7th, JOEY LOGANO 8th, MICHAEL ANNETT 18th, STEVE WALLACE 19th, KENNY WALLACE 20th, JOE NEMECHEK 22nd, KYLE BUSCH 23rd, BRIAN SCOTT 24th, MICHAEL WALTRIP
JOEY LOGANO, No. 20 GameStop Toyota Camry, Joe Gibbs Racing Starting Position: 7th Are you happy with your car this weekend? “That was a good qualifying run for us. We didn’t expect to qualify good. I was guessing seventh and my crew chief was guessing a little bit further back than that. I’ve got a good GameStop Toyota for sure. I think it’s pretty quick. It pushed really good yesterday and got pushed pretty well. About all you can ask for here. There’s not much you can really do with it.”
How many other drivers will you have on your radio for tomorrow’s race? “I don’t really put a whole bunch of guys on my radio. A lot of them come to me so that makes it a little bit easier. I’ll work with Kyle (Busch) a lot and we’ll be on each other’s radio the most. I won’t have as many other drivers on my radio as most of them do for sure.”
MICHAEL ANNETT, No. 62 Pilot Travel Centers/Flying J Toyota Camry, Rusty Wallace Racing Starting Position: 8th How was your qualifying lap? “It’s about the easiest place we qualify I guess, but to be at the top of the board after you go out that’s the goal here, and then just try to stay up there as long as you can. With this wind you really can’t pick out a time to shoot for right now.”
What will your communication be like between teammates during tomorrow’s race? “The biggest thing is the communication started on Monday talking about this weekend and Steve (Wallace) and I definitely have each other on each other’s radios. They’ve been calling us two peas in a pod all weekend. As long as we can stay together. We have a motto between us that if one of us falls back the other guy is going to go back and get him. We’ll stay together for the whole race and like I said, we’re on radios and let each other know if something is working better for the other car and kind of meet in the middle there.”
Will you have other drivers to work with other than your teammate? “I hope I do. I haven’t necessarily had any handshakes on anything or any other teams on our radio, but people know I’ve got a win here and hopefully people remember that. If something happens to Steve (Wallace) or I there’s somebody else out there that one of us can go to.”
How strong do you think your car will be this weekend? “I think we’ll be real strong. I know Steve (Wallace) and I were both a lot more comfortable than we were in Daytona pushing each other. It got a little hairy the way the bumper and the nose lined up. It felt like here we got a lot more control and definitely will make the 140 laps a little bit easier.”
STEVE WALLACE, No. 66 5-Hour Energy Toyota Camry, Rusty Wallace Racing Starting Position: 18th How was your qualifying lap? “It was fine. It was an alright lap. We worked real hard yesterday on me and Michael (Annett) just practicing drafting with each other and stuff. It’s the same exact car we ran at Daytona. We kind of fluffed and buffed it a little bit because we didn’t have any damage from Daytona. Michael (Annett) brought his car here (from Daytona) that’s all prepared and fixed. We feel like we’ve got two good cars. It’s definitely not where you start, it’s where you finish here.”
Was the draft in practice yesterday a lot like what we saw at Daytona in February? “It was a lot easier here than it was at Daytona. The track is wider and longer and the whole deal. It’s a little bit easier I guess you would say. The only guy I’m really going to work with is my teammate Michael (Annett) the whole time so that’s all we really worked on. Me and him working on switching and drafting with each other. I feel like we’re both really comfortable doing that so we’ll see.”
KENNY WALLACE, No. 09 Family Farmers Toyota Camry, RAB Racing with Brack Maggard Starting Position: 19th How was your qualifying lap? “The wind is going to play a big factor in today’s qualifying. You come down the front straightaway and cars are turning 7400 RPM’s and then you get on the backstretch and you go with the wind and it turns 7800 RPM’s. You can feel the wind gusts in the car.”
What did you learn from yesterday’s practice? “There’s a lot of Nationwide drivers that drafted a little bit at Daytona and we still don’t know what we’re doing. The Cup guys are going to have a much larger advantage because they know what they’re doing. I think the key tomorrow is to get to the end and have a shot for the win. I think we get to pushing each other too hard tomorrow — we’re going to have to be careful. We saw all of the wrecks at Daytona with everybody spinning each other out so we need to limit that to where we can get to the checkered flag tomorrow, and then do that when it comes a chance for the win.”
JOE NEMECHEK, No. 87 NEMCO Motorsports Toyota Camry, NEMCO Motorsports Starting Position: 20th
KYLE BUSCH, No. 18 Z-Line Designs Toyota Camry, Joe Gibbs Racing Starting Position: 22nd What did you learn from running your qualifying lap on the apron? “We were going so slow here that I was wondering if the shortest way around wasn’t the fastest way around, but apparently not. Just figured we’d try something excited and make qualifying a little bit more amusing for everybody. The Z-Line Designs Camry was good in race trim. We knew we didn’t have a car for the pole so we were just making the laps here and just getting it into the show. We feel good about tomorrow and how it’s going to race.”
Will you race on the apron tomorrow? “You can race down there as long as you don’t pass down there. I don’t know if it’s the fastest way around. (Turn) one and two was really good. It got a little bit tight in (turn) three and four so I had to get back to the race track. Overall, it was just something fun to do.”
BRIAN SCOTT, No. 11 Shore Lodge Toyota Camry, Joe Gibbs Racing Starting Position: 23rd
MICHAEL WALTRIP, No. 99 Aaron’s Toyota Camry, Pastrana-Waltrip Racing Starting Position: 24th
