TOYOTA NASCAR Sprint Cup Series (NSCS)
Post-Race Notes & Quotes
New Hampshire Motor Speedway
Race 28 of 36 – 317.4 miles, 300 laps
Sunday, September 25, 2016
TOYOTA FINISHING POSITIONS — at New Hampshire Motor Speedway
1st, Kevin Harvick*
2nd, MATT KENSETH
3rd, KYLE BUSCH
4th, Brad Keselowski*
5th, Kurt Busch*
6th, CARL EDWARDS
7th, MARTIN TRUEX JR.
15th, DENNY HAMLIN
28th, MATT DiBENEDETTO
32nd, DAVID RAGAN
36th, REED SORENSON
*non-Toyota driver
TOYOTA DRIVER IN NSCS POINT STANDINGS — following New Hampshire Motor Speedway*
2nd, MARTIN TRUEX JR. 2,086 points#
3rd, KYLE BUSCH 2,085 points#
4th, MATT KENSETH 2,078 points#
7th, DENNY HAMLIN 2,071 points#
10th, CARL EDWARDS 2,068 points#
31st, DAVID RAGAN 369 points
35th, MATT DiBENEDETTO 286 points
#competing in the 2016 Chase for the Sprint Cup championship
*unofficial point standings
TOYOTA NOTES
· Camry driver Matt Kenseth (second) was the top-finishing Toyota driver in Sunday’s NASCAR Sprint Cup Series race at New Hampshire Motor Speedway, the second race of the Chase for the Sprint Cup.
· Kenseth led the field twice for 105 laps (of 300), while his Toyota teammate Martin Truex Jr. (seventh) led the field four times for a race-high 141 circuits.
· Camry drivers Kyle Busch (third) and Carl Edwards (sixth) also led laps on the 1.058-mile track, with Busch pacing the field twice for three circuits and Edwards led the field twice for 31 laps.
· In addition to the finishes by Kenseth, Busch, Edwards and Truex, their fellow Toyota Chase contender Denny Hamlin finished 15th in New Hampshire.
· The five Toyota drivers in the Chase are currently all in the top-10 of 16 following the second event of the 10-race playoff – Truex (second), Busch (third), Kenseth (fourth), Hamlin (seventh) and Edwards (10th).
TOYOTA QUOTES
MATT KENSETH, No. 20 Dollar General Toyota Camry, Joe Gibbs Racing
Finishing Position: 2nd
What happened on the final restart?
“I didn’t do a very good job. I let Kevin (Harvick) lay back on me and NASCAR said something about the restart before that and I have no idea what I did wrong. I probably shouldn’t have had that in my mind so I made sure I got rolling early and I spun the tires a little bit and he got half a car length anticipating it and just did it perfect and beat me through one and two and cleared me. It’s my fault. I shouldn’t have worried about what they (NASCAR) said and just got to turn one first.”
How was the car overall in the race?
“We were pretty good today. These guys did a good job, but we just didn’t get that last adjustment in and got loose trying to hold off Martin (Truex Jr.) – the 78 (Truex) was better than we were and I just burned the right-rear off trying to hold him off. The last restart was my fault. The one before that I thought I did right and we heard from the tower down that they thought I slowed up before I restarted or something, so the last one I let Kevin (Harvick) lay back on me, which we’re supposed to be side-by-side. I should have known better. I should have just went really late in the zone and wait until he had to get up to my nose because he anticipated it just right and laid back. Plus I spun the tires and I got beat through one and two and then it was over.”
How do you feel about where you stand heading to Dover?
“You always want to win. I thought we had a top-two or three car today, but we didn’t win. They put me in position to do that and I let them down there so I feel bad about that. We ran good last week and we ran decent today too so we’ll just go to Dover and try to race them there.”
KYLE BUSCH, No. 18 M&M’s Toyota Camry, Joe Gibbs Racing
Finishing Position: 3rd
How do you feel with a 33-point cushion heading into Dover?
“We’ve seen anything happen in this business so I don’t like it very much at all, but it’s certainly better than having a one-point cushion. There’s pluses and minuses in this business, but anything can happen. We saw it with the 48 (Jimmie Johnson) last year – they had issues at Dover. We’ve had issues before and we’ve been able to make our way through or we’ve been knocked out like in years prior. You just have to go and fight it out and try to keep track of that big picture and do what you need to do to move on.”
