HAMPTON, Ga. — Here is what drivers had to say after Sunday’s Cup playoff opener at Atlanta Motor Speedway.
Joey Logano — Winner: “We didn’t (advance out of the first round) last year and it hurt a lot, but they just give me really fast cars on superspeedways and we always find ourselves towards the front of them, we just end up wrecking more times than not. So, to be able to finally capitalize on a fast race car and win here in Atlanta again, I lived right over there in condo 805 for a long time, waking up dreaming of just racing on this racetrack, so pulling into Victory Lane here is always a special one. We had such a really good team here today.”
Daniel Suarez — Finished 2nd: “I was pretty confident that the top was going to be better and the 22, he was going to be able to push me like the 1 did in that last restart being on the outside. I mean, we got a great launch, but we got disconnected too early. That obviously hurt us. The 8 (Kyle Busch) was able to connect for longer and beat us. A little painful. I feel like we were in position. Sometimes it’s very difficult to predict who is going to get the best push, for how long you’re going to get it. It’s part of the game, right We were in contention. The team did an amazing job. The car look amazing, Quaker State. Grateful for the opportunity. We’re happy with it, but not satisfied.”
Ryan Blaney — Finished 3rd: “Honestly I can’t believe we got back up where we did. The 12 boys did a really good job fixing it. I’m surprised it didn’t have more damage than what it did. From my seat, I got drilled in the left rear, the door I guess is where it hit me. The right rear got off the fence. I didn’t know how damaged we were. I was kind of able to carve up through traffic, could kind of get through the middle pretty good. So yeah, really proud of the effort. Had a thought of going three-wide on the frontstretch. I’m like, Man, it’s going to be tight, we already have a good day going, great points, all that stuff. Yeah, third, a really good day.”
Christopher Bell — Finished 4th: “I’ll take it. To walk out of here with a top-five in probably our worst track on the schedule – that was really good and I’m proud of the effort on this Rheem Camry. We had a lot to overcome with a bad qualifying run, and then really bad pit stall selection. There was a lot of adversity that we had to fight through, and that was a freaking blast. It was so much fun. The whole race was super intense, and everybody did a good job not to wreck more.”
Alex Bowman — Finished 5th: “It was obviously a really good points day and a good day, overall, after the last month of so. Made a couple of moves there during that third-to-last run that just cost us a lot of track position, and we had to restart 13th there that second-to-last run. Obviously got a lot of it back, but couldn’t get it all back. I would have much rather been sitting in victory lane, but I just didn’t put myself in the best position at the end to be able to do that.”
Tyler Reddick — Finished 6th: “Our Jordan Brand Toyota Camry was really, really good in certain aspects of the race, but in others – we were a little bit off. It is what it is. I think considering the highs and lows of the day, and the unfortunate circumstances of the 99 (Daniel Suarez) being behind us – and the 22 (Joey Logano) being in front of me – just being boxed in most of the day on pit road. We didn’t even have green flag stops, so getting boxed in almost every time really hurt us.”
Kyle Busch — Finished 7th: “We started pretty far off with the No. 8 Global Industrial Camaro, but we really worked on it. The guys made some good adjustments and got it to where it was driving really good. Definitely the second-half of the race and the final stage, I felt really positive about it. But then we had to go into fuel-save mode, so we weren’t really able to kind of stretch our legs there. Just played the way the cards were dealt and we came home with a top-10. Certainly felt like we had a shot to win. Felt as good, or better, than the No. 99 (Daniel Suarez), so I was just hopeful that we could keep that track position. Just lost a little bit too much there on that second-to-last restart.”
Chase Elliott — Finished 8th: “It’s nice to just have a solid day. We needed a good, solid day for this No. 9 NAPA / Children’s Chevy team. I’m looking forward to getting up to Watkins Glen and seeing how it goes.”
William Byron — Finished 9th: “We had a little bit of handling issues in the first stage, but we overcame that. We got eighth-place stage points. The second stage was pretty good. We were up towards the front. And then in the final stage, we were up in the front the whole time. We were just trying to save fuel. I feel like we did a good job, for the most part. Just the second-to-last restart, I wasn’t quite sure who to push when they were three-wide in front of me, and I got trapped three-wide bottom and lost some spots.”
