Martin Truex Jr. leads Toyota with an 11th-place starting position for tomorrow’s NASCAR Cup Series event at Kansas Speedway.
Toyota Racing Post-Qualifying Report
Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series (MENCS)
Kansas Speedway – October 19, 2019
TOYOTA STARTING POSITIONS
1st, Daniel Hemric*
2nd, David Ragan*
3rd, Ryan Blaney*
4th, Brad Keselowski*
5th, Kyle Larson*
11th, MARTIN TRUEX JR.
18th, KYLE BUSCH
20th, ERIK JONES
23rd, DENNY HAMLIN
27th, MATT DiBENEDETTO
32nd, PARKER KLIGERMAN
39th, JOEY GASE
*non-Toyota driver
TOYOTA QUOTES
MARTIN TRUEX JR., No. 19 Bass Pro Shops Toyota Camry, Joe Gibbs Racing
Starting Position: 11th
Does the starting position matter?
“We are 11th, which is a lot better than we expected. We have a good starting spot, probably better than we expected. Hopefully that’s not a bad thing. Generally, we don’t run good unless we start like 20th. So I’m a little nervous.”
ERIK JONES, No. 20 Reser’s Fine Foods Toyota Camry, Joe Gibbs Racing
Starting Position: 20th
How was your qualifying lap?
“It was alright. It was kind of where we expected. Not a whole lot you can do here, but I feel like the Reser’s Camry is pretty good in race trim. We focused a lot on that yesterday. I feel like we have it pretty good, pretty close, pretty good in traffic.”
DENNY HAMLIN, No. 11 FedEx Office Toyota Camry, Joe Gibbs Racing
Starting Position: 23rd
How do you look at this race?
“I felt like we were pretty good yesterday. I thought our car drove really well. We were pretty good compared to the field. I’m looking forward to it.”
MATT DiBENEDETTO, No. 95 Toyota Express Maintenance Toyota Camry, Leavine Family Racing
Starting Position: 27th
Talk about the difference between qualifying and racing here at Kansas.
“It’s completely different. In qualifying, that’s more up to the speed of the car, the team’s work. I can just go out there and shift through the gears and hold it to the floor and be smooth on the wheel. It’s kind of like Daytona qualifying now. Totally different than it used to be. But racing, totally different story. It’s got to handle well. When we first started practice, I thought I was going to crash every lap. It was really, really loose. You have to work on it handling well. The cars that may not qualify well, can race really well, so you just don’t know.”
PARKER KLIGERMAN, No. 96 Gaunt Brothers Racing Toyota Camry, Gaunt Brothers Racing
Starting Position: 32nd
What are you looking forward to tomorrow?
“Our Gaunt Brothers Racing team has worked really hard. We weren’t great in practice, but with us being a part-time team, we have to use track time for our advantage. We kind of do some science experiments, that’s the best way to put it. Yesterday was full of science experiments. We don’t know where we stack up. I think for us, we have been fully focused on knowing that things that we need to do better as a team car wise and aero wise. The only way we are going to get better is putting it on the race track. Our Toyota Camry was really loose yesterday, hopefully, we got rid of some of that looseness. If we get in the race and it’s a little bit tighter, I think we can have a solid day.”
Toyota Racing PR