Raybestos Rookie Happy Hour speeds:
Stremme 8th
Sorenson 9th
Truex Jr. 11th
Bowyer 14th
Yeley 21st
Hamlin 24th
Raybestos Rookie David Stremme posted the eighth best overall speed in the final practice session at Texas, best among first-year drivers.
DAVID STREMME, No. 40 COORS LIGHT DODGE: “Our car has been better all weekend. We’ve made a lot of gains compared to how we’ve been running throughout the season. That’s something that we knew coming into each race. We’ve just got to keep building better and the team is getting better. This is the same car that we run at Atlanta and we’re just building a notebook. I feel real good about our car after this practice session. It was hot out and we were one of the better cars here.” DOES YOUR CAR HAVE GRIP IN THE FRONT END AFTER A LONG RUN? “It’s just grip overall that you need [SMILES]. You’re not wanting just one end or the other. You need overall and that’s something that earlier in the day we were lacking rear grip. Now we lack a little front grip. We’ll just keep working on it and get it better. But I feel real good about our team and where it’s going.” WHAT IS THE CRITICAL AREA OF THIS TRACK? “You’ve got to be good off both corners. You’ve got to maintain a lane to where you’re not giving up the bottom because they will drive underneath you and that’s something that’s pretty important.” WERE YOU ABLE TO PASS? “We passed a couple of cars. I think the groove is going to widen out a lot so you’ll see a lot of people kind of going all over. Again, the tires fall off a lot. My car ran real good on the bottom and I’m sure it will run good on the top. The main thing is that it’s performing real good right now.” IS THE TIRE WEAR GOOD? “Our tires have been pretty decent. They don’t fall off as much here. I think it’s just the asphalt. I’m going to go rest. I’ve got a cold I’ve been fighting since last week and get better for tomorrow.”
MARTIN TRUEX JR., No. 1 BASS PRO SHOPS/TRACKER BOATS CHEVROLET: “It’s pretty good. We were a little better in that first practice than the second. I know we were higher on the board in the second one; we were 11th. The track got slicker and we lost the handle on it a little bit. We were kind of tight here, kind of loose there so we worked our way through it. We never really got it right where we needed it but it’s competitive and hopefully it will be something we can work with tomorrow.” WHAT IS THE CRITICAL AREA OF THIS TRACK? “Everywhere, really. It’s so fast you need to be good getting into the corner but you need to be good off to be able to pass cars and be able to hold your position. There’s really no compromise. You really need to be good everywhere.” WILL THE TRACK CHANGE A LOT BECAUSE OF THE BUSCH RACE? “There is a lot of rubber on it now. It seems like it’s pretty slick. I know it’s supposed to be hotter tomorrow and it will probably be even slicker yet. It just keeps getting slicker and it’s harder to get a hold of and that just magnifies the difference between the good cars and the bad cars. Hopefully we’re somewhere close to the good cars, where we need to be.” HOW MUCH WORK HAS THE TEAM DONE ON THE RIGHT SIDE OF THE CAR? “They did a lot of work. Most of it was done yesterday. They just tore all the decals off and tried to clean it up a little more so they can get ready to fix it here this afternoon for tomorrow. They’ve put in a lot of work this weekend. I’m just real proud of their efforts and what they were able to give me yesterday and today. The car has been pretty good. We’ll keep digging on it and hopefully we’ll have something that we can work with tomorrow.”
