4th, DENNY HAMLIN 7th, DAVID REUTIMANN 14th, MARTIN TRUEX JR. 17th, KASEY KAHNE 18th, BRIAN VICKERS 21st, KYLE BUSCH 23rd, JOEY LOGANO 27th, BOBBY LABONTE 33rd, MICHEL MCDOWELL 36th, JOE NEMECHEK 37th, CASEY MEARS 43rd, MIKE SKINNER DNQ, TJ BELL
DENNY HAMLIN, No. 11 FedEx Express Toyota Camry, Joe Gibbs Racing Starting Position: 4th How important is qualifying for your team? “We’re by no means a qualifying race team, so that’s a good sign for us and this weekend. I’m looking forward to it. I felt like last weekend there were some minor adjustments a little bit more time on the longer runs — we had a pretty good car last weekend. So hopefully now this weekend we’ll get all these bugs worked out and spun around for our FedEx Toyota team. We’re excited about this weekend and looking forward to getting back to victory lane.”
DAVID REUTIMANN, No. 00 Aaron’s Armed Forced Foundation Toyota Camry, Michael Waltrip Racing Starting Position: 7th Are you running the same car from the All-Star race? “The guys at Michael Waltrip Racing did a great job getting this car back and turning it around. It’s wasn’t the original plan, but we’ve got a good Aaron’s Dream Machine. Really proud of my guys and happy to have the Armed Forces Foundation paint scheme on the car this weekend so we’re hoping to give it a good run.”
Is this a race where it is more important to start up front? “It’s always important to start up towards the front, but obviously you’ve got 600 miles. You have a little bit less urgency to try to get to the front quickly. With that being said, you mess around there in the back and we have long green flag stretches here and sometimes you can get a lap down and get yourself in trouble. We don’t need that.”
MARTIN TRUEX JR., No. 56 NAPA AUTO PARTS Toyota Camry, Michael Waltrip Racing Starting Position: 14th Did you have a strong qualifying run? “Yeah, it was good — good pickup from practice and right at the end of practice we hit on something that our car really liked and I really liked. It showed up right there, so it was a good lap for us.”
KASEY KAHNE, No. 4 Red Bull Toyota Camry, Red Bull Racing Team Starting Position: 17th
BRIAN VICKERS, No. 83 Red Bull Toyota Camry, Red Bull Racing Team Starting Position: 18th How good is your race car? “I think the car is good. We haven’t run in race trim yet, but we really changed a lot of stuff from last week in our base package coming into this week. So far I’ve been really happy with it. I felt really good about one and two. I missed three and four a little — I just rushed the throttle. I felt so good about down there that I tried to get too much down here. That was my fault, but I think the car is good.”
What is it like to have people’s pictures all over your race car? “It’s pretty awesome. Just the reception from everyone — from the industry to the fans — I’m on there and I’m excited about it. I’m in the car every week and I’m excited about being on the race car. I literally spent five minutes telling the guys here on the team about my photo on here. If I’m that excited, I have to imagine that everyone else is pretty stoked.”
KYLE BUSCH, No. 18 M&M’s Toyota Camry, Joe Gibbs Racing Starting Position: 21st What would it mean to win the Coca-Cola 600? “We would love to win this thing. It’s a long race and that’s where we hope our car will really come into play is 500 or 600 mile mark. Just haven’t quite got the speed out of it today that we’ve been looking for. We unloaded last week off the truck and we were really fast. For some reason, this week we seem to be not being able to find it right now. We’ll go to work tonight, think about it and come back Saturday and make some good changes to it. Hopefully, we’ll have a good happy hour and then go get them on Sunday.”
Is Charlotte a good place to judge your season? “When you come to Charlotte, it’s typically the part in the season where you look at where you are. You factor in a little give and take — you could probably be three spots better or five spots worse when it comes Chase time. If you just run steady and do your own deal and concentrate on what you’re doing then you’ll be a Chase contender. That’s where we are right now so we feel good about things.”
JOEY LOGANO, No. 20 Home Depot Toyota Camry, Joe Gibbs Racing Starting Position: 23rd How was your car in qualifying? “We just didn’t pick up what we needed to pick up. At times, we were just a little bit too free through the lap — kind of a four-wheel skate going — sort of the same thing we were fighting all day. We’re going to go back and look at it a little bit and see what we can find.”
BOBBY LABONTE, No. 47 Kingsford/Bush’s Baked Beans Toyota Camry, JTG-Daugherty Racing Starting Position: 27th Was your car quick in qualifying? “It wasn’t very good. We just didn’t pick up as much we should have and I don’t know — just kind of slow right now. It was good in practice. The car didn’t do anything really crazy, just about the same.”
MICHAEL MCDOWELL, No. 66 KEYper Toyota Camry, PRISM Motorsports Starting Position: 33rd
JOE NEMECHEK, No. 87 NEMCO Toyota Camry, NEMCO Motorsports Starting Position: 36th
CASEY MEARS, No. 13 GEICO Toyota Camry, Germain Racing Starting Position: 37th How did the car handle in qualifying? “Actually, not bad — we just weren’t fast. You know, it actually handled pretty decent. I was a little bit tight just before center in both ends. It just wasn’t fast, so we just need to go faster.”
MIKE SKINNER, No. 60 Big Red Toyota Camry, Germain Racing Starting Position: 43rd
TJ BELL, No. 50 Green Smoke Toyota Camry, Gunselman Motorsports Starting Position: DNQ
