Here is what drivers were saying after Sunday’s Cup race.
Kyle Larson — Winner: “I knew Tyler was going to be the guy to beat from the first stage. He was really fast there. I was hoping those guys were going to get racing a little bit longer behind me because I felt like it was going to time out where he was running really hard and getting the tow to catch me at the end. Thankfully was able to air block him a couple laps and get him tight. I thought him and Bubba were going to get working together again to build a run, so I was happy that didn’t happen. But all in all, such a great job by this Hendrick Cars Chevy team and just their execution, pit road, restarts, all that was great. Cool to get a win here at Vegas again. Back-to-back, swept all the stages again. Can’t ask for much more.”
Tyler Reddick — Finished 2nd: “Second sucks that is for sure, but we had a really fast Nasty Beast Toyota Camry. I mean, we should have been battling up there in the front more than we were today. Just put us behind, unfortunately, and had to battle through that all day. As the field got better, it got harder to get back to the front as quick. You have to run up front all day long, and when asked about what we need to do to get better, that’s the very thing, and we didn’t do it today.”
Ryan Blaney — Finished 3rd: “It was a long day. We started 15th and just kind of slowly worked our way up. The top two guys were pretty quick. It was hard to catch them. We never really had the speed of those guys, but I’m proud of the effort. We got better all day, which was good. I didn’t think we were great early and we continued to get better, so that’s all you can ask for. … The Chevys are still fast. The Toyotas are still fast. The Fords, we had a good showing today too but we just have a little bit of work to do.”
Ross Chastain — Finished 4th: “This speed. I mean the handling of the car is incredible for our Kubota Chevy. It’s everything that I wanted, dream about, and wake up and train for is to drive cars like this. That’s what makes it hurt so much worse. When we finish fourth and we were legitimately an eighth-place car, it’s something we’re high-fiving. You all have seen me in my career, I’d jump up and down for a fourth-place finish. If someone is just glancing at my interviews, they’re going to say, ‘Well, Ross is changing,’ but I’m not. When I have a car capable of fighting for the win, and I take ourselves out, that’s what I can get down about right now, but excited about because I know how good the car was and how much speed it has.”
Ty Gibbs — Finished 5th: “I kind of stuck us in a hole there and we broke the transmission, which is kind of unfortunate that has to happen, that’s just part of it and we fought back. I put my team in a hole there. No excuses. And we just kind of fought back and my team gave me a really great He Gets Us Camry XSE this weekend and we drove back to the front. So, just need a little bit more to get to the lead so we can go get a win, but really happy with my team.”
Noah Gragson — Finished 6th: “We definitely need to be better, and I need to clean some stuff up. Really, other than that last restart, I don’t think I had any net gains on restarts, so I need to keep working on that. I’m still trying to figure it all out, but overall it’s a good stepping stone to where we’re at right now. We’re going to take this and get back into the positives in points and just keep on working, keep on learning and becoming better than we were yesterday and just keep that attitude. I think we’ve got the tightest group in the garage. They’re awesome to work with and I love every one of them.”
Joey Logano — Finished 9th: “We fired off a little bit off and lost a lot of track position in the first stage. We got our balance to where it was close, but only in the long run. Once we got seven laps into a run we were able to run top-three times. Unfortunately we lost too many spots on the restarts. We executed well on pit road and our No. 22 team did a good job. We just didn’t fire off fast enough or have good enough restarts.”
Daniel Suarez — Finished 11th: “It wasn’t easy. I wasn’t really happy with the balance of the No. 99 Freeway Insurance Chevy. The front of the car never turned the entire race. The back of the car was going away on the long run. Sometimes we were making the car a little bit better in the long run, but the front just never turned all race long. Just have to see everything to figure out how we can be a little better next time.”
Erik Jones — Finished 14th: “Pretty up-and-down day. Up-and-down weekend really, fired off the race not where we needed to be, and had to make some really big changes the first three, four stops of the day to get the Dollar Tree Camry better. To salvage a top-15 is good, but we want more, so we will keep working on it.”
Austin Dillon — Finished 16th: “P-16 finish for the No. 3 BetMGM Chevy. We got stage points in Stage 2. The BetMGM Chevy was pretty good in the middle of the race. Didn’t make a big enough adjustment there at the end and got really tight. Unfortunate. We had a pretty solid day around the top-10 all day. We weren’t able to come home with one, but it was a big improvement from where we’ve been. We were one adjustment away from being in the top 10, for sure.”
