Here is what drivers had to say after Sunday’s Cup race at Texas Motor Speedway.
Chase Elliott — Winner: “It was just crazy. This place is so sketchy. I haven’t seen a replay of Denny (Hamlin) and us. I didn’t feel like I did anything super crazy there any more than anybody’s ever done to me. Just had to run forward. I want to look at it. I didn’t feel like I did anything to crash him. I think just the circumstances. But nonetheless, apologies to him, if so. Couldn’t be more proud of our team. Thanks to our partners at NAPA, Chevrolet. Everybody at Hendrick Motorsports. Had a big week last week. Boss, thank you for sticking with me. Really, really proud of this. Appreciate all the folks back home that have stuck with me and helped us get back on track.”
Brad Keselowski — Finished 2nd: “We didn’t have a ton of speed. Honestly, I am more frustrated than anything because I feel like we have a great team and we don’t have the speed to go with it. We are doing all we can do to overcome that. The driver in me is frustrated because I feel like these are races I am good enough to win but don’t have the speed enough to do it. The owner in me is mad as hell because it is my fault for not making the cars faster. I am still proud of the team that we have with the pit stops and strategy and execution to put ourselves in position to get a finish we probably didn’t deserve but earned with some never-give-up spirit. It was a good job of executing with what we had. It is frustrating. You can still get good finishes by running good smart days, executing on pit road, and having great strategy and I am proud of our team for doing that today.”
William Byron — Finished 3rd: “I just had a big run. Ross (Chastain) and I race really well, and I didn’t want to wreck him there, but he blocked me late, which is understood. It’s racing at the end, but I was already there and, unfortunately, we made enough contact to where it got him squirrelly and it happened. So, I hate that that happened, but it’s the last lap and I had the run so I am going to just take the run. I didn’t expect it, but I don’t want to do that to a fellow Chevy guy, and we always race really well. Happy for Chase (Elliott) and those guys. They did a great job; executed really well and had a good car. Our No. 24 Liberty University Chevy, we struggled all day and had to fight tooth and nail all day just to keep our track position. We just had a few restarts go our way at the end.”
Tyler Reddick — Finished 4th: “We had control of the restart that mattered, and we didn’t execute. Just kept focusing on the wrong things. All day long, I’d been really aggressively blocking the car behind going me into Turn 1, and it really hurt us going into the center of Turn 2. Just made bad adjustments at the wrong time, and we gave away the race.”
Daniel Suarez — Finished 5th: “It was tricky. I thought we were going to be pretty strong, and we were pretty good in the first run. Then in the first green-flag cycle, I don’t know what happened to the car because we were super loose. And then after that, we started making adjustments and we got the car better. We started making progress and we got a penalty, and we went to the back again. We started making progress and we had another bad pit stop. It was just not a very clean day at all. It was a good result at the end of the day because the strategy worked out good, and we got a couple of good restarts. But we have some work to do. We have to continue to in order to move forward.”
Chase Briscoe — Finished 6th: “That was frustrating. Our Mustang was really good. Obviously, we were able to finish fifth in both stages, and we had done everything perfectly up until the point of the wreck. We were going to be the leader. (Bubba Wallace) was on way older tires, and I knew if I was beside him going into (Turn) 3, I was going to come out the leader. We both ran into one so hard and let (Harrison Burton) put us three wide. He was probably more worried about me, and honestly, it screwed both of us because we both wrecked. We kind of got lucky at the end when we went back to the back and caught a really lucky caution. Our Rush Truck Centers Ford was really good today. Way better than sixth place. I feel like I keep saying it is frustrating because we are way better than that speed-wise, but overall it was a really solid day and really solid points day. I feel like our win is right around the corner. We just have to clean up a little bit of stuff.”
Bubba Wallace — Finished 7th: “I’m wore the hell out – mentally. Just from clean air to dirty air with the balance – it was just such a big deficit between the two. … Appreciate the team letting me rant a little bit, getting me back in the game and to come away with a top 10. That’s good. It takes those grinding moments. It’s just having that mindset. Appreciate everyone on this 23 team.”
Austin Dillon — Finished 8th: “Just happy for the No. 3 Bass Pro Shops Chevy team. That was a big finish for us, and I am proud of the fight that our guys showed. To come home with eighth is big because we had struggled with the handling of the car. We made some good calls to get us some track position, and we had some good restarts at the end to get us a good finish. Man, after this year, this feels like a win and hopefully we can build off of this.”
