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