Daniel Hemric — Finished 19th: “We fired off decent in the race, but within a few laps, the No. 31 South Point Chevy just started getting tight. A speeding penalty set us back a bit, but fortunately we were able to get the lap back. We ran the best we had all day during those last couple of runs, and we were able to grab another top-20 finish.”
Josh Berry — Finished 20th: “I think we saw a lot of potential. Each run as a company it seemed like one of our cars was stronger than the other, but we learned a lot. Our car definitely seemed like it had speed. We just have to keep working on fine-tuning it and I need to work on starting a little bit closer to the front. All of those things start to compound and we can have a little better day, but, overall, I thought we were solid.”
Chase Briscoe — Finished 21st: “Before I thought our car was pretty good. We weren’t good enough to win, but we were definitely a fifth- to 10th-place car fairly easily. We were able to pass a lot of cars. That second run of the race we went backwards, but after that I was able to just continue to go forward. I was really happy with how my car was driving and just after the contact as soon as it happened I went into the next corner and we were a half-second slower that lap and just continued to stay a half-second slower the rest of the race. I’m not really sure what happened as far as why we all of a sudden lost a half-second, but it’s a tough one to swallow when you have that good of a car. We definitely had a top 10 car and finished 21st or whatever, so that part is kind of frustrating, but we’ll go to Phoenix, where we’ve had speed in the past and just hope to get a better run.”
John Hunter Nemechek — Finished 22nd: “P22 today. Long day here in Las Vegas. We had speed at times, didn’t have speed at times, but overall, it was a solid day. Thanks to all our great partners for getting us here. We have some work to do, but it’s a solid first mile-and-a-half for me. Learned a lot.”
Ryan Preece — Finished 23rd: “We just did what we could with what we had for the day. Without practice, really, what we had was really what it was going to be. That’s that.”
Kyle Busch — Finished 26th: “We had a faster BetMGM Chevrolet today than what the results show. Our Richard Childress Racing team had speed early in the race. Crew chief Randall Burnett made a good call for two tires to get us track position and set us up for a good finish in Stage 1. We led some laps in the BetMGM Chevrolet and ran up front. We had a tough day on pit road and didn’t get the finish that we deserved. I’m proud of this team for bringing fast cars every week. We’ll get after it next weekend at Phoenix Raceway.”
Justin Haley — Finished 27th: “We were pretty good, but we just lacked execution again. I felt like our car was a little on the tight side, but when we were in clean air it was fine. It’s just new team blues. We’re just trying to get everyone to work together on the same page. I’m proud of the speed we had. I felt like we ran with some competitive cars, so we’ll keep working at it.”
Derek Kraus — Finished 28th: “Overall, we achieved what we wanted to, and that was to complete all 400 laps. We were pretty good all day; I just have to work on my restarts and make sure I capitalize on track position when I have it. I can’t thank Kaulig Racing and Western States Flooring enough for the opportunity. I’m looking forward to Phoenix next week!”
Austin Cindric — Finished 29th: “It was good to get stage points at the beginning of the race. I definitely hurt us with the speeding penalty which lost all our track position and had to fight to get back on the lead lap - that one is on me. We had a set of tires that had a really bad vibration that took me out of contention for another stint. We had speed in our Discount Tire Ford Mustang, just did not execute the best today on my part.”
Kaz Grala — Finished 31st: “We weren’t too bad today. We just couldn’t quite get a handle on the car. Balance-wise we were tight for the first half of the race and then somehow we got it free and couldn’t get back, so I was just kind of hanging on there at the end. We had decent track position and then a car came up in front of me and took the air away and we just bobbled and smacked the wall out of four. I don’t know if that hurt something or we really just fell off at the end tire-wise. I don’t really know. We just didn’t have anything to fight with at the end.”
Chris Buescher — Finished 37th: “We lost the nut and lost half the wheel. I think the tire stayed up under the fender. I’m not exactly sure just yet, but it looks like the nut came off and something in the suspension actually cut the wheel in half. It’s definitely not what we wanted with our Fastenal Ford Mustang out here today. We had a strong day yesterday. I was really proud of that effort. We got a good bunch here and we’re gonna be contenders. We’re gonna win some races, but it’s not gonna happen today.”