Austin Cindric — Finished 10th: “I’m just glad a Team Penske car won it. We’ve come to so many of these speedways with cars that are capable of winning races and I’m proud of Joey and the guys to get it done. Obviously, Ryan and I worked really well together to get a ton of points to start. We just got off cycle there with a bad pit stop and just really took a long time to get back up to the front of the field. I feel like I could have made some better decisions on the last couple of restarts, but a solid effort all around with all of the challenges of pack racing.”
Ty Gibbs — Finished 17th: “I didn’t do a good job blocking, and I take responsibility of not finishing great at all. It is my fault, but I’m glad we finished the race and got some points. It is definitely frustrating. We were up there, and didn’t finish it well, but it is part of it. I’m just glad we can walk out of this place with a good points day with our He Gets Us Camry.”
Brad Keselowski — Finished 19th: “It just wasn’t a super strong day. We kind of survived and we’ll live to fight another day.”
Austin Dillon — Finished 20th: “Strong effort by everyone at RCR and ECR today at Atlanta Motor Speedway. We just fought a tight No. 3 BREZTRI AEROSPHERE® Chevrolet all day. We were able to race inside the top-five early, but once we got in traffic our Chevy was a handful. Crew chief Justin Alexander made great calls trying to fix our handling, but no matter what we tried we would end up on the tight side by the end of a run. We did what we could to salvage a decent finish and I’m proud of this team for never giving up.”
Denny Hamlin — Finished 24th: “I thought at the very end we got the Mavis Tire Camry kind of where it needed to be, but by then, you were kind of dealing with a log jam of a couple of lanes that are kind of blocking things and you couldn’t go much of anywhere, so I just tried to avoid the wrecks. I was trying to get 20 points out of the day. That was my goal – just get 20 however we could, obviously, starting in the back didn’t help with that. We did the best we could, and then got in a wreck that probably cost us eight to 10 spots or so.”
Josh Berry — Finished 28th: “We struggled with grip all day and just couldn’t find what I needed to get the speed needed to drive up front. It’s a bummer for sure to qualify so well and not make the most of it, but this group will take a bad day on the chin and reset for next week. I can’t thank Decisely enough for coming on board this week and supporting the No. 4 program. It’s really special to have friends of the team want to get involved and I am just appreciative of them. We will go at it again next week in Watkins Glen.”
Chris Buescher — Finished 36th: “Ultimately, that’s not how we wanted to go out. I’m definitely disappointed and screwed up there. I got a really good run. I got to the bottom and we’d been able to keep really good pace on the bottom, and then just caught a bump and stepped out and ended up making a crash. I’m disappointed in myself for that one. It certainly wasn’t our typical Atlanta day, either. We’d been so good here, but I had to fight for the handling today. The team made good adjustments and good calls to get us close to the front, but I just messed it up when it counted.”
Kyle Larson — Finished 37th: “I’m OK. Thankfully everything held up well inside the car. That was a huge hit. I’m not really sure what caused it. I was actually sort of tight and loaded in the corner. And then I was pretty far around the corner and it just stepped out. I don’t know.. it all just happened really fast.”
Chase Briscoe — Finished 38th: You can be on top one week and you can be at the very bottom of the mountain the next week. It’s unfortunate. I thought our car was an adjustment away from being pretty good. We weren’t very good at all balance-wise and I still felt like I was able to kind of run right there around the seventh to 12th place guys. I was watching my outside getting into one because somebody kept trying to get to my outside and was probably a little late just trying to see the 5 car wrecking. I didn’t expect anybody to wreck because they weren’t really two-wide, and then I saw the smoke and tried slowing down. I knew he was coming down the racetrack and just kept trying to feed the thing left and slow it down and I couldn’t get left quick enough and then he kind of started sliding back down the track at the very last minute, so I tried to turn back right to avoid him and just KO’d him. It was a big hit. One of the biggest hits I’ve had in a long time. I’m glad I’m alright and we just have to go win. That’s what we had to do at Darlington and I know we’re capable of doing it again, so we’ll just have to go to Watkins Glen and Bristol and try to do the same.”
