TOYOTA NASCAR Sprint Cup Series (NSCS)
Post-Qualifying Notes & Quotes
Daytona International Speedway
400 miles, 160 laps
July 1, 2016
TOYOTA STARTING POSITIONS
1st, Greg Biffle
2nd, CARL EDWARDS
3rd, KYLE BUSCH
7th, MATT KENSETH
9th, DENNY HAMLIN
15th, MARTIN TRUEX JR.
35th, COLE WHITT
36th, MATT DiBENEDETTO
38th, DAVID RAGAN
39th, REED SORENSON
*non-Toyota driver
TOYOTA QUOTES
CARL EDWARDS, No. 19 Subway Toyota Camry, Joe Gibbs Racing
Starting Position: 2nd
How do you feel about your starting position for tomorrow night?
“It’s a great starting spot – congratulations to Greg (Biffle) and all those guys at Roush Fenway, I know they work hard on this program. They just got us. We have a really, really good Subway Camry. My guys worked really hard today getting me comfortable in the car, they changed the seat and they did a bunch of stuff. We would have loved to be on the pole, but starting up front will be great and hopefully we can stay up front. I need to get a win in that column, we have a big zero there from my career here at Daytona so I would like to get a win.”
How is the car for tomorrow night’s race?
“My car was really fast, I’m really happy with my car. I think we have a good shot to run well. We did a lot of really neat stuff with Subway today – Subway’s doing a ton for the USO, donating a lot of money, $125,000 to the USO and 5,000 meals. I got to have lunch with some Coast Guard members just outside the door here and that was really neat. Would have liked to have capped it off with the pole position – a front row start here is great and hopefully we can stay up front. Randy (Fuller, PR) informed me that I was wrong, I have not led five laps at Daytona in my career, I have led four so I’ve got to fix that. Hopefully we can run up front and have a good day.”
How important is it to start up front at Daytona?
“It’s good because this track, we’ve watched a lot of races here and it’s become a lot tougher to go from the back to the front so starting up front would be nice. There’s nothing to say I won’t get shuffled to the back at some point, but for us it would be nice to start up and we’ll get a good pit stall and I know pit road can be a little hectic. Really, after the performance in the spring or in February at the 500, I guess that isn’t springtime yet, but at the 500, I didn’t get to get up there and race with my other Toyota teammates very much because we had a little bit of damage, but the way that the Toyotas ran in that race, that has me really excited about this event and hopefully we can do that again – run up front and compete for the win.”
Do you have a similar plan with your Toyota teammates to work together like they did in February?
“That worked really well, I don’t know that it will ever work that well again, but we really haven’t discussed it. I assume we’ll just try to do the same thing which was basically work together if we can and I watched a little bit of the race the other day and everything just worked out perfectly. The restarts all lined up just right and everything worked out well. If we can do that again, it would be great. We really have a good group of cars and we have a great group of teammates so that would be good.”
Were you surprised that Greg Biffle beat you for the pole?
“After that first session, I knew we had to be worried about him (Greg Biffle). We ran a really good lap in the second session, but those guys were fast. They put the hard work in, they deserve it and I know how hard those guys work over there and I guess in a way, it’s cool to see them have success. You hate to get beat by anyone, but knowing those guys and knowing how much they work, it’s good to see them have this day.”
Why have these races become more focused on track position and how will the temperature impact the race tomorrow?
“I don’t know, I haven’t looked at the temperature forecasted, but it will be lower track temps at night and if the rubber gets washed away by any showers or anything like that, there should be a ton of grip. We’ll just have to look at tire wear and see how it goes. It has been, these races, for me at least as my stats show, they’ve been hard to get to the front. It’s not as easy as just going up there and deciding this thing. Sometimes it really gets bottled up. I believe everyone is just getting better and better about working the air and managing their position and the pack and not making mistakes. Everyone understands it very well so you’re just not going to trick a guy into giving up a lane and getting by him or shuffling him out, it’s going to be tough.
KYLE BUSCH, No. 18 M&M’s Interstate Batteries Toyota Camry, Joe Gibbs Racing
Starting Position: 3rd
How was your qualifying lap?
“Car felt good. Everything about this Interstate Batteries Camry felt just like the primary car so I’m real excited about that and the preparation and the skill that these guys have here in preparing great race cars for me. I’m optimistic about tomorrow night. It doesn’t necessarily matter where you start. Certainly this is just all about pit selection and being able to hopefully have a good night tomorrow night.”
How frustrated were you after your wreck in practice earlier today?
“From my vantage point we’ve had a lot of tire issues this year. That’s probably four, five or six tires that we’ve blown this year so that’s what the most frustrating part of it is. We also did the tire test at Kentucky and didn’t necessarily have the best of results I felt like from my vantage point for what we’ve got to do for next week. That’s where the frustration probably stemmed from and came from. Goodyear probably didn’t deserve what they got from me earlier today but that’s just from earlier today.”
How was your backup car and how long will it take for you to know what you’ve got in racing conditions?
“I felt pretty good with what we had right there so I feel like we’ve got a good basis. As far as what kind of pack car or drafting car, yeah, it will take a little bit to kind of figure that out. But, the balance was fine, the drivability was fine, everything was good right now. I’m not sure even what car it is so we’ll just have to see how it plays out tomorrow night. All of these cars are so close these days and JGR (Joe Gibbs Racing) does a good job of giving us some repeatability.”
MATT KENSETH, No. 20 DEWALT FLEXVOLT Toyota Camry, Joe Gibbs Racing
Starting Position: 7th
What is your strategy going into tomorrow night’s race?
“Try to stay upfront. Our Joe Gibbs Racing DEWALT FLEXVOLT Camry has pretty good speed. We all qualified up there halfway decent so hopefully I’ll get lined up and stay up in the front. It seems like that’s typically the safest place to be – be in front of as many cars as you can.”
DENNY HAMLIN, No. 11 FedEx Toyota Camry, Joe Gibbs Racing
Starting Position: 9th
How was your qualifying lap?
“It was good, same as usual and it normally is around this race track. It’s a good sign, all of our (Joe) Gibbs (Racing) cars had some good speed here and we all got in the final round. We were pretty optimistic that hopefully we can have a good weekend like we had in February that would be great for us.”
How does it feel returning to Daytona as the defending champion from February’s Daytona 500?
“Some of our teammates have some good cars and we have one over there in the museum. This is a great effort from our team and really we just need to work well together and make sure we’re around at the end. This race is always a little bit easier than the Daytona 500, so attrition will be at a maximum.”
Have you spoken with Kyle Busch about what happened to him in practice this morning?
“I didn’t really talk to him (Kyle Busch) at all, but from what I saw it looked like a tire or something. It was behind me so I really couldn’t see much, but we were just trying to do some drafting with our teammates there and see what kind of pace we could run. Just kind of a freak deal.”
MARTIN TRUEX, JR., No. 78 Furniture Row Toyota Camry, Furniture Row Racing
Starting Position: 15th
COLE WHITT, No. 98 RTIC Coolers Toyota Camry, Premium Motorsports
Starting Position: 35th
MATT DiBENEDETTO, No. 83 Dustless Blasting Toyota Camry, BK Racing
Starting Position: 36th
DAVID RAGAN, No. 23 Shriners Hospital Toyota Camry, BK Racing
Starting Position: 38th
REED SORENSON, No. 55 RoyalTeakCollection.com Toyota Camry, Premium Motorsports
Starting Position: 39th
