3rd, DAVID REUTIMANN 10th, KASEY KAHNE 13th, MARTIN TRUEX JR. 14th, DENNY HAMLIN 16th, JOEY LOGANO 19th, KYLE BUSCH 21st, BRIAN VICKERS 23rd, BOBBY LABONTE 31st, CASEY MEARS 33rd, MICHAEL MCDOWELL 35th, JOE NEMECHEK 39th, MIKE SKINNER
DAVID REUTIMANN, No. 00 Aaron’s Dream Machine Toyota Camry, Michael Waltrip Racing Starting Position: 3rd Are you surprised with your qualifying lap? “It didn’t feel that good at all, but thankfully the Aaron’s Dream Machine has been pretty good since we unloaded. It ended up being okay there, but the clouds are coming now and it’s not going to do us any favors. The track is going to cool down some. Hopefully this will hold up for a good starting position on Sunday.”
How important is qualifying at New Hampshire? “It’s important everywhere we go. It’s so hard to pass anymore, but we unloaded pretty good and had a good Aaron’s Dream Machine. The lap itself didn’t feel all that good, but in the end it was good enough for third.”
What do you attribute to the recent roll you’ve been on? “Finally running like we’re supposed to. I don’t know if you call it a roll, but it’s certainly been better than it has been. Just because you qualify upfront, it doesn’t mean you’re going to stay there, but it certainly does get your weekend off to a good start. Just all due to the improvements we made on our cars and things we were missing and felt like some areas we were struggling in as far as our cars were performing. It’s not that we had bad cars, it’s just that we were behind a little bit. Hopefully starting to close the gap a little bit. Last week was the first time we’ve run our new generation-type car and that was a big improvement over what we’ve had. It’s just qualifying here, but we’ll see how it stacks up in race trim before we know if there is any kind of roll or not.”
KASEY KAHNE, No. 4 Red Bull Toyota Camry, Red Bull Racing Team Starting Position: 10th How was your car in qualifying? “It was pretty decent. We picked up a little from practice. I was just a little bit loose getting into the corners. I didn’t really get into the corners as good as I would have liked. It’s still alright and still a decent lap.”
How tough is this race track? “It just depends – sometimes it can be. The tires are what gets you a lot. People will put on two and zero and track position will really kill you at times here. Just trying to keep up with that. Overall, it’s a pretty cool track to race.”
MARTIN TRUEX JR., No. 56 NAPA AUTO PARTS Toyota Camry, Michael Waltrip Racing Starting Position: 13th
DENNY HAMLIN, No. 11 FedEx Freight Toyota Camry, Joe Gibbs Racing Starting Position: 14th Were you pleased with your qualifying lap? “We were going to end up better than what we have the last couple times, but still we’re not blazing fast in frontend speed. Got to get a little faster on the short run it seems like. That kind of rolls over into qualifying where we’re going to end up somewhere around 15th or so. It’s just one of those things where we just have to keep working on the short run and I think we’ll get better overall.”
What is the key to success at this race track? “It’s tough – it’s just a tough race track. I think this tire we have here this weekend is a little bit better so it’s going to be a little bit more controlled I feel like on restarts. It’s still going to be a tough one to get a hold of.”
JOEY LOGANO, No. 20 Home Depot Toyota Camry, Joe Gibbs Racing Starting Position: 16th Was your qualifying lap better than what you expected after practice? “Definitely better. They did a good job. Zip (Greg Zipadelli, crew chief) and the boys put their heads together. I told them this was the first time I’ve come here and I feel like I know what I’m looking for in a race car and for race trim, but for qualifying trim I was kind of up in the air after practice there. I think we had a good direction to go. The guys did a good job with it and we’ll have a decent starting spot with that. That’s definitely an improvement for us. We’re happy about it. Starting position here is pretty big.”
How did your car handle in qualifying? “The guys did a good job improving my car for sure. The Home Depot Toyota has been good in race trim. Qualifying trim is what I was nervous about and I didn’t feel like I had a really good car. Just kept telling myself before I went out there that I needed to get back in the Cup mode – I just ran Nationwide practice for the last hour and a half. I just kept trying to re-run what I had before and really focused in and I felt like I did everything I was supposed to do. I think I wish I had one more lap – the car seemed like it was getting better as I kept going there. I think one more lap would have been faster, but I bet 90 percent of the guys out here say the same thing. I think we know what to work on the next time we come here to make speed in qualifying so that should help.”
KYLE BUSCH, No. 18 Interstate Batteries Toyota Camry, Joe Gibbs Racing Starting Position: 19th How was your car in qualifying? “Our Interstate Batteries Camry was just too snug to the center and a little edgy back to the gas. I think we’ve got a good car for the race and we’ve got two sessions tomorrow to work on it and make it better.”
BRIAN VICKERS, No. 83 Red Bull Toyota Camry, Red Bull Racing Team Starting Position: 21st How was your qualifying lap? “We ran short on time there at the end of practice and we didn’t get to scuff our tires like we wanted and didn’t get to make some of the changes like we wanted, but we took a big swing at it after qualifying. The guys did a good job. There’s a couple areas I thought we could’ve improved upon, but considering where we were I liked it.”
What do you think of this race track? “I like it. It’s unique to our circuit. A flat one mile like this, progressive-banked – it’s easy to get beside someone and hard to complete the pass, which makes for a lot of side-by-side racing.”
BOBBY LABONTE, No. 47 Capitol Window/CapWinFund.com Toyota Camry, JTG-Daugherty Racing Starting Position: 23rd
CASEY MEARS, No. 13 GEICO Toyota Camry, Germain Racing Starting Position: 31st How was your car in qualifying? “It was good. The track was a little hotter and we went faster than we did in practice, which was good. I thought I should, have run a 70 in practice earlier today. Anyway, it was good. We picked up from where we ran in practice and the guys did a good job. I clipped the apron a little too much off of four and got too loose. It was a good day.”
MICHAEL MCDOWELL, No. 66 HP Racing LLC Toyota Camry, PRISM Motorsports Starting Position: 33rd
JOE NEMECHEK, No. 87 AMFMEnergy.com Toyota Camry, NEMCO Motorsports Starting Position: 35th
MIKE SKINNER, No. 60 Big Red Toyota Camry, Germain Racing Starting Position: 39th
