MENCS Post-Qualifying Report – Darlington Raceway
Denny Hamlin Posts Top-10 Qualifying Effort at ‘The Lady in Black’
FLORENCE, S.C. (August 31, 2019) – Denny Hamlin was the top Toyota driver in NASCAR Cup Series qualifying at Darlington Raceway on Saturday afternoon.
Toyota Racing Post-Qualifying Report
Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series (MENCS)
Darlington Raceway – August 31, 2019
TOYOTA STARTING POSITIONS
1st, William Byron*
2nd, Brad Keselowski*
3rd, Kyle Larson*
4th, Kurt Busch*
5th, Daniel Suarez*
9th, DENNY HAMLIN
15th, ERIK JONES
19th, MATT DiBENEDETTO
22nd, MARTIN TRUEX JR.
33rd, KYLE BUSCH
39th, JOEY GASE
*non-Toyota driver
TOYOTA QUOTES
ERIK JONES, No. 20 Sport Clips Throwback Toyota Camry, Joe Gibbs Racing
Qualifying Position: 15th
We were just discussing the perfect lap. You were maybe close to it in Turns 1 and 2?
“The big thing is getting up to speed and getting through (Turns) 1 and 2 is how you get up to speed and I felt like that was okay but you know as far as 3 and 4, I felt like we left a little bit out there. I probably over-slowed entry and didn’t get back to the throttle like we needed. I don’t think qualifying was what was going to be our strong suit. I wasn’t overly excited about it. I know our race car is really good for tomorrow, but I was not sure where we were going to end up. We’ll kind of take it and move on. Qualifying has not been the place where we’ve necessarily succeeded this year, but the racing has always been really good for us, so we’ll find our way to the front. Good thing we’ve got 500 miles to get up where we want to be.”
How patient do you have to be on restarts to wait around and be able to push your car when you need to push?
“I don’t know that you ever want to be pushing too much at Darlington, but really patient, especially knowing our car is a long-run car. We don’t want to try and push on the front side and burn up our tires and get in a bad situation, so I feel like the last two years we’ve done a really good job of that – being really good on the long run and where it really mattered and paid off. We need a long run at the end of the race for that to pay off, but you know that’s been our strong suit for sure. I don’t think it’s going to be any different tomorrow. It’s going to be a long race, but I think it’s going to kind of play right into our hand.”
MARTIN TRUEX JR., No. 19 Bass Pro Shops Toyota Camry, Joe Gibbs Racing
Qualifying Position: 22nd
How many laps can you go wide open in Turns 1 and 2?
“Yeah, it’s probably four or five laps then you’re starting to breathe it a little bit more and more as the run goes on.”
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