Where the Raybestos Rookies qualified at Martinsville:
Yeley 18th
Truex Jr. 21st
Sorenson 25th
Stremme 38th
Hamlin 43rd
Bowyer 45th
J.J YELEY, No. 18 INTERSTATE BATTERIES CHEVROLET: THAT WAS A GOOD LAP. “Compared to what we were doing earlier it’s a heck of a lap. Steve Addington [crew chief] and the crew, they just kept battling. We were just so tight in practice. No matter what we did, we just couldn’t get the car freed up enough to get it through the corner. We did some testing earlier this week in Greenville and took some of the things that we learned on Monday and applied them here. They definitely made the car a whole lot better. YOU’VE RACED A LOT OF LOT OF SHORT TRACKS IN YOUR CAREER. HOW TOUGH IS MARTINSVILLE? “It’s way up there, definitely, on the scale of being difficult because I think this place is so easy to overdrive. You just don’t realize that you’re getting up to 130 miles per hour on the straightaways to get the thing woahed down to make these tight flat corners. That’s something that I really struggled with in practice, trying to carry way too much speed in the center of the corner and couldn’t get the car rotated enough to get off the center. You almost have to treat it like an old dirt dry slickey: you’ve just got to make sure you get off the corner because it’s so critical. I just wasn’t doing that in practice. Hopefully the time will hold up there in the top-10 and we’d definitely be happy with that. CAN YOU ALREADY TELL THAT BRAKES ARE VERY, VERY IMPORTANT HERE? “It’s definitely easy to see that brakes are an issue here. I didn’t realize that the straightaways are this long compared to how tight the corners were. There’s not a whole lot of grip in the corners so you can’t carry a lot of speed so I know it’s very important to take care of your brakes. It’s a very, very long race. Tire management and brake management are going to be the big keys.”
Raybestos Rookie Post Qualifying Nugget:
J.J. Yeley was the top Raybestos Rookie qualifier at Martinsville today. This is the fourth time this season he has taken the honor this season [California, Las Vegas and Atlanta were the others].
REED SORENSON, No. 41 TARGET DODGE: “That’s the best I could do [LAUGHS]. The car felt good. The brakes were a little soft in qualifying there. I’m not really sure why. The car felt fine. I’ve never been here before and I’m trying not to do anything stupid and run a solid lap and that’s what we did.” HOW IMPORTANT IS IT TO KNOW THAT YOU ARE IN THE RACE? “I wasn’t nervous going into qualifying. Obviously you want to start toward the front. I just put down the best lap I could. Only getting an hour and a half of practice at a track that you’ve never been to and the guys that you’re running against are guys that have raced here year after year. I’m sure it won’t be that great of a run. It will probably be somewhere in the 20s which is all right. We’ll get some race runs in tomorrow during practice and see what we can do in the race.” IS THE STRATEGY JUST TO GET OUT OF HERE TO RUNAS MANY LAPS AS YOU CAN IN THE RACE AND GET OUT OF HERE IN ONE PIECE? “That’d be nice, especially never being here before. We’d just like to get a solid run, nothing crazy.”
MARTIN TRUEX JR., No. 1 BASS PRO SHOPS/TRACKER BOATS CHEVROLET: “It’s really good for us. We only ran a 20.03 or something in practice and we picked up a bunch of time. We made a bunch of changes. We were tight in practice and we got it freed up. It was just a little bit too free. But, overall, that’s a good lap for us. We almost missed our chance because we were on the five-minute clock and we made it by about 10 seconds. They guys did a lot. We barely made it through tech in time so it’s good to get that lap in.” WHAT HAPPENED IN THE TECH LINE? ANY PROBLEMS? “I’m not sure. It took them a while to get through, I guess. But I’ve got to thank them. They did an awesome job with the car. We picked up over two-tenths from practice and the car was really good. I screwed up a little bit. I was a little bit too loose and I lost a little bit of ground off of 4 but the car drove really, really good. I was pretty happy with it.” HOW DIFFICULT IS THIS PLACE? “It’s not hard if your car is good [SMILES].”
DENNY HAMLIN, No. 11 FEDEX GROUND CHEVROLET: WHAT HAPPENED? “I wrecked over there. We just weren’t that good. We slowed down and the driver overdrove. That was about it.” THAT’S EASY TO DO AT A PLACE LIKE THIS. “Sure, but I should know better.”
DAVID STREMME, No. 40 LONESTAR STEAKHOUSE DODGE: IS THAT GOOD ENOUGH TO MAKE THE RACE? “Yeah, they said we’re in and that’s the main thing. We just need something to turn our luck around and I think running the Dodge truck helped a lot. This team is strong. I’ve never been here before and it’s tough making this race. We’ve got a good team. We’ve just got to get out there and change our
luck around and we’ll be all right.” IS IT A BIG RELIEF TO MAKE THE RACE HERE? “A huge relief because this is the first race where we don’t go off last year’s points. We just need to keep knocking. Just get a good finish, that’s all we’ve got to do. I believe in the team and they believe in me. You can’t get caught up in everything.” HAVE YOU GUYS JUST HAD BAD LUCK THIS SEASON? “We were running pretty good at Bristol and got caught up in a wreck there. Transmission broke at Daytona. We didn’t run good at Vegas. We’re just going through tough times. Everybody does it. Hopefully we’ll turn it around here pretty soon.”
