Nicorette 300 - Toyota Post-Race Quotes
Two Camrys posted top-10 finishes today at Atlanta Motor Speedway – Jason Leffler (eighth) and David Reutimann
(10th). Camrys have earned nine top-10 finishes thus far in 2008.
Kyle Busch led 153 of 198 laps before the right-front tire blew on lap 172 resulting in a 24th-place finish for the No. 20
Farm Bureau Insurance Toyota Camry.
Camrys led a total of 154 laps today -- in addition to Busch’s 153 laps, Leffler also led one lap.
Other Toyota drivers in the field included Mike Wallace (17th) and Brian Vickers (22nd).
JASON LEFFLER, No. 38 Great Clips Toyota Camry, Braun Racing
Finished: 8th
How much did your team struggle with handling on such a cold race track?
"We just never got the car where we needed it to be. It was good on the long runs, but there weren't a lot of long runs today.
We were able to salvage a top-10 today so that was a good day."
DAVID REUTIMANN, No. 99 Aaron's Dream Machine Toyota Camry, Michael Waltrip Racing
Finished: 10th
It was one of those tough days for you, but you came out with a top-10 finish despite all of those battles?
"Yeah, everybody did a great job on Michael Waltrip Racing and the Aaron's Dream Machine. We just had missed it today,
unfortunately. They kept working on it and thank the lord we got a top-10 out of it. It wasn't looking like that for a long time,
but I'm proud of my guys. The pit stops were good. We just didn't have the car we needed today so we'll go back and work on
it and make it better."
Did your car get loose early on in the race when you had to make an early pit stop?
"The car got extremely loose and it was either, I had to keep slowing down. Slow down. Slow down. It was evil loose and I
figured at some point we would have a chance of wrecking it so we figured we better work on it when we could as opposed to
getting ourselves into trouble."
BRIAN VICKERS, No. 32 ABF U-Pack Toyota Camry, Braun Racing
Finished: 22nd
Did you have anything for the leaders if you hadn't lost the lap with the mishap on pit road?
"If we could have stayed on the lead lap, it would have changed our entire race. I don't know if we had a car to win -- we had a
good long run car. Every time we got good the caution would come out. We were real good right around the bottom, too.
NASCAR had so many cars out there that were under-momentum that I could never run the bottom. Every lap we would lap the
same car or four or five of them. The biggest thing that hurt us was the pit stop that put us a lap down."
KYLE BUSCH, No. 20 Farm Bureau Insurance Toyota Camry, Joe Gibbs Racing
Finished: 24th
Was there any indication that you were going to lose the tire?
"No. Obviously we had the dominant car. Farm Bureau and Toyota should be real proud, I'm just sorry about the fact that we
blew another right-front tire."
DAVE ROGERS, Crew Chief, No. 20 Farm Bureau Insurance Toyota Camry, Joe Gibbs Racing
Do you have anymore information on what caused the right front tire to go down?
"Goodyear is sending the right-front tire back to the lab and they are going to do some advanced analysis on it. Just
looking at the tire out in the pit they couldn't determine why it failed. I can confirm that they checked out tires on the
two previous pit stops. We had two 50-lap green flag runs and our tires looked great. Goodyear confirmed that our
tires looked as good or better than anybody's. I think it showed on the long runs where we could just drive away from
the field. Usually if you are abusing your tires you can take off from the field early in the run and fade late in the run
we didn't see that here. I don't know what happened. It just wasn't our day."
MIKE WALLACE, No. 7 GEICO Toyota Camry, Germain Racing
Finished: 17th
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