Denny Hamlin — first: “Definitely means a lot. This is the point where I usually give the fans some (grief) but not today. I appreciate all of you so much. Obviously want to say hi to my dad, family back at home, all the friends that came out here hoping we get 60. I didn’t think we were. Just put the pedal down those last 10 laps and made it happen. (Crew chief) Chris (Gayle) did an amazing job on that final stop getting the car just right. I just held it down. That’s all I could do is just to go for it. I felt like I had nothing to lose. Just go for it, try to punch a ticket now. Man, this one feels great. … Just super proud of this team for making the adjustments they did. Pit crew for doing a great job all day. … I don’t know what to say. It was very unexpected. The last 15 laps I didn’t think we were going to win. I knew I was going to give it all I had.”
Kyle Larson — second: “I thought I had a big enough gap down the backstretch to go to the top, get momentum. His car, the Toyotas in general, were really, really, really fast on a short run, had a lot of speed. He must have nailed the bottom behind me, got inside. It was over from there. Yeah, he did an awesome job. He got up on the wheel there. I felt like I was up on the wheel. He did a really good job. I tried to take his line away in three and four. He got to my outside. Rarely do you see Denny do that. He did a great job. Hats off to them. Hats off to my team, too. We had an awesome day, as well. I think we were second maybe in the first stage, won the next stage, and second in the race. Good points day obviously. Would have liked the issue with (Ty Dillon) and (William Byron) to not happen because we had just kind of taken control of the race there and were going to cruise to victory. That’s racing. It gets crazy. Happy, though, to still get a good finish. It was getting hectic there. … Obviously it could completely flip next week. I do feel like our superspeedway stuff has gotten a lot better. We’ve done really well on them this year. You can never expect a good finish or a finish at all when you go there.
Yeah, we’ll just try and go and execute like we have been this year at those places. Hopefully, we can have another good points day and maybe Martinsville will be a little bit easier. I know right now it shows plus 35, somebody below the cut line wins, it’s a lot less. Playoff is crazy.”
Christopher Bell — third: “Kind of déjà vu as last year. Just we were all a little bit at the beginning of the race, obviously got going pretty good there the second half of the race. I felt like at the second half, I had what I needed to go out there and win. I just didn’t do a good job on the restarts, didn’t get through there. I don’t know. Feels a lot like last year. Hopefully we can execute the next two a little bit better than last year. … That’s just being fortunate (missing the William Byron-Ty Dillon crash), being blessed. They crashed. The sun is right there. There’s tire smoke. I had no idea where any of ‘em were. Just kind of prayed, hit the brake, tried to keep it as far left as I could. Fortunately we missed it. Yeah, I don’t know, it literally feels like déjà vu. Yeah, proud of everyone on this Rheem team. We didn’t get a Rheem win this year, but came really close. Guess we’ll roll the dice at Talladega.”
Chase Briscoe — fourth: “I was hanging on. Yeah, I thought I was in a really good spot there, the first three or four laps after the restart, my car drove really good. As I ran, I was just absolutely sideways. I thought there for a while when they were racing hard enough, maybe I was going to sneak one off on them. Just really loose at the end. Glad at least a JGR car won. That’s going to sting for a while. We got to go (to Talladega), race, see what happens. Obviously, that’s where the biggest points swing is probably going to come for all of us. Luckily for us, we didn’t use our one mulligan today I guess. Go there, see what we can do, hopefully come out there on the plus side, maybe even win it, go on to Martinsville and see what we can do.”
Tyler Reddick — fifth: “Yeah, really solid day for us and our Camry. It was really, really fast. Just not ultimately able to get the job done fortunately, but it was nice to have the speed that we did and be at the front the majority of the day.”
Joey Logano — sixth: “There were moments I thought we were pretty decent, just needed to get track position early in the race. We were good on the long haul, couldn’t quite get to cleaner air towards the front because our restarts weren’t good up in. The start of the third stage we lost balance on the car, got way loose, lost all our track position. Paul (Wolfe) made a great call again to put two on it, put us on the front row. That’s all you can try to do at that point. I feel like we have to win. Kind of an all-or-nothing call. Netted out ahead of where we would have finished for sure. You see the front there. Had a decent restart. All kind of came down to the back straightaway at the push. (Alex Bowman) had an option of going three-wide or push (Briscoe). Dang it, he pushed the (Briscoe). Kind of shoved him ahead to get distance into the corner and three and clear me. Put us in a bad spot. Overall a good battle, but not good enough. … I think it’s pretty clear what we got to do looking at the points. I mean, one spot’s already taken up. I think we’re 24 out. Yeah, it’s possible. You have to be pretty special the next two weeks without winning the race. Today everyone ran so well, right? All the Playoff cars, besides the ones that wrecked, were top five stage points all day. It’s hard to close up on them.”
Kyle Busch — eighth: “I’m proud of the entire No. 8 Chevrolet team for getting us to a place from qualifying 32nd to finishing eighth today at Las Vegas Motor Speedway. We worked throughout the race to correct rear grip issues and a loose-handling Chevy to get the car to a competitive pace by race’s end. Now the name of the game is consistency and continuing to finish out front the remainder of the season, and of course get our Richard Childress Racing machine back to victory lane.”
