KYLE BUSCH LEADS TEAM TOYOTA IN TEXAS
Erik Jones also scores top-10 finish in Texas
FORT WORTH, Texas (July 19, 2020) – Kyle Busch (fourth) and Erik Jones (sixth) led Toyota with top-10 finishes in the NASCAR Cup Series race at Texas Motor Speedway on Sunday afternoon.
Toyota Racing Post-Race Recap
NASCAR Cup Series (NCS)
Texas Motor Speedway
Race 18 of 36 – 501 miles, 334 laps
TOYOTA FINISHING POSITIONS
1st, Austin Dillon*
2nd, Tyler Reddick*
3rd, Joey Logano*
4th, KYLE BUSCH
5th, Kevin Harvick*
6th, ERIK JONES
20th, DENNY HAMLIN
21st, CHRISTOPHER BELL
23rd, DANIEL SUÁREZ
29th, MARTIN TRUEX JR.
36th, TIMMY HILL
*non-Toyota driver
TOYOTA QUOTES
KYLE BUSCH, No. 18 Interstate Batteries Toyota Camry, Joe Gibbs Racing
Finishing Position: 4th
You overcame a lot in today’s race to achieve a fourth-place finish, can you take us through the struggles?
“Yeah, good finish and proud of the effort. We came a long way today. We got a lot of damage on the frontend of the car that you can’t see with the eye. Going through the grass, it killed it. I thought early on in the first stage, second stage maybe that we had a second-place car and then as the day went, we just kept getting further and further behind. Still a lot of work to do. The car didn’t drive very good at all. Just was able to get something out of nothing there at the end. Thanks to Interstate Batteries, M&M’s, Toyota, TRD, Rowdy Energy – we’ll go to Kansas.”
How was your race car early and how were you able to overcome the damage of sliding through the grass?
“Early on in the day, the first stage, the Interstate Batteries Camry was good and had some good speed. We led a little bit. The 12 (Ryan Blaney) was really, really fast. We could kind of hang with him, but once we got more cars around us and more traffic situations, it just became more and more ill-handling for us and the rest of the day we just kind of kept going backwards. Then took the shot through the grass and that killed the frontend. Hard to tell with the naked eye that there was anything wrong, but it was definitely not right after that. We just kept trying to free it up and get the splitter back down to the ground somewhat to finish it out and get a good finish. Fortunately, we got that, but still not even close. A long way to go.”
ERIK JONES, No. 20 Craftsman Toyota Camry, Joe Gibbs Racing
Finishing Position: 6th
How strong was your race car today?
“It was kind of a weird day. I thought the Craftsman Camry was decent all day long and had good speed at times when we could get some clean air and make some passes here and there. It was kind of a struggle to make some of those passes. It was challenging there towards the end with the short runs and the restarts. Our car really took 15 laps or so to get rolling so that kind of hurt us at the end, but we’ll take it. Sixth place isn’t too bad. We needed a solid run and mistake free and that’s what we did. I thought coming into this race if we could just go in and have no mistakes and have decent speed we could run top-five and we came real close to that. We have to keep doing that. Obviously, we need to get some points, especially with two winners the last two weeks that have been from outside the Playoff picture. That kind of changes things for us. We’ll keep rolling, but a decent day for us.”
Does today’s run give you momentum heading to Kansas?
“I hope so. I like Kansas a lot and we’ve run really well there in the past and had a shot to win there last year. Hopefully, we can go back and do the same thing. I feel like we’ve had good speed there each time we’ve gone. Especially in the night races there so looking forward to that. I think our cars have been right there if we can hit it right on the first run of the race. We just have to keep unloading well and starting the race close and I think we’ll have a shot at it.”
How difficult was the heat at Texas and how difficult are the quick race turnarounds this week from Bristol to Texas and then Kansas Thursday night for recovery?
“It’s kind of right on the limit. I usually take at least four days before the race is when I start hydrating so it’s going to be close. I know I did sweat a lot today and feel like I lost a lot of water weight. I feel dehydrated for sure. Going to take some time to get back from this one. It was obviously hot. It didn’t feel too bad in the car, but I know that I was losing a lot of water. Kansas hopefully will be a little bit cooler, that would be convenient for us, but it’s definitely been tough with the quick turnarounds of these last few races.”
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