Kyle Busch — Finished 9th: “It was cool to end up with a decent finish today at Texas Motor Speedway after we had to go to a backup car on Saturday. All the guys on the zone Chevrolet team really worked hard all weekend, and I really appreciate that effort. We made a lot of stops today and crew chief Randall Burnett and the guys made adjustments every time we pitted. The balance was a little bit of everything, from tight to loose to a lack of grip. Randall made the call to run long in the final stage and we caught a caution in the middle of a pit cycle to get in position to score a top 10. We survived the last few restarts and came away with a ninth place finish so not a bad day.”
Ryan Preece — Finished 12th: “I wish the cautions had worked out differently. Once we had (Kyle Busch) and (Joey Logano) behind us, it was a struggle not to keep getting put three wide. Having as old tires as we did, it was trying to protect all you can. When I restarted on the outside that time, it was too much. We just needed a little bit more grip, and track position would have helped.”
Ty Dillon — Finished 16th: “We battled through most of the day in the Sea Best Camaro ZL1. We weren’t where we wanted to be most of the day, but thankfully (crew chief) Travis Mack made a few good calls to help us gain track position and finish strong there at the end. This team never gave up and I can’t wait to get back in the car with Kaulig Racing.”
Daniel Hemric — Finished 17th: “Thanks to Michael Gaughan, everyone at South Point, and all of our supporters at Kaulig Racing for sticking with us. It’s not been thrilling or exciting the last few weeks, but at the end of the day, we’ve managed a couple times this year to finish better than we raced. That’s what we did here today. I’m proud of (crew chief) Trent (Owens) for making the call to take two tires there and getting some track position. I need to do a better job on restarts; we had a couple go our way there at the end, especially that last one. I’m proud of the fight from this No. 31 team today.”
Noah Gragson — Finished 18th: “It felt like we had a good car. We were going to cycle fifth, sixth or seventh during that one round of green flag pit stops and just got stuck a lap down with the caution that came out. That happened a couple of times, so we had to fight and come from the back a couple of times today with those scenarios. Overall, we had a top-10 run going all day and just didn’t come home with it.”
Erik Jones — Finished 19th: “Not a lot of good stuff and didn’t work out well in the end there either. Good strategy call there to get some points in stage two with our Dollar Tree Camry, but the cautions didn’t fall there in the end like we needed. We just have to get better.”
Jimmie Johnson — Finished 29th: “Certainly, learned a lot today with our AdventHealth Camry. It’s the most laps I’ve had in this new car. Just trying to understand how you make speed, how you adjust the car, really going through a whole weekend of practice, into qualifying and adjustments and changing over for the race. I now have an idea of what to do. I didn’t run enough in Charlotte, so I feel like I learned a lot this weekend to help myself. We have some work to do. We are not where we need to be as a company, but we will keep working hard and get there.”
Denny Hamlin — Finished 30th: “Yeah, just got loose in Turn 3. It’s something that I had been fighting all day. When you have to push it most – on a great-white checkered – I knew (what) the likely scenario (was). That was that I wasn’t going to make it out of the corner with how much speed that I was carrying. Trying to go for the win with our Yahoo Camry – got loose and spun out.”
John Hunter Nemechek — Finished 34th: “Yeah, he (Christopher Bell) started spinning and I did the same thing. I hit the brakes pretty hard, and it spun, and I had nowhere to go. It’s part of it, I guess. We fixed the tow. I had a really fast Romco Equipment Toyota Camry XSE. On the second one, I drove on the outside of (Austin Cindric) and it just snapped. I guess it is part of this car. I guess I learned a lesson the hard way.”
Michael McDowell — Finished 35th: “I just got in those bumps (in Turn 4). and the car got loose and took off. Track position was really important today and I had the opportunity to take the lead and take control of the race. I just didn’t make it stick. Unfortunate but we had a really fast car today.”
Josh Berry — Finished 36th: “The first time I felt like we got stacked on the bottom a little bit and when (Ricky Stenhouse Jr.) moved down, either he barely clipped me or just the air off his car. It was super close. Honestly I think we made a little bit of contact and it just got me loose and out of control. The second time I was just out there riding around and I was just out there loose and trying to hang on to it and wrecked again.”
Alex Bowman — Finished 37th: “Really what started it was what happened on pit road and getting buried back there. We should have been up in the top 10. But yeah, we were just racing those guys really hard. I was in a really bad spot to have a guy crash and have to climb into the brake pedal. The No. 22 (Joey Logano) saw it before I did, just because of how we were all stacked up. I had to climb into the brake pedal a little bit harder than I wanted to, and it just spun out as soon as I did. Definitely a bummer. We had a really fast No. 48 Ally Camaro there in the beginning of the first stage. We were going through the field pretty well. We just had that deal on pit road that put us in the back, and then that happened.”
