Toyota Racing Post-Race Recap
Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series (MENCS)
Michigan International Speedway
Race 15 of 36 – 400 miles, 200 laps
June 10, 2019
TOYOTA FINISHING POSITIONS
1st, Joey Logano*
2nd, Kurt Busch*
3rd, MARTIN TRUEX JR.
4th, Daniel Suarez*
5th, KYLE BUSCH
11th, DENNY HAMLIN
21st, MATT DiBENEDETTO
31st, ERIK JONES
*non-Toyota driver
Camry driver Martin Truex Jr. (third) was the highest-finishing Toyota driver in the postponed Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series (MENCS) event at Michigan International Speedway on Monday.
It was Truex’ sixth top-five and ninth top-10 finish in 15 MENCS races this season.
Kyle Busch also scored a top-five finish with a fifth-place result. It was his ninth top-five and 14th top-10 finish in 2019.
TOYOTA QUOTES
MARTIN TRUEX JR, No. 19 Auto Owners Insurance Toyota Camry, Joe Gibbs Racing
Finishing Position: 3rd
Take us through what you needed to do there to have a shot at passing Joey Logano for the win.
“He was just really fast. I don’t know if we could have done anything with him. We were going to need one heck of a push from behind – a shove down the straightaway. I could get a little bit of a run, but never enough to get next to him and surely not enough to get next to him and clear him getting in the corner. His car was really good. They were really fast obviously qualifying first and then as good as they raced. Hats off to those guys. I thought we’d rack them up there, you know green-white-checkered. I thought hey, maybe we do have a shot at this thing and then he jumped the restart by over a car length. I don’t know. I guess they don’t enforce those rules anymore. We’ll have to remember that for next time.”
Was starting at the bottom line on that final restart frustrating for you?
“No, I felt like before that we were going to finish second no matter what. My mindset there was at least we got a shot at it here, rack ‘em up, have a green-white-checkered and see. I don’t know. My second gear was off a little bit all day on the restarts, so I was getting jumped, but then the 22 (Joey Logano) just went like a whole car length before his restart zone. I don’t know how you get away with that. I thought we were supposed to go in the box. Aside from that a great day for the Auto Owners Toyota. Everybody back at JGR (Joe Gibbs Racing), thank you – TRD (Toyota Racing Development, U.S.A.), everybody. We had a solid race car. It’s just man, you’ve got to be so patient in this racing it’s really hard. Earlier in the race I kept getting runs and going underneath guys and beating them through the corner, but if you can’t clear them, you lose two or three to four spots every time. It’s frustrating at times, but everybody did a good job. We had a fill-in rear tire changer this weekend and that’s a lot pressure to come in on. He’s a young kid and he did a good job there. Great job by everyone. Came up a little bit short, but a solid day for us here.”
KYLE BUSCH, No. 18 M&M’s Hazelnut Spread Toyota Camry, Joe Gibbs Racing
Finishing Position: 5th
How did you get up to that top-five finish?
“We just did the best we could with what we had. Our M&M’s Camry was not great, but we just kept working on it all day. We just kept falling back or doing rounds, doing air pressure, everything we could to get improving on it and make it better. I don’t think we ever really made it faster. It was still kind of slow at the end. We saw the 22 (Joey Logano) just drive away from us on that restart there, but overall we came with about – way better than we should have. Let’s go with that. Way better than we should have.”
What more did you need at the of the race?
“Running as fast as we could run, running as hard as we could, I couldn’t necessarily keep up with those front guys. The M&M’s Camry though it drove well. It was wide open all day long through (Turns) 3 and 4. We had to breathe it a few times here or there. We had some issues in traffic a lot. The further back we got, the worse we got. There on that green flag stop, the guys did a phenomenal job to jump us there and got us into the top four to be able to position ourselves for the end. That’s what saved our day. We’ll just go on to the next one.”
Were you hoping to push Joey Logano down to the corner and maybe get him loose or do something?
“Do something, yeah exactly. The something – I don’t know where the something was. My car wasn’t keeping up with that car. He just drove away from us there on that final restart. Just flat out out-accelerated us and drove away. He even gave room for the 19 (Martin Truex Jr.) to fall in line so that was pretty anti-climactic there at the end.”
