What Drivers Said: NASCAR Cup at Kansas -- plus race highlights in under 3 minutes!
Before we get into what drivers said, check out the top highlights of Sunday's Hollywood Casino 400 at Kansas Speedway in under 3 minutes!
Bubba Wallace - No. 45 Root Insurance Toyota - WINNER:
What does this win mean to you?
“Man, just so proud of this team, so proud of the effort that they put in each and every week. Just thankful for the opportunity, right? Took this jump from an idea two years ago from a text from Denny before it all even happened. He was ready to get the deal done. Appreciate him. Appreciate MJ, Curtis, Gene. Everybody on that side of things, everybody at 23XI. Men and women there, they work their tails off. Just so proud. Pit crew was awesome today. We had one loose wheel. Just thankful. Thanks for the opportunity, and thankful to shut the hell up for a lot of people.”
What does it mean to race as hard as you had to? The one at Talladega was a little different, and then to have Denny Hamlin chasing you at the end.
“Yeah. I knew Denny was going to be strong. That's the things I look at, is he wasn't that good at the beginning of the day, and he comes up and finishes P2. And that's what I want to start doing. When we don't have the best days, just capitalize on moments like that. It's cool to beat the boss, but man, we were just lights-out today once we got to the lead, and it was a lot of fun.”
Were you anxious all day?
“It's funny. I ran into my old crew chief, Jerry Baxter after the truck race, and I text him. I said, Jerry, I think it's going to be a good weekend. We called our shot. What a really cool paint scheme on our Toyota Camry root. They've done a lot for me in my career in a short amount of time. To throw honor to the people we lost on 9/11 is incredible. To put this in victory lane is really cool.”
How did you stay focused?
“Been doing this for a really long time. I haven't won a race like that in a really long time, but just knowing getting excited is going to mess you up, so it was just cool, calm, and collected, and here we are.”
Do you want to say anything to the fans, your fans?
“True fans that are out there, thank you, guys. I love you. It's been a tough road. You guys are the best. Let's keep this train rolling. Thank you.”
Denny Hamlin - No. 11 Acumatica Toyota - Finished Second:
What are your emotions right now with Denny Hamlin the driver finishing second, but the owner wins the race?
“It’s a good overall day. Just still frustrated about the first half of the race. We just aren’t executing all that well. Got to thank Acumatica for coming on, if you want to improve your business, they can help you do it. Thank you for coming on for Kansas. Really happy for our 11 Toyota team. They really fought hard and in that last half, they really made the car quite a bit better. Just really happy about the outcome and really happy for the 45 team and Bubba Wallace and Bootie (Barker, crew chief). Bubba’s just really worked hard on his craft and we’ve given him fast race cars and now he’s showing what he’s got.”
How hard were you trying to catch Bubba Wallace in the closing laps?
“I nearly wrecked to try to catch him and then I got bad loose and nearly got in the fence. I was driving as hard as I could. Nothing will ever come free if you’re driving for me. If you think I’m going to let you win, you better go get another job. Just so proud of the whole team.”
Christopher Bell - No. 20 DEWALT Power Tools Toyota - Finished Third:
What more did you need to maybe go get the victory?
“Just got off a little bit on our balance that last run, but overall a great points day and very proud of everyone on this DEWALT No. 20 team. Great day for Toyota and happy for Bubba to get a win. He was really deserving, really fast all day. Great points day. We'll move on and try and win one.”
How proud are you of this race team?
“I'm very happy that we're finally getting the results that this team deserves. Our speed has been there all year, and I feel like we've given up a couple good finishes. Last couple of weeks we've been building on it, and hopefully we can keep the ball rolling.”
Alex Bowman - No. 48 Chevrolet - Finished Fourth:
“We had a good day for our No. 48 Ally Camaro ZL1. Proud of all of my guys. We had a good weekend - Obviously, we didn’t want to throw those stage points away in stage one like we did, but we overcame that in a hurry. I’m just proud of Greg (Ives) and the guys. We had a great racecar. The last 15-laps of a run is where we would fall off and get beat, but I’m still proud of all of the guys. We ended up with a solid points day.”
William Bryon - No. 24 Liberty University Chevrolet - Finished Sixth:
“For as far off as we started, we definitely made a really good rally. I just appreciate the adjustments and pit stops by everybody on the No. 24 Liberty University Chevrolet team. At the beginning, I thought if it was a long run, we would have gotten lapped. But we just got our car so much better through the middle part of the race. Towards the end, it was just really hard to know what we needed to be better.
“I’m happy with the finish and thankful for the effort. It looks like we’re plus 48-points going into Bristol, which is a tough track. It’s been a good two weeks in a row. We just need to put three weeks together and we’ll advance.”
Ross Chastain - No. 1 AdventHealth Chevrolet - Finished Seventh:
“Our No. 1 AdventHealth Chevy was on either side of tight or loose all day. It was just really a fine line. We just never really settled into a nice run. Our best run was the second-to-last, with our second-to-best run being our last run. We put the chips where they needed to go at the very end, but all day it was just a handful.”
You entered this race with seven finishes outside of the top-10. How big is it to get a top-1o for you guys in the playoffs?
“We all just high-fived. It feels good. It’s been a rough couple of months here. There were times today where I thought we were going to run 14th and I thought we were just going to keep this going. We had a really good day on pit road. Our No. 1 pit crew is just incredible. We cycled ourselves back up there and we were able to stay plugged in between the No. 48 (Alex Bowman) and the No. 5 (Kyle Larson). We were running with the guys we are supposed to be running with; and we finished around the guys we are supposed to finish by. It was a great day for our No. 1 AdventHealth Chevy team.”
