Toyota Racing Post-Race Recap
Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series (MENCS)
Kansas Speedway
400.5 miles, 267 laps
May 13, 2017
TOYOTA FINISHING POSITIONS
1st, MARTIN TRUEX JR
2nd, Brad Keselowski*
3rd, Kevin Harvick*
4th, Ryan Blaney*
5th, KYLE BUSCH
7th, DANIEL SUÁREZ
12th, MATT KENSETH
22nd, ERIK JONES
23rd, DENNY HAMLIN
27th, COREY LaJOIE
34th, GRAY GAULDING
39th, DERRIKE COPE
*non-Toyota driver
TOYOTA DRIVER POINT STANDINGS**
1st, Kyle Larson 475 points*
2nd, MARTIN TRUEX JR. 431 points
7th, KYLE BUSCH 325 points
12th, DENNY HAMLIN 289 points
18th, MATT KENSETH 233 points
19th, DANIEL SUÁREZ 217 points
20th, ERIK JONES 217 points
34th, COREY LaJOIE 77 points
36th, GRAY GAULDING 51 points
*non-Toyota driver
**unofficial point standings
· Toyota driver Martin Truex Jr. captured his first MENCS victory at Kansas Speedway in Saturday night’s Go Bowling 400. Truex led a race-high 104 laps en route to his ninth career-series win and second victory in the 2017 season.
· The win at Kansas Speedway is the 97th MENCS victory for Toyota and second victory for the new 2018 Toyota Camry.
· Toyota drivers Kyle Busch (fifth) and Daniel Suárez (seventh) also finished in the top 10.
TOYOTA QUOTES
MARTIN TRUEX JR., No. 78 Auto-Owners Insurance Toyota Camry, Furniture Row Racing
Finishing Position: 1st
Did this one mean more because of the challenges you’ve had here at Kansas in the past?
“Man, you know I don’t know. They’re all so special honestly. These races are so hard to win. Any of those restarts I could’ve got beat on, something could’ve happened. You just never know. I’m just really — so proud of everybody on this team and you know all my guys. Auto-Owners Insurance, their first race with us this year. We won the Southern 500 with this car and now here. It’s amazing. Just got to think everybody at Auto-Owners, Furniture Row, Bass Pro, Denver Mattress, Furniture Row, Tracker Boats, WIX Filters, 5-Hour Energy. It’s just amazing. It’s awesome.”
Were you concerned about the late restarts?
“I felt like if I could get out front on those restarts, I’d be fine. If I came out second or third after a lap or two it took me a long time to get good enough to pass those guys. I knew I had to go. I knew I had to make it happen. There’s no guarantee that you can make it happen, but we did, so it was pretty awesome tonight. Thanks to TRD, Toyota. Awesome horse power. Man, just everybody. Everybody go enter the true experience there. The Auto-Owners true experience and come to a race with us. It’ll be awesome.”
MARTIN TRUEX JR., No. 78 Auto-Owners Insurance Toyota Camry, Furniture Row Racing, cont.
How does it feel to find victory lane at Kansas Speedway?
“It’s always good to get a nice beer shower, 5-Hour Energy and whatever else they’re throwing on us here. Pretty awesome. Awesome day. Awesome weekend. This team rocks, man, they’re so good. We just stuck with it all night. We had an awesome race car. There’s times there we looked like we weren’t going to have a shot at it. We just kept fighting and made it happen.”
Ryan Blaney said he had trouble with the restarts while you did a great job with them. How did you use the restarts to your advantage?
“You just got to time it right. I’ve been a victim of the same thing. That kid (Ryan Blaney) is good, man. He’s going to win a ton of races. He’s really talented and their cars are fast right now. You do 10 restarts, eight of them you get right, two of them you screw up. You just hope the ones you screw up aren’t for the win. Today, we were able to get those ones right when it mattered. You know what can I say, just an awesome team effort.”
How much did the car and the track change starting in the daylight and transferring to the night time?
“The groove moved around quite a bit. Early in the race we seen the very high groove got really fast on those long runs and we had to adapt and be able to do that and we got pretty good up there and then the next thing you know we couldn’t run up there anymore. It was too slow and you had to run the middle. You know at the end the bottom was good at times too, so just moving the groove around — we didn’t change our car a whole lot throughout the race, really, just adapted to the race track. Moved my lines around and tried to work on it wherever I could.”
Kansas Speedway has been the Achilles Heel for you. What’s it mean to you and this team to finally get here?
“It feels great. It’s definitely been a thorn in our side. That’s for sure. You know for years and years even before I was with this team, for whatever reason we always ran good here and never could close the deal. Proud to get these guys back in victory lane. This is our home race track — the guys from Colorado. Appreciate all the fans. We got a lot of fans from Colorado here today. I met a bunch of them before the race and hopefully they’re all psyched.”
KYLE BUSCH, No. 18 M&M’s Red Nose Toyota Camry, Joe Gibbs Racing
Finishing Position: 5th
How much did your car change tonight and how did things
“It just seemed like other guys got better than us. We tried to adjust on our car and it never really made it better. The M&M’s Camry was fast when the sun was out. We were pretty quick up there riding the high side and doing a good job. We won the first segment and then the second segment I thought we were – had a shot to win that one as well too. I think we were third in that one and once it got dark out we just kind of lost it. Actually, other guys just got faster. The delta just got greater where those guys picked up a lot of speed and we didn’t. I don’t know where that’s at, but the guys gave me a great piece here. We had a lot of fun. Probably came out here with a better finish than we expected to with it as off as it was there at the end and a lot of things kind of happened in there. We just kind of got the right breaks and got lucky to miss the 48 (Jimmie Johnson) coming across our nose and made it to the stripe fifth, so we’ll go to next week.”
Describe those restarts during the closing laps of tonight’s race.
“You just try to go where there’s a gap, so I shot the gap on that last one and I heard four wide and I’m like ‘oh, I hope it’s not four wide because I’m only about enough for three wide’. I got lucky I guess I was clear just barely. I kind of felt it on my left-rear quarter being loose a little bit but it’s just a product of these restarts. You just got to get everything you can get when you can get it and Brad (Keselowski) did a great job there. He went from eighth, I think, on the last two restarts to finishing second. He got some good breaks and we just didn’t quite get it, but we move on.”
DANIEL SUÁREZ, No. 19 Stanley ACE / Children’s Miracle Network Toyota Camry, Joe Gibbs Racing
Finishing Position: 7th
Seventh place run, matching your career-best finish. How was the night and how did the car perform over the course of the race?
“It was good. Very proud of the way that — that the car worked the entire race. Scott (Graves, crew chief) and the guys they did a very good job. We had a top-10 car and that’s exactly where we ended up. Very happy for the performance of the car and looking forward to keep digging, keep working and keep learning for next weekend.”
