What Drivers Said – New Hampshire
Christopher Bell – No. 20 Rheem/WATTS Toyota – Race Winner
“Man, that one was much needed right there. I'll tell you what, that was a hell of a race from my viewpoint. That was so much fun racing with the 45 (Kurt Busch), the 22 (Joey Logano) and the 9 (Chase Elliott). We were all running different lines. That was a blast. Just so happy. So happy to be here at Joe Gibbs Racing, all our partners on this No. 20 car. It's good to get back in Victory Lane.”
“Just looking at all the crowd, and winning Cup races is hard. ... It just seems like we've been so close and then we've fallen off a little bit last week. I was talking to my best friend, and I told him, earlier in the year I felt like we were right on the verge of winning and then the last couple weeks I felt like we were pretty far away, but here we are today.”
Chase Elliott – No. 9 Napa Auto Parts Chevrolet – Finished 2nd
“I just need to do a better job again. The same conversation as Road America, unfortunately. I feel like it was a poor run of execution on my end throughout that last run. I feel like it took me a while to get past Joey (Logano) and the No. 45 (Kurt Busch), and I had to run a little harder than I wanted to. I got in front of those guys, just made a couple of mistakes, and couldn’t get much breathing room. Christopher (Bell) did a good job. Congrats to those guys. They’ve been close to winning, so that’s cool. Obviously for us, we were in a position where guys at this level really should close out a race if you have the lead like that, so just poor effort on my part.”
Bubba Wallace – No. 23 DraftKings Toyota – Finished 3rd
“Just proud. Proud of our team, proud of myself. Staying in it there. This last month has been pretty much hell for me. A good day for our Draft Kings Toyota Camry TRD. Definitely needed this. Hats off to everybody back at the shop. Brought a decent car, I wasn’t really happy with it, but it had speed. I told myself this morning that this could be a long day and to prepare for that, but here we are. It was definitely a tire management game. I kept telling myself to race the race track. Had one of the best behind me for a long time there with (Kevin) Harvick. He can mess with your mind a lot and I said, ‘Get out of here,’ I wasn’t going to let him do that and we pulled away.”
Martin Truex Jr. – No. 19 Interstate Batteries Toyota – Finished 4th
“Just put on two tires and got in a bad spot on the restart. I got put three-wide and the 22 (Joey Logano) didn’t get going and I was on the inside behind him. I tried to shove him to get him going and get us going and (Kevin) Harvick made it three-wide and put us in a bad spot. And just my car was terrible on two tires and couldn’t go anywhere. Just should have put four tires on I guess. We had the car to do it, we just screwed it up. It’s frustrating and disappointing, but congrats to the 20 (Christopher Bell). Obviously, they were smarter than we were at the end.”
Kevin Harvick – No. 4 GEARWRENCH FORD – Finished 5th
“We put two tires on there, which we all thought was the right thing to do and it just would not get going. We were sliding up the race track and it took seven or eight laps to get the car underneath ya and then about 20 laps to get the pace back. Then at the end, everybody was just out of tires. I am proud of everybody on our GEARWRENCH Ford Mustang. We will keep plugging away. When everybody was sliding around there it was tough (to pass) if you were the same speed. We passed a lot of the cars that were worse than us. It just depended on what your handling issues were.”
Brad Keselowski, No. 6 Kohler Generators Ford – Finished 7th (Run-In With Austin Dillon)
“Hot in the cars and we all let our tempers get the best of us. We had a decent day here. The Kohler Generators Ford Mustang climbed really far that last run. I think we went from somewhere around the late teens and 20’s up to seventh on that last run. I am proud of our team for the effort today. It was certainly an up and down day today and it was good to finish on an up note. I will talk to him privately. I don't need to be a jerk over the media.”
Ross Chastain – No. 1 Worldwide Express Chevrolet – Finished 8th
“It was a grind today. We just hovered between seventh and 20th. We just never had the balance of the car great. We were tight all day; really tight on restarts. It was really tough to make ground. The two tire to four tire strategies, I was just usually way too tight to fight those guys. For the No. 1 Worldwide Express Camaro ZL1 and Daniel’s No. 99 SLAM! Camaro ZL1 to be nose to tail there at the end is a testament to Trackhouse Racing for building fast cars. If eighth and ninth is a mediocre day, I think we’re doing OK.”