Ryan Preece — ninth: “We had a phenomenal Ford Mustang today. I had a penalty and I made a mistake and sped, which put us in a bad spot. We had that little opportunity with 15 to go and we took advantage of it and drove from 20th to ninth and really, I thought, probably could have been top six. I just need to be a little bit more patient with some of the things I’m learning, but I’m really proud of this Ford Mustang. Yeah, I think I’m gonna go home to a wife who is gonna be pretty upset that I sped, but I am going to be happy to be home with my wife and kids.”
Brad Keselowski — 10th: “It was a pretty good day. We started in the back and drove up and made a gamble at the end with two tires and ended up 10th. That’s probably all we had. Those guys were really fast and even when we had four tires it was a lot to hold them off.”
Chase Elliott — 18th: “I thought it was going pretty good for a little while at least. Started the day strong. Thought we had our balance in a really good spot. I was kind of happy about the way it was driving, everything. Unfortunately had a penalty on pit road. Just got back in traffic. I needed something pretty different balance-wise to be good back there. I probably missed a little bit on my first read. We only had a couple shots to try and help that, so… Yeah, I got behind on adjustments for the track position. Couple bad decisions on that last restart. Unfortunately, yeah, got us a bad result. Try again next week. I feel fine. It is what it is. Everybody’s got to go (to Talladega). So you better learn to like it real quick because it will be here soon.”
Ross Chastain — 23rd: “It certainly wasn’t an ideal finish today for our Chevy. In the final stage of the race, we got the handling figured out and were moving forward, then we got caught up in the accident and had some damage we had to work on. But, we rallied to finish 23rd.”
Austin Dillon — 25th: “It never fails that when we have a great day going, something happens out of our control. Our Chevrolet was really good. The balance started on the free side, and then we got it a little too tight. After our green flag stops, the car would fire off good. Almost too good, which is what caused us to fade at the end of the run. We were in position to get a top-10 finish but then got caught up in that multicar wreck with less than 25 laps to go. I hate it for our No. 3 team, but it’s a positive that our car had speed on an intermediate. Everyone did a great job today, and this is something we can build off moving forward.”
Shane van Gisbergen — 33rd: “Frustrating end to the day. My Chevy was so good there at the start, then towards the end it was a bit tight but we were still in a position to get a good finish. Wish our result would’ve shown the race we had. Proud of my 88 team for bringing another rocket ship.”
Cody Ware — 35th: “It was a long day and definitely hard fought. We were hopefully gonna get a chance to throw tires on it, but unfortunately, (Ty Gibbs) came down off the wall and came down and collected us in a bad wreck. It’s a really disappointing day. We had a decent No. 51 Ford Mustang today. I wish we could have gotten to the end to see where we would have shaken out, but I’m looking forward to getting to Talladega next weekend and hopefully end up in Victory Lane.”
William Byron — 36th: “I never saw him wave. I didn’t see any indication he was pitting, and I thought the cycle was fully over. Nobody said anything to my spotter from what I know. I had zero idea. Everyone’s been wrapping the paint around the corner, and that’s what I was doing to have a good lap. I was watching him, thinking he missed the bottom a little bit, and then he just started slowing, and I just had no idea what was going on. I’m just devastated. I had no indication. Obviously, I wouldn’t have run full speed into the back of him. We were right there (for the win) with (Larson). I got loose and lost the lead. Just kind of pacing it. Just as good as we were and the race was going, for random (stuff) to happen like that, it just sucks. I can’t believe it. During the cycle, you’re anticipating guys pitting. It just sucks.”
Ty Dillon — 37th: “Yeah, it was a rough day for our team. There was something wrong with our car, and we were hoping to get back to the shop and diagnose that. My spotter told me he let (Byron’s) spotter know we were coming to pit road. Maybe I didn’t wave him off enough, but at this level, you kind of trust your spotters to do that. I don’t know what we do different. We were taking our medicine on the day. Unfortunately, I hate it for Hendrick and the Chevrolet guys it happened that way. I’m not even looking out the mirror at that point. I’m just trying to hit my marks to get on pit road. He hit me hard. Unforunate way for that to happen. That was pretty much the line I had taken (to the pits) all day. I don’t think I was egregious in that. Maybe just a lack of information being transferred.”
Ryan Blaney — 38th: “I didn’t have any thoughts that it was going to blow. As soon as I lifted into (Turn 3), it blew out. It’s unfortunate we’ve got to be in these spots, but we’ve got to bounce back. I’m not overjoyed, I tell you that. We’ll have to come from behind like we did last year. Hopefully, we can win one of the next two weeks. We just can’t have a smooth day it seems like. You’ve got to be optimistic. I’m not very happy right now, but tomorrow morning I’ll be optimistic to go to the next race. We’ve had good success at the next two events, so hopefully we can come and bring the speed and try to overcome the hole we put ourselves in today.”
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