TOYOTA NASCAR Sprint Cup Series (NSCS)
Post-Qualifying Notes & Quotes
Richmond International Raceway – September 7, 2012
4th, CLINT BOWYER 15th, KYLE BUSCH 6th, MARK MARTIN 29th, BOBBY LABONTE 7th, DENNY HAMLIN 32nd, TRAVIS KVAPIL 8th, JOEY LOGANO 34th, JOE NEMECHEK 9th, MARTIN TRUEX JR. 40th, MIKE BLISS 12th, LANDON CASSILL
CLINT BOWYER, No. 15 5-hour ENERGY Toyota Camry, Michael Waltrip Racing Starting Position: 4th How was your qualifying run? “It was good. Little bit free. Needed to be a little bit tighter to run that kind of lap, but it was a good run for us.”
Does being clinched in the Chase remove pressure from tomorrow night’s race? “Yeah, it does. That kind of pressure is off, but you still can’t let your guard down and you’ve got to work on your chemistry and keep pushing forward. You need to use this as a tool to kind of pull good runs in the Chase and just keep this momentum and this strong vibe we’ve got going on into the Chase.”
MARK MARTIN, No. 55 Aaron’s Dream Machine Toyota Camry, Michael Waltrip Racing Starting Position: 6th How was your lap? “Just an average lap in a really above average race car. I’ve gotten a lot of really good laps this year qualifying — that one doesn’t make the top of the list, but nothing wrong with it either. Really nice race car for the Aaron’s team. Look forward to tomorrow night. We’re going to try some different setup stuff to see if we can improve on what we had.”
What are you expectations for the race? “I look forward to it. I don’t know for sure. We’re trying to take a different approach from the last race here and we won’t know how that works out until tomorrow night.”
DENNY HAMLIN, No. 11 FedEx Express Toyota Camry, Joe Gibbs Racing Starting Position: 7th Were you slower than you thought you would be? “I actually thought I had a great lap going, but this car has been struggling for speed — all out speed. It needs about a tenth to be really, really good. I’m proud of our team for giving me a car that qualified pretty decent. I’m excited about the race. I think we’re going to have a good FedEx Express Toyota Camry and I think we’ve got a great shot at three in a row. We’ve just got to keep it going.”
JOEY LOGANO, No. 20 Home Depot Toyota Camry, Joe Gibbs Racing Starting Position: 8th What was the difference on your second lap? “Just finding out what your car is going to do and it was a little bit different than I thought it was going to be. The guys did a good job picking it up from practice. I think everybody is not really happy with their cars. It is the heat of the day and then things will change tomorrow night when the sun goes down. We’ll see what we’ve got to do with the Home Depot car to go out there and win. You never know. It’s going to be a crazy one.”
MARTIN TRUEX JR., No. 56 NAPA Auto Parts Toyota Camry, Michael Waltrip Racing Starting Position: 9th How was your qualifying run? “Yeah, it was alright. I wasn’t really sure what we were going to have there because we did our qualifying runs first practice right off the get go. We changed the car quite a bit doing some race stuff, so we kind of stuck with the race setup and just did some changes for qualifying. Overall, going into it blind, I thought it was pretty good. We had decent speed — just a little bit too tight to go real fast.”
What is your plan for tomorrow night? “It’s all about fun for us. Obviously, we want to get geared up for the Chase and have a good night. Momentum is a good thing and we’d like to have some leaving here tomorrow night.”
LANDON CASSILL, No. 83 Burger King Toyota Camry, BK Racing Starting Position: 12th How was your qualifying run? “It was good. We started out real bad and Doug (Richert, crew chief) — one of Doug’s best qualities is getting the car handling good at the race track and he did it again. Last week, we weren’t very good and he built a really good car for the race for me and he just did that again here today. We got it really good in happy hour and kind of guessed at it for qualifying, so I was pretty proud of this run.”
Do you enjoy racing at Richmond? “I do like this track. It’s a good track. We run good here. We got our first top-20 here. I’ve qualified really good here, so I’m really excited for the race tomorrow. I think we have a really good car.”
KYLE BUSCH, No. 18 M&M’s Toyota Camry, Joe Gibbs Racing Starting Position: 15th
BOBBY LABONTE, No. 47 Busch’s Beans Toyota Camry, JTG-Daugherty Racing Starting Position: 29th
TRAVIS KVAPIL, No. 93 Burger King Toyota Camry, BK Racing Starting Position: 32nd
JOE NEMECHEK, No. 87 AM/FM Energy Wood & Pellet Stoves Toyota Camry, NEMCO Motorsports Starting Position: 34th
MIKE BLISS, No. 19 Plinker Tactical Toyota Camry, TriStar Motorsports Starting Position: 40th