Daniel Suarez – No. 99 SLAM! Chevrolet – Finished 9th
“It was an OK day. Once again, we maximized what we had. I felt like our speed on the long run was probably one of the best out there; but on the short runs, it wasn’t. We were making adjustments and trying to help the short runs. We’ll just have to keep working. It was a solid top-10 for the No. 99 SLAM! Camaro ZL1. It was a step in the right direction for our short track package.”
Austin Cindric – No. 2 Autotrader Ford – Finished 13th
“Definitely a double come from behind day on the 2 car. Drove my guts out today. I am proud of the adjustments we made overnight after such a bad qualifying effort. Had a probably top-five long run car and should have finished in the top-10, we just ran out of time there. I had fun working the lanes and trying to get better. I am proud of the team. We will keep moving forward.”
Chase Briscoe – No. 14 Mahindra Tractors Ford – Finished 15th
“That first run we were really good and able to drive up into the top-15. Then from there we just kind of struggled and the track was changing so much. I probably didn’t do the greatest job guiding them where we needed to go. Then we had that spin and tried to play strategy to get up there and we caught the caution wrong. I feel like if we had the long run and were running fourth or fifth versus catching the caution we probably would have been alright. It just didn’t work out. I feel like we had a better car than 15th but with everything we fought I guess it was alright. We will just have to move on to Pocono.”
Erik Jones – No. 43 FOCUSfator Chevrolet – Finished 20th
“We were just off a bit today. We were plowing early, made adjustments throughout the race to try to make out FOCUSfactor Chevy better and then we were too loose at the end. We’re still learning with these cars - it’s hard to predict how it will react sometimes and we just have to keep building our notebooks and build on each week. We’ll keep learning and refocus for next week at Pocono.”
Joey Logano – No. 22 Shell Pennzoil Ford – Finished 24th
“Live by the sword, die by the sword. We did it (made some pit strategy calls to get up front) in the second stage to get track position and it worked. Then we did it again to get track position and the race ran long and it didn’t work. I thought we were pretty decent once we got up there and had a shot at taking the lead from Kurt (Busch) but then the 9 (Chase Elliott) missed the mark by a mile and knocked our toe out or camber or something in the left rear suspension. I don't know why he had to do that, but I am pretty sure that was not a good move on his part. So, that is that. It was all about clean air. For a couple of cars that were a little more stellar, they could maybe work their way through the field but even a couple of the best cars never got back there at the end. The 19 (Martin Truex) and the 4 (Kevin Harvick), they never got back. Track position was king.”
Corey LaJoie – No. 7 Built.com Chevrolet – Finished 32nd (Lap 88 Accident)
“It just got hung in between fourth and third gear on the downshift there. I had it happen earlier in the day when I wasn’t around anybody. I just thought I wasn’t pushing it into gear hard enough or whatever the case may have been. We were racing hard on the restart there underneath the No. 21 (Harrison Burton). I tried pushing it down to third and it just got hung between fourth and third, and it just locked both rear tires up so they weren’t turning. I hate that other guys were involved. We’ll have to take a look at it and make sure it doesn’t happen again. It was a weird thing.. the first thing we’ve had all year with the transaxle. It's been a tough stretch. I feel bad for my No. 7 Spire Motorsports team. We were trying to pull off another good week from last weekend’s momentum. It wasn’t meant to be, but we’ll get them next week.”
Alex Bowman – No. 48 Ally Chevrolet – Finished 35th (Lap 6 Accident)
“We qualified bad. Unfortunately, they were just racing hard. It looked like the No. 42 (Ty Dillon) and the No. 31 (Justin Haley) got together. The No. 42 just overcorrected and stuffed us in the fence. Bummer. I hate it for everybody at Ally and Hendrick Motorsports. We’ll move onto the next one.”