Catchfence

Camry driver Clint Bowyer (fifth) was the highest-finishing Toyota driver in Sunday’s NASCAR Sprint Cup Series (NSCS) race at Dover International Speedway.

Mayetta, N.J., native Martin Truex Jr. (seventh) and Joey Logano (eighth) also earned top-10 finishes at the one- mile concrete oval.

Mark Martin (14th) earned his third NSCS pole of the season and led the field three times for 43 laps (of 400).

Other Toyota drivers in the field included Denny Hamlin (18th), Bobby Labonte (20th), Travis Kvapil (23rd), Kyle Busch (29th), David Stremme (33rd), JJ Yeley (34th), Mike Bliss (36th), Landon Cassill (38th) and Joe Nemechek (39th).

Following Dover, four Camry drivers are in the top-10 in the unofficial NSCS driver point standings — Hamlin (fourth), Truex (sixth), Busch (ninth) and Bowyer (10th).

CLINT BOWYER, No. 15 5-hour ENERGY Toyota Camry, Michael Waltrip Racing Finishing Position: 5th

What did you think of your finish today at Dover? “It was a good weekend, all in all , for our 5 -hour ENERGY Toyota. That outside line on the restarts at the end kind of cost us a couple spots. The 29 (Kevin Harvick) got around a bunch of cars right there on the outside and kind of settled in with the top-five there. Great weekend, good points day, but you want to win when you get that close. Nobody had anything for the 48 (Jimmie Johnson), but I felt like between (Matt) Kenseth and Junior (Dale Earnhardt Jr.) and even (Jeff) Gordon was probably in a league of his own. We had a good day.”

How close are you to getting to victory lane? “We just have to keep digging. We have to keep getting better. This was a great confidence-booster for our team — a young team together and everything else. I’m proud of the guys, proud of the progress that we’ve made. We still have some room to grow.”

How did you recover from the trouble on pit road to get a top-five finish? “We were struggling on pit road, we have been a little bit all year with our 5-hour ENERGY Toyota. This is a solid weekend. This is what we needed. It was a good confidence-booster for a young team. I think we were a little bit better than a fifth-place car. On the outside on the restarts really prevailed for the first corner. Just slipped up and lost a couple spots there and battled back from the tough pit road. It was a good day for us.”

Are you pleased to be inside the top-10 in points after Dover? “It was a solid weekend for our 5-hour ENERGY Toyota. I had a tough day on pit road. I was able to battle back on restarts and get positions back. It’s just hard to make them up when you lose them. I’m proud of the guys, proud of the effort. MWR (Michael Waltrip Racing) had good cars all weekend long. Mark (Martin) sat on the pole and we had a top- five car pretty much all day long. We’ll go on.”

MARTIN TRUEX JR., No. 56 NAPA Auto Parts Toyota Camry, Michael Waltrip Racing Finishing Position: 7th

How was your race at your hometown track? “Oh my goodness — beginning to not like this place so much anymore. It was tough. Man, we started in the back there 18th. I say it’s the back, but it’s not that far back, but it was tough back there. Track position is huge. We’d get out there by ourselves in clean air and I could run as fast as the leader and the car didn’t drive so bad. Then, I’d catch the next guy ahead of me and I’d get to him and I’d about crash. It was just all I could do to hang on today a couple times. It was just a crazy day. This place is tough. You get in traffic and these cars are so sensitive that you just can’t do nothing with them.”

Were you able to get your Camry better later in the race? “I would say probably the second half of the race we were really good on the long runs, as long as we could get some clean race track. There were times when we were faster than the leader. Not the very last run, but the one before that when I went green for a long time, we had dropped back on the restart to 17th or so and by the end of that really long run I think we were back to seventh or eighth. The car was good on the long runs. It’s just tough in traffic. Chad (Johnston, crew chief) did a good job. We did a good job in the beginning — we made a lot of changes. Chad did a good job adjusting on it and hanging in there with me. I was yelling at him a little bit and it was tough. It was just one of those long days where you drive your guts out for a top-10.”

Do you enjoy Dover even though it’s a tough place to race? “I like the track, it’s just hard when you’re off a little bit. If your car is off just a little, it’s a damn handful and it’s all you can do to hang on to it. There were times today — there was 25, 30 times — that I thought I was wrecking and just got lucky and saved it.”

JOEY LOGANO, No. 20 Home Depot Toyota Camry, Joe Gibbs Racing Finishing Position: 8th

How was your race? “It was okay from the get go. We were free to take off, we were decent. Just tried to tighten our car up for entry and our exit was too loose on entry/exit all day. Then we got it pretty good there towards the end and we were up to sixth or seventh. We were running pretty good. Was just a little too tight in traffic, really hard to pass and then under caution our motor shut off and I couldn’t get it refired and lost seven spots or so with 50 (laps) to go, so it cost us a lot. We were able to work our way back up to eighth, which is a good finish considering we had a top-five we could have got. Just have to look into it and see what happened.”