Here’s what drivers were saying after Christopher Bell’s win at Charlotte Motor Speedway:
Christopher Bell — Winner: “It feels so good. And really, the last two Coca-Cola 600s I felt like we’ve had the potential to go to victory lane and both times we haven’t been able to do it. So to come back in 2024 — and we’ve really been in a slump the last couple of weeks — so to come out here and have a banner day — it’s such a high profile, prestigious event — is really big for us.”
Brad Keselowski — Finished 2nd: “Yeah, it was pretty disappointing. I felt like we had a car to win the race. We kind of ran down the 20 car twice and just didn’t get to see it play out. Kind of slipped through our fingers there. Would have liked to have just had more laps and ran the Coke 600. I think we ran the Coke 350 today.”
William Byron — Finished 3rd: “Our race was good. Our No. 24 Liberty University Patriotic Chevy was really good the whole race, but then we got a little bit of wall contact there and bent the toe just a little bit. That was a bummer, but I still feel like we had good potential in the car. It was just hard to put it all together, but we came home with a third-place finish and that was a solid day for us.”
Ty Gibbs — Finished 6th: “Hate the race got cut short because I feel like our Monster Energy/Interstate Batteries Toyota Camry XSE was really good up front. And I think we could have come back over the next 150 laps to be competitive at the end. Hate that it ended early, but we’ll get ready for St. Louis.”
Ross Chastain — Finished 8th: “It was definitely a great call to cycle ourselves forward there at the beginning of Stage Two. It felt good to lead. It just felt good to be winning in something. I’m a competitor and it’s just good to lead laps again. We were running competitively and we’d been in the top-10 all night.”
Josh Berry — Finished 10th: “It was a really solid day. I thought we qualified well, maintained our track position. Rodney (Childers, crew chief) made some really good adjustments to the car overnight. We were just really solid. We kept getting better and better and better. Tonight was just a night to be proud of.”
Justin Allgaier — Finished 13th: “To be honest with you, at the start of the race, I was pretty disappointed in myself. I was just trying to get acclimated. Cliff Daniels (crew chief) did an amazing job getting me up-to-speed. We were able to look at SMT data and get the car where I needed to be at. We really worked on the balance throughout the course of the run there. To be able to unlap myself was probably the highlight of the night, to be honest with you. I was able to pass a Hendrick Motorsports teammate (William Byron) to pass Ty (Gibbs), both of which I have a lot of respect for on the racetrack.”
Kyle Busch — Finished 15th: “It was a seesaw night for the zone Chevrolet team in this year’s Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte Motor Speedway. We were off the mark early in the race battling a loose-handling Chevy and struggling to get through traffic. We ended up one lap down after our first pit stop due to a penalty for an uncontrolled tire. Fortunately, we made that up by the end of the first stage. Crew chief Randall Burnett made a ton of changes throughout the race, especially at the end of Stage 1. All the guys on the zone team worked hard and improved the balance of the car. We worked our way inside the top-10 for a few laps before the last round of stops but we were just too tight in the center and too loose off to stay there. I think we could have picked up a couple more spots if we had finished the race.”
Daniel Hemric — Finished 18th: “Really solid day for this No. 31 Cirkul Chevy team. We fired off really strong and ran laps similar to the leader at times. It’s unfortunate that it was shortened, but I’m really proud of the effort and speed we showed today.”
Erik Jones — Finished 19th: “Up and down day for us but happy with a top twenty for this Family Dollar Toyota team. Feel like we learned quite a bit going forward for the mile and a half’s coming up.”
Austin Cindric — Finished 20th: “I definitely wish we would have been able to pick the race back up. We had a really well-executed day going up until we had to stay out on some older tires and that kind of put us behind. We were kind of in the middle of recovering from that, but past that, I’m happy with our improvement all weekend; we just didn’t have enough speed to run up front. We had a really tight car all race, we just need more laps to work on it.”
Chase Briscoe — Finished 25th: “Overall, it was kind of just a frustrating night. I felt like every time we would get track position, we would end up losing it, whether it was a restart not going our way or pit road. I felt like if we could ever just put it all together we had a car capable of running anywhere from eighth to 12th, but everybody from eighth on back ran the same speed, so wherever you came out on a restart or off pit road is kind of where you ran. We’ve got to clean everything up and definitely felt like we should’ve finished way better than where we did tonight from a speed standpoint. We just have to figure out our execution.”
Austin Dillon — Finished 27th: “I always look forward to the Coca-Cola 600 – it’s a crown jewel race in our sport, a hometown race for me, and Charlotte Motor Speedway is a track we’ve had a lot of success at. Unfortunately, today ended up frustrating for the No. 3 Bass Pro Shops/Tracker Boats Chevrolet team. We started off the race way too tight, and every attempt to fix our handling issues just made us tighter. We never got a good chance to take a big swing at adjustments because we didn’t want to give up track position, especially with weather coming in. It would have been interesting to see how much we could have improved over the course of a full race. Proud of the No. 3 team for all of their efforts, and big shout out to the Moreno family for allowing us to honor Captain Jennifer Moreno as part of the 600 Miles of Remembrance program.”
Shane van Gisbergen — Finished 28th: “We had an up and down day. I hate we didn’t get to run the full 900 miles this weekend, but ultimately the weather won out. I appreciate all the hard work from everyone on this Kaulig/Trackhouse team.”
Justin Haley — Finished 31st: “We had a really strong Ford Mustang Dark Horse this weekend in Charlotte. We’ve been aiming to qualify better and this weekend was a good step for that. The balance in the race was great, we just had some trouble on pit road that led to our finish not being quite as strong as it could’ve been. Proud of the RWR guys for bringing a competitive car again. Lots of momentum for the next one.”
Kaz Grala — Finished 34th: “We really struggled with the handling right from the start of the race tonight. By the halfway point, we finally got the balance to a pretty good place, and then it got away from us just a little bit at the very end. We’re on the lead lap, and I think if the race had gone the full distance we could have rebounded to a good finish. Unfortunately, the race was called short right after our worst stint of the night, so we didn’t get the finish we could have.”
Noah Gragson — Finished 38th: “Yeah, (Ricky Stenhouse Jr.) just misjudged his run and got us in the left rear, just a miscalculation. It sucks, but the sun will come up tomorrow.”
Ryan Blaney — Finished 39th: “I don’t know. We’ll have to look if I hit something or, I don’t know. I just went into three getting up to speed and blew a tire and hit the fence. It’s an unfortunate end to our night. That sucks. We’re not even halfway and just wanting to work on your stuff all night. I thought we were getting it a little better here and there, but won’t get a shot.”
