but at the end of the day it wasn’t meant to be and we’ll move on to the next one.”
How did this race play out for you and was it what you expected?
“It was crazy. We at one point got spun by the 2 (Brad Keselowski) in the same corner and had to go to the rear – thought we were done. Restarted 27th and drove out way up through there. You never knew what was going to happen today, on the one restart the 2 drove straight into the wall. Just trying to survive and we were in the right spot, we did everything right and we got spun out twice and there’s nothing you can do about guys running you over.”
ERIK JONES, No. 20 Reser’s Toyota Camry, Joe Gibbs Racing
Finishing Position: 30th
How difficult was the race today?
“It’s unfortunate, you get put three-wide and there’s only so much you can do as a driver. It’s too bad and we’ll have to move on from here and get ready for next year. You hate to be knocked out of the Playoffs this early, but it is what it is.”
What can you take away from this season?
“It was a good year, but we just didn’t have a good first round. We didn’t finish in the top-10 in any races and that’s not going to get you to the next round. Some circumstances we couldn’t help, but we just need to get it better.”
KYLE BUSCH, No. 18 M&M’s Toyota Camry, Joe Gibbs Racing
Finishing Position: 32nd
On that last restart, what was so different about it as far as grip or anything else goes?
“We’d just been there the longest we had been on tires and I guess all of us are just stupid and don’t know where to break for the corner considering what our tires look like and so we just all drove off into a 90-degree wall for something to do because we had nothing else better to do. That kind of sucked, but guess it’s a good thing it didn’t matter for us.”
So knowing you’ve advanced to the next round, it wasn’t as bad as it could’ve been?
“I mean you hate tearing up race cars and what not, but I guess they’re road course cars anyway, so you don’t necessarily need them any time soon. Overall just not a good day for us. It was going to be a fine day if we could’ve made it through that corner and had those other two guys out of our way and then it was a race between the 78 (Martin Truex Jr.) and us, but it doesn’t matter anyway.”
What happened in the accident?
“I guess just comes down to us all being on old tires and not really knowing what to expect or how much grip these tires would actually have. Just not having anything better to do than drive it off into a 90-degree corner and into a wall. That’s about all that happened – we all over-drove the corner and that’s all there is to it.”
Was the line of site a problem into turn one?
“No, I wouldn’t say the line of site was a problem, we’re just all restarting in a restart zone trying to build as much speed as we can to go off into a corner that’s a 90-degree corner that’s really slick already and try to race through there two-wide on 20-lap old tires.”
