NASCAR Cup PR

PAUL MENARD, No. 21 Menards/Knauf Ford Mustang – “We were just so tight yesterday in practice I felt like we made the tires mad in practice, so we freed it up a lot for today and just overadjusted. It just snapped on me in three and four and then just had to play catch-up with crash damage after that, which is never easy.”

KYLE BUSCH, No. 18 M&M’s Hazelnut Toyota Camry, Joe Gibbs Racing - How did practice go today and what do you think about this new paint scheme for M&M’s?

CLINT BOWYER, No. 14 Toco Warranty Ford Mustang – POLE-WINNING PRESS CONFERENCE – “It’s just so challenging. You think about it, we live and die by pit road speeding penalties coming onto the pit road week in and week out. You’re getting the most out of that line, that yellow line."

Camry drivers Matt DiBenedetto and Timmy Hill will start 12th and 22nd, respectively, in tomorrow night’s MENCS Open event.

AUSTIN DILLON, NO. 3 DOW CAMARO ZL1 – Qualified 4th YOU GUYS WERE FAST TODAY IN PRACTICE, HOW DO YOU FEEL AFTER THOSE LAPS? “It feels really good to back it up. We had a really fast lap by ourselves right there. I am proud of my pit crew for having a solid pit stop, and man, the adrenaline is just flowing right now after hitting pit road with all that speed."

DANIEL HEMRIC, NO. 8 CATERPILLAR/BASS PRO SHOPS CAMARO ZL1 – OPEN Qualifying Pole Winner: HOW DO YOU FEEL ABOUT YOUR CHANCES TOMORROW NIGHT? “I feel good about it. Obviously, having speed with as short as the stages are, hopefully we can lock this Bass Pro Shops Camaro with Caterpillar’s help, the ZL1, in as far as the All-Star goes, but we’ve got to have a solid first stage."

KEVIN HARVICK, No. 4 Busch Beer Millenial Ford Mustang – CAN YOU TALK ABOUT THE BUSCH ACTIVATION BEHIND THIS PAINT SCHEME? “Obviously, I think as you look at Busch and Mobil 1, but with the Busch brand team they’ve obviously done a great job of activating not only this program, but the Car to Can at Daytona was one of the biggest things they’ve ever done, and who’d have thought that something so ugly would be so popular?

WITH THINGS GOING WELL FOR YOU THIS YEAR, IS THERE ANYTHING IN THE WORKS WITH GANASSI FOR THE FUTURE? “We haven’t really started any kind of talks, so it’s hard to give an update on anything.”

HOW ARE THINGS WITH OPPORTUNITIES AND SPONSORSHIP? “My dad said I could come back and work the watermelon field any day. We are just plugging along. There is your normal turmoil that every race team goes through. Anyone that says they aren’t, they probably aren’t telling the whole truth. Everything in Niece world is great. Other than that, we are just plugging along and just trying to make the best decisions long-term. We are trying to align ourselves with the best group of people we can.”

EVERY WEEK, IT SEEMS LIKE YOU GUYS ARE DEALING WITH A TRACK WITH A NEW RULE CHANGE AND THAT’S NOT GOING TO CHANGE THROUGHOUT THE SUMMER. WHAT DOES IT FEEL LIKE TO BE DEALING WITHOUT A NOTEBOOK WEEK AFTER WEEK? “You just have to figure out how to find some consistency in all of it. We all still know what makes the cars go faster. There are only a few things you can do to make them faster, so that’s what we have to focus on. I do think it’s been more of handling track; a lot more people lifting and not running as wide open. The cars aren’t handling great, so you have to work on them and make them drive better. We did a lot of that today and a lot of other cars did too. It was nice to have some speed in practice.”