How was the run today?
“A solid run – our M&M’s Camry was pretty good today. Adam (Stevens, crew chief) and the guys made some really good changes for me and gave me tires when it mattered most there. If it wasn’t for those last couple of cautions, I thought maybe we had an opportunity to chase those guys down under green and pass them for the win. It wasn’t meant to be. We managed our way through those restarts as best we could with restarting on the bottom, I feel like that’s a little bit of a disadvantage. We made the most of it at least at the end and didn’t lose spots, we were able to maintain our position and come out of here with a decent day. Excited about the opportunity to finish third and having a good points cushion. You can’t take any of that for granted, you have to focus on what’s ahead and the big picture and the task at hand, which is to have another good, solid week next week at Dover. Thank M&M’s, Toyota, Skittles and NOS Energy Drink, Interstate Batteries and everybody that helps us on this car. We’ll be ready to get them again next week.”
Did you feel you were going to have an advantage with the fresher tires?
“It’s always tough here to pass and it’s always tough with the more laps you get on your tires compared to everybody else. They start to equal out and then you get into that aero disadvantage a little bit and probably with not ever getting into traffic, there was never going to be a chance for it to kind of mix up with lapped cars. It was just going to be car-on-car, driver-on-driver and we just didn’t get to see it. I felt like we could have stacked up against them having the tire advantage. We wouldn’t have won if it was just heads up.”
CARL EDWARDS, No. 19 Comcast Business Toyota Camry, Joe Gibbs Racing
Finishing Position: 6th
What happened with the commitment line violation?
“It appears I didn’t come onto pit road the right way, which put me in the back with a penalty. I made it back to sixth-place so I’m pretty happy with the result considering what we had. Really wanted to get Comcast Business to victory lane, they have a perfect record with us so far this year. Now we head to Dover with a little bit of a point cushion so Dover is one of my favorite race tracks, one of my best tracks and this team should have won this race in the spring so hopefully we can go there and lock ourselves into the next round.”
How pleased are you with the finish after recovering from the penalty?
“I’m really happy to be sixth. I’m frustrated obviously because I felt like we should have been better, but at the end of the day, there for a minute it looked really bad. There was one point when people were smoking in front of us and I thought we were going to get caught up in a wreck in the back of the pack. I’m happy with the result, we just have to keep moving forward. This is a constant push to make it to the next round and I didn’t quit and I’m proud of that.”
What was your biggest struggle today?
“We qualify really well here and I struggle with the race and putting together a good race. I felt like today, I definitely learned some things and I’m excited to come back here. I feel like I’m getting better, not as good as Matt (Kenseth) yet, but I’m getting better and I look forward to coming back here again.”
How is your confidence heading to Dover?
“I feel pretty good about Dover. Anything can happen, but there’s no better race for us to be a cutoff race. That’s a good track for me and for this 19 team.”
DAVE ROGERS, crew chief, No. 19 Comcast Business Toyota Camry, Joe Gibbs Racing
How was your race?
“It was an eventful race up here in sunny New Hampshire. The Comcast Business car was fairly decent, but we lacked a little bit there and just gave up a little bit too much to the front side. Mid-run we were pretty fast. Late in the run, we were pretty fast. We just gave up too much on the front side. It’s so hard to pass here. Overall, good day for us. We came back. We battled through some adversity and we came back and finished sixth, so we’ll walk away with our head high and go get them at Dover.”
What is your outlook for Dover?
“Yeah, it’s – there’s really no different strategy. We’re just going to go there and run as fast as we can and get the best finish we can and you know we think we have a car, we know we have a driver capable of winning up there, but we’re not going to go up there and say, ‘We have to win.’ That puts yourself in a lot of bad spots, so we’re just going to go up there and go as fast as we can and see where we end up.”
MARTIN TRUEX, JR., No. 78 Furniture Row/Denver Mattress Toyota Camry, Furniture Row Racing
Finishing Position: 7th
Did the second-to-last restart cost you the win?
