Toyotas 1-2 in truck qualifying in Texas

JUSTIN MARKS, No. 9 Construct Corps Toyota Tundra, Germain Racing Qualified: 1st Can you talk about the improvements your team made between practice and qualifying to get this pole? “We struggled a little bit off the hauler. We couldn’t find the balance in the truck. These guys did a really good job digging deep after practice putting a setup underneath it for qualifying. Jason (Overstreet, crew chief) did a great job making the calls on the changes. The truck felt awesome in qualifying trim."

Can you talk about the start tomorrow with so many veterans around you? “I think, more than anything, as a rookie in this series you’re trying to get respect from the veterans and guys that have been in this series for a long time. You want to race them hard, but race them clean and be predictable. Earning the pole is a great feather in my cap and a feather in the cap of the team, but to prove myself as a driver in this series with these other guys is going to be how I race. I’m not nervous about it. We’re up there because we’re fast and we deserve to be. I think the big thing is to not force the issue early. Just get a good, clean start. If one of those guys has a good truck early on, and they’re really hounding me, I don’t have to race them that hard. We have 167 laps tomorrow night, and I just have to keep remembering that tomorrow night."

Do you think you were going to be affected by the early qualifying draw and warmer track temperature? “It was pretty hot out there. I wasn’t sure how much the track would cool down for the trucks going out later. Maybe we got a little lucky with the wind gusts, but at the same time, these guys worked hard to get this truck real good for qualifying."

What did the wind do to affect your truck in qualifying lap? “You get a headwind going into turn one, and it slows you down and the truck is down on the ground, so you feel like a hero going into that corner. It just gets a little sketchy going off into turn three because you have the tailwind. If you get a good enough gust on the frontstretch, it could improve you 10 or 15 spots out there."

MIKE SKINNER, No. 5 Toyota Tundra, Bill Davis Racing Qualified: 2nd Did you get everything you could have gotten out of the truck in qualifying? “We held it wide open all the way around the race track. We never touched the brake. I did everything I could do. That’s all she had. That’s just as fast as our truck was. One thing that hurt us really bad was when we came off of turn four and got on the straightaway and a big gust hit it and knocked about 200 RPM out of it. I thought it was going to blow it over. Without that big gust of wind, I thought we would’ve run a decent lap."

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