Las Vegas: Toyota teams race notes, quotes

Joey Logano (sixth) was the highest-finishing Toyota driver in Sunday's NASCAR Sprint Cup Series (NSCS) race at Las Vegas Motor Speedway. It was his second top-10 finish in the first three races of 2010.

David Reutimann (13th), Marcos Ambrose (14th), Kyle Busch (15th), Denny Hamlin (19th) and Martin Truex Jr. (20th) also collected top-20 finishes at the 1.5-mile race track.

Other Camry drivers in the 267-lap race included Scott Speed (22nd), Dave Blaney (29th), Brian Vickers (31st), Robby Gordon (32nd), Max Papis (33rd), Joe Nemechek (41st) and Michael McDowell (42nd).

After three 2010 races, five Camry drivers are in the top-20 in unofficial point standings -- Joey Logano (eighth), David Reutimann (ninth), Kyle Busch (12th), Scott Speed (16th) and Brian Vickers (18th).

***

JOEY LOGANO, No. 20 Home Depot Toyota Camry, Joe Gibbs Racing
Finished: 5th

Are you pleased with your performance today? "Yeah, definitely. Another great run for our Home Depot car here. I'm excited about that. To have two great runs like that (Fontana, Calif. and Las Vegas) -- it's exciting coming into the season. Next week will probably be a tough one -- Atlanta is one where we struggled a lot last year. If we run good there, that's going to really say something to me. I expected to run really good here, especially after last weekend. Last year, we ran good here, too. It's cool that we didn't start the best in the beginning of the race, then we were able to make good adjustments to keep improving and keep passing cars and almost getting a fifth-place -- that's definitely cool."

How was your race today? "Another good Home Depot Toyota -- two weeks in a row, I am really excited about that. I tell you, if you keep getting top-10s, you'll get closer to the top-five, and eventually the wins are going to come. I'm pretty pumped up about how we did here. We didn't start the race that good, but to come back at the end and get a solid top-10 -- we almost had Matt (Kenseth) there coming to the line (for fifth-place). It's a lot of fun, like I said last week, to see the front of the lead pack and you can almost get to the lead -- it's a lot of fun."

What did you need to improve during the race? "We started off loose, so I thoug ht I was going to spin out. Zippy (Greg Zipadelli, crew chief) made good calls trying to keep working to get the car better."

***

DAVID REUTIMANN, No. 00 TUMS Toyota Camry, Michael Waltrip Racing
Finished: 13th

How did your race car handle today? "We just seemed to be off today. There were times when we got it pretty decent, but it just seemed like track position was everything. The guys did a great job on pit road for the TUMS Toyota and we had some great pit stops. We worked on the TUMS car and made it better. We just never could get up to where we needed to get. We'd give up some at the start of the run and gain it back at the end. At the end of the race we didn't have the amount of laps we needed to try to put together anything that would have been pretty good, so we ended up 13th."

***

MARCOS AMBROSE, No. 47 Kingsford Toyota Camry, JTG-Daugherty Racing
Finished: 14th

How was your race? "Well we finished and that's more than what we've done the last two. Our season starts right now. We've got to build from that. It was a decent day -- a top-15. We'll take our licks and go to the next one. We've got ourselves in the back-forty, that helps us get out of a hole here. We're worried about top-35 (points). If we get a couple more good races like that we'll be fine."

***

KYLE BUSCH, No. 18 M&M's Toyota Camry, Joe Gibbs Racing
Finished: 15th

How was your race car today? "Our M&M's Camry wasn't bad all day. We were a little tight early in the race and our balance wasn't bad, it just didn't seem like we had the speed. We ran a really patient race, but on our last stop there was too much rear brake and I slid acro ss the line coming in. Totally my fault. I'm just sorry for the guys since we had a decent car but didn't finish where we ran all day long."

***

DENNY HAMLIN, No. 11 FedEx Ground Toyota Camry, Joe Gibbs Racing
Finished: 19th

How was your race car in today's race? "We fought a loose car the entire afternoon. And we did just about everything we could do to try to tighten up our FedEx Ground Toyota -- and basically nothing worked. Track position is so important here and it seemed like most of the afternoon we ran in the 20's. We just never had a good enough car to move up and pass many people. We need to regroup this week and focus on getting to the front in Atlanta. We belong up front and we need to be there in Atlanta."

***

MARTIN TRUEX JR., No. 56 NAPA Gold Filters Toyota Camry, Michael Waltrip Racing
Finished: 20th

***

SCOTT SPEED, No. 82 Red Bull Toyota Camry, Red Bull Racing Team
Finished: 22nd

How was your race? "It was not our finest hour by any means and we still ended up 22nd and 16th in points. We just misread the track a little bit. We thought it was going to be a fair bit tighter than it was out there and we struggled with the car being loose. We had some stuff done to the car that we couldn't change during the race, were kind of committed one setup and couldn't go back to it. It's one of those things, we had a bad day but we battled it out. Jimmy (Elledge, crew chief) made some great calls on pit road to keep us up there in a reasonable position. We ended up coming home 22nd. If our bad days are 22nd, then we're doing something good."

***

DAVE BLANEY, No. 66 Toyota Camry, PRISM Motorsports
Finished: 29th

BRIAN VICKERS, No. 83 Red Bull Toyota Camry, Red Bull Racing Team
Finished: 31st

ROBBY GORDON, No. 7 Monster Energy Toyota Camry, Robby Gordon Motorsports
Finished: 32nd

MAX PAPIS, No. 13 GEICO Toyota Camry, Germain Racing
Finished: 33rd

JOE NEMECHEK, No. 87 Toyota Camry, NEMCO Motorsports
Finished: 40th

MICHAEL McDOWELL, No. 55 Toyota Camry, PRISM Motorsports
Finished: 42nd

-source: toyota motorsports