“Well, you know we took two tires mid-part of the race there and lost the lead and that was really the race because I had a – I got inside (Matt) Kenseth five, six, seven times there towards the end and he just kept holding me down and getting me loose and I was afraid to wreck him, you know? He was running me in there real tight, so that was the last thing I wanted to do was get into him. Trying and trying and trying to get by him for all that, I just burnt my rear tires off a bit and then those restarts at the end I just couldn’t get going. I’d spin the tires real bad and then be loose, really loose for a couple laps and then I’d be really tight after that, so just used it up trying to get by him and was hoping all those cautions didn’t come – that’s what you race for – but once we started getting all those cautions just the way I used the car up trying to get by him hurt me a lot on those starts at the end.”
Why did you struggle on the final restarts?
“Final restart was not good for us – final two really weren’t. You know, we’d raced with Matt (Kenseth) so hard for the lead there for such a long time that I just kind of burned my tires up and then really had trouble getting going on those last two restarts, lost a few spots. It was unfortunate to have a car that good all day long and then come home seventh, but all in all it was a fun day. We led a lot of laps and the team did a great job all weekend, so it was another good weekend for us and we’ll go on to Dover and see if we can’t finish the deal off there.”
Did you racing Matt Kenseth any different than you would someone who isn’t your teammate?
“Yeah, I mean I was trying to race as hard as I possibly could without getting into him (Matt Kenseth) and he wasn’t making that easy, but that’s his job as the leader. This race track is – it’s hard to pass at. It’s really hard to pass on when you have two cars that are very equal. I felt like we were a little bit better than him at that point in time but not better – good enough to just drive by him. He was running the line that I needed to run and just I could get inside him, but he didn’t give me much room underneath him to get any grip and every time we’d go off in the corner I’d get loose and have to back out from underneath him. It was tough racing, hard racing. You know, I felt like I probably could have pushed the issue a little bit more. Just didn’t want to risk contact, getting into him and taking him out of the race. I know he’s got a lot on the line. We’ve got our win, so that kind of played into that decision a little bit and like you said, he’s a teammate too. It would be an awkward meeting on Tuesday if I knocked him out of the way to win my second race of the first round.”
COLE PEARN, crew chief, No. 78 Furniture Row/Denver Mattress Toyota Camry, Furniture Row Racing
Did tire wear cost you the win?
“Yeah and then kind of – I don’t know. One restart we kind of – Matt (Kenseth) kind of slow rolled us a bit and then we spun the tires and kind of got fed to the wolves a little bit – the guys on better tires – and then you’re just kind of just hosed. You can have the old tires work if you can get on a clean track and that’s what the 4 (Kevin Harvick) and 20 (Joey Logano) were able to do, so all in all we had a great car, great day, so I mean can’t be too upset. Would have been nice to be holding a lobster up right now, but oh well.”
How motivated were you to win today and keep someone else from automatically advancing?
“Yeah, I mean a little bit of that, but at the end today you just want to win, you know? You come and you work hard every week, so you want to win and this is a good track to get a win at and I think that was really our motivation, so it’s kind of fun you can just go racing and don’t have the stress of it and try to win and obviously we did a good job because we had a really good car. It’s just a matter of how those all shake out at the end.”
DENNY HAMLIN, No. 11 FedEx Express Toyota Camry, Joe Gibbs Racing
Finishing Position: 15th
MIKE WHEELER, crew chief, No. 11 FedEx Express Toyota Camry, Joe Gibbs Racing
How was your race?
“Race was a little more eventful than we were hoping for. Ended up having a pretty good car there towards the end about that last 100 laps or so. Unfortunately, we had a pit road penalty – two stop in the end that got us really far behind and just got kind of shuffled out of the mix on a couple restarts and finished about five to 10 spots worse than we should have, but still alive.”
How do you now approach Dover International Speedway?
“Hit the restart button and try again. Dover is a decent track for Denny (Hamlin). He hasn’t had a win there yet, but has had some good runs and hopefully we can have another good run there.”
MATT DiBENEDETTO, No. 83 Toyota Camry, BK Racing
Finishing Position: 28th
DAVID RAGAN, No. 23 Toyota Camry, BK Racing
Finishing Position: 32nd
REED SORENSON, No. 55 Toyota Camry, Vydox Plus Toyota Camry, Premium Motorsports
Finishing Position: 36th
