NASCAR Sprint Cup Series: Quicken Loans 400

Topics:  Quicken Loans 400

Martin Truex, Jr.
June 16, 2013

BROOKLYN, MICHIGAN

KERRY THARP: Martin, can you hear us?
MARTIN TRUEX JR.: Yes.
KERRY THARP: Rather than just take an opening statement we'll take questions and work this the best we can. Questions for Martin Truex Jr.

Q. Martin, how was the Toyota power today compared with last week at Pocono? Could you sense an improvement?
MARTIN TRUEX JR.: It was definitely better than last week, I mean, based on what they told us they were running package‑wise. So yeah, I mean, it was definitely better than last week. It wasn't quite back to what we had a few weeks ago at Dover, but again, they're working on that, and hoping to have back what we had there by the next two weeks, I believe not Sonoma but I believe the race after that. Today we felt fine. We were very competitive horsepower‑wise, and all that was good.

Q. Martin, you talked about the engine being okay. How far off do you think you were on the chassis setup of the car?
MARTIN TRUEX JR.: We were definitely off a little bit. We definitely had enough horsepower to win the race. I mean, that's not what kept us from winning. Our car was really good on the long, long runs, not really good on the short run, and those guys would get out away from us. It took us like 20 laps to get rolling, and by the time we'd get back to them, of course then it gets hard to pass and use your stuff up and it takes a while to get around some guys. We worked our way up to the front one time early in the race and we got‑‑ we were third on that restart where Jimmie checked up because he didn't want to be down one as far as tires, and then cars were flying by us and we ended upcoming out in 13th and we had to work our way back up.
The engine issue had nothing at all to do with us not winning, we just missed it on the car a little bit today. I feel like the last‑‑ really the last month or so we've gotten behind just a little bit, and we're trying to catch up. So today was definitely a good day for us to get a good result, learn some things about our race car and hopefully make it better going forward.
KERRY THARP: Martin, thanks for coming in. We'll see you at Sonoma.