Michael Waltrip Racing - Pocono Raceway Qualifying Report

Martin Truex Jr., No. 56 NAPA AUTO PARTS Toyota Camry - Qualified 27th
David Reutimann, Aaron’s Dream Machine Toyota Camry - Qualified 29th
Summary

Michael Waltrip Racing drivers Martin Truex Jr. and David Reutimann both experienced issues during Friday’s qualifying effort for the Gillette ProGlide 500 at Pocono. Martin Truex Jr. experienced some sort of mechanical issue that caused his car to skip down the front stretch and caused the No. 56 team to qualify 27th with a time of 53.824 sec.

Meanwhile, David Reutimann also experienced difficulty, but his came in the way of a handling issue caused by bottoming out over a difficult racing surface. Reutimann said that as the splitter would hit the track over a particularly rough stretch between turns one and two it caused the nose of his Aaron’s Dream Machine Toyota to take off on him and lose speed. Reutimann qualified 29th with a time of 53.855 sec. This week’s qualifying effort snaps a streak of four consecutive points races where an MWR driver has started from a top-five position.

Both teams practiced well in race trim on Friday’s only practice and should be able to gain positions throughout Sunday’s 500 mile event at the 2.5 mile Pocono Raceway.

Sunday afternoon’s running of the Gillette ProGlide 500 presented by Target gets underway on TNT, MRN Radio and SiriusXM Satellite Radio 128 starting at 1 p.m. ET.

Friday Recap
Kyle Busch won the Coors Light Pole Award for the second time in four weeks with a time of 53.102 sec.
Clint Bowyer, Dale Earnhardt Jr., Kurt Busch and Denny Hamlin rounded out the top-five.
Points leader Kevin Harvick will start 22nd
Bowyer is making his best Cup start (second) of 2010
JTG-Daugherty Racing driver Marcos Ambrose qualified the No. 47 Toyota 16th

MARTIN TRUEX JR., No. 56 NAPA AUTO PARTS Toyota Camry, Qualified 27th

What happened with your car during your qualifying lap?

“I’m not real sure. We only have one box and one battery for qualifying so I can’t switch. It was strange. Just all of the way down the front straightaway was skipping real bad and it wouldn’t turn any RPM. Then it mysteriously went away off of turn one and down the backstretch. Not real sure, but the NAPA Toyota was driving real well. I thought it was going to be a good lap without that. The guys did good. We’ll just have to go back and figure out what happened and race them all Sunday.”

DAVID REUTIMANN, No. 00 Aaron’s Dream Machine Toyota Camry, Qualified: 29th

How was your qualifying lap?

"The splitter was hitting on the Aaron's Dream Machine and it was taking off on me. It feels good going into the tunnel and into turn 3, but there's a rough part of the track where we keep hitting the splitter. Through the middle of turn 1 and in to the tunnel turn was hurting us pretty bad. We'll keep working on it tomorrow and we have 500 miles to make it better on Sunday. We'll get it back to where we need to be."