Toyota Racing Post-Qualifying Report
Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series (MENCS)
Michigan International Speedway – August 9, 2019
TOYOTA STARTING POSITIONS
1st, Brad Keselowski*
2nd, Kevin Harvick*
3rd, William Bryon*
4th, Alex Bowman*
5th, Clint Bowyer*
16th, DENNY HAMLIN
17th, MARTIN TRUEX JR.
18th, ERIK JONES
24th, DENNY HAMLIN
29th, MATT DIBENEDETTO
*non-Toyota driver
TOYOTA QUOTES
MARTIN TRUEX JR., No. 19 Auto-Owners Insurance/Truex 500th Start Toyota Camry, Joe Gibbs Racing
Qualifying Position: 17th
This weekend is your 500th career Cup Series start. What does that mean to you?
“I’m getting old! It’s cool. I have been lucky to have a great career and have worked with a lot of great teams and drive a lot of great cars and win a lot of races. It’s been fun. Hopefully, we can keep it going for a couple hundred more, I don’t know about 500. It’s been crazy to see how long we have been around. Pretty cool.”
Did you ever think your career would evolve to what it has?
“I never knew it could come around to this, but I just tried to work hard, believe in myself and surround myself with good people. Definitely went through a lot of ups and downs until Furniture Row, even there, it started bad and we just worked hard to get to where we were. The last five years has been a lot of fun. Hopefully we have five more just like it.”
What do you think about your piece for this weekend?
“I don’t know. Qualifying we are off a little bit, which we kind of figured we would be coming here. Guys have been working hard to find some speed in the single car stuff without hurting our racecars for Sunday. Looks like we gained on them, but still quite a bit off those fast guys. Looking forward to Sunday and hopefully we can race well.”
ERIK JONES, No. 20 DeWalt Toyota Camry, Joe Gibbs Racing
Qualifying Position: 18th
How was your qualifying lap?
“It’s no different than Daytona or Talladega right now. You are just wide open. Hopefully we will stay in the top 20, I think we will. That’s good for next week, because we need to be in the back 20 at Bristol. It was a little bit faster than we thought we were going to go, so that was good.”
MATT DIBENEDETTO, No. 95 Toyota Express Maintenance Toyota Camry, Leavine Family Racing
Qualifying Position: 29th
How do you think the race is going to go?
“Track position will be everything. You pick somebody up and put them in 12th they will probably run 12th. 24th, they will probably run there. All track position. You can’t pass in the dirty air. It’s a lot of pressure on the pit crews. I wouldn’t want to be them. So much pressure on them and the crew for strategy and restarts. Hopefully, we will be on that outside line. It’s a track position race now, where before it wasn’t, but now it is.”