Kyle Larson - No. 5 hendrickcars.com Chevrolet - Finished Eighth:
It looked like one of those days where you guys couldn’t get a handle of the car.
“It was a little bit of that. For the restarts, I just didn’t have a good balance; but I also didn’t do a good job on the restarts. I think I only had two good ones. Gave up a lot of stage points early on because of that. Even when I thought I was in the right line, I was tight. There at the end, I finally got a good restart and was able to get to third. It was really loose; I tried to go for second and I got really sideways.
“After the green flag stop, I felt good but I was just a little bit on the tight side and couldn’t make enough ground in traffic to make a move and had to settle for eighth. Disappointed with that. I thought we had an opportunity to finish a lot better, but we’ll move onto Bristol.”
Ryan Blaney - No. 12 Menards/Richmond Water Heaters Ford - Finished Ninth:
“We were okay. We drove up through the field pretty decent there starting off and finished second in the first stage. I was proud of the progress we made. I had to come down pit road there after the first stage and had to kind of reset in the back. From there we just weren’t quite good enough to get back up into the top-five. I was chasing it and adjusting the car after that. Overall, not a bad day. It was a good points day and we are looking pretty decent going into Bristol. We will have to just go there and have a good day.”
Daniel Saurez - No. 99 Commscope Chevrolet - Finished Tenth:
“Today was very inconsistent. It was a long day. At times, we were OK and then some other times, we weren’t good. We had a couple of situations there on pit road and then we had a tire going down. We had an eventful day. But for a day like that and to finish in the top-10, I’m quite happy. We have some work to do. We are not where we need to be. At times, I felt like we were a top-five car; and at times, we were a 20th-place car. We have to be a little bit more consistent. We don’t really understand why it was so inconsistent, but we’re going to find some answers and move onto Bristol.”
Chase Eliott - No. 9 NAPA Auto Parts Chevrolet - Finished 11th:
“Probably just bad lane choice. I don’t think we were good enough to go win. Bubba (Wallace) was really good, congrats to him and his team. That’s a big win for him and a deserving one, too.
“We just had a bad restart there and fell back a lot of spots. Our car wasn’t really driving any differently than it was earlier in the race when we were up front. You just kind of loose momentum, start going the other direction and it’s difficult to rebound from that sometimes”
Austin Cindric - No. 2 Snap-On Tools Ford - Finished 12th:
“I felt like we made the car better all day and we just got hosed at one point on a restart, the final restart there. We lost all the spots that I had gained and we never got those back. I just drove the car too hard trying to make it up and got too loose by the end of the race. Overall, like I said, we didn’t beat ourselves. We check that box the last two weeks. Bristol will be a big unknown and big challenge. We can’t take points for granted. I feel like we gave a few away today.”
What else do you need to accomplish next week to move on to the next round?
“Well, a guarantee would be to win. I want to win at Bristol, that would be awesome. I have had a lot of heartache at Bristol, okay?. I would like to change that but maybe I will just take moving on to the next round. I have a lot of work ahead and a lot of really good guys I am going to have to beat.”
Chase Briscoe - No. 14 Magical Vacation Planner Ford - Finishes 13th:
“For us, we definitely started off and our balance was way different than in practice. I was worried at the beginning but our team did a good job of making good adjustments and good pit stops and good restarts to get up to fourth or fifth there. We were able to run top-five if we could maintain track position. We came down pit road and the 51 just buried us and pinned me in. I couldn’t get around him and we went from running fourth to running 15th and was stuck there the rest of the day. I wish we could have got our Mustang up there. I feel like we had top-five speed we just needed the track position to go with it and we weren’t quite good enough to drive back through the field again. Going to Bristol not in on points isn’t the end of the world. I would love to be nine points up, obviously, but being nine points out, I feel like we can go there and get some stage points and be in good shape.”
Austin Dillon - No. 3 Get Bioethanol Chevrolet - Finished 14th:
“We just fought balance on our No. 3 Get Bioethanol Camaro ZL1 all day. The same thing we’ve fought all year, really. We had high hopes because we qualified pretty decent. I’m proud of our guys, we fought hard. We kept ourselves in it and we have a shot at Bristol (Motor Speedway).
You’re below the cutline, but within striking distance. Do you feel like you can battle your way into the next round?
“Yeah, for sure. Bristol is going to be wild and anything can happen. We’ve given ourselves a good shot. Nobody knows what to expect when we get there, but it’s a long race. If you’re there at the end of the day, you’ve got a good shot to make it.”
Joey Logano - No. 22 Shell/Pennzoil Ford - Finished 17th:
“Not a great day for us. We were hanging in there in the beginning for a little bit and it looked like at one point, in the middle of the race, that we were the fastest car on the track. We were up to second and running down the leader and it was good. Caution came out and we put scuffs on and we lost a little bit of track position. Not much. We put new tires on and it just was not good. The balance was off without changing anything. Beats me.”
Bristol next week. You are in a good spot in the points.
“Well, it could be better. We are plus-40 in points so that is a decent spot to go racing. I wish we were positioned first but it is what it is.”
Kyle Busch - No. 18 M&M’s Toyota - Finished 26th:
What happened when you spun?
“Just got really loose and it snapped around me. Then I had damage from going through the grass. Kind of ruined the rest of our day, but it was whatever happened on that pit stop that set us backwards to get us back in traffic there. Tried to make an adjustment to the car to make it faster and it did make it faster, but definitely made it looser.”
Do you feel confident going to Bristol next weekend and advancing to the next round of the Playoffs?
“Not with the luck of this year, nope. We’ll go and try hard and if what Bristol has always been to me occurs, we’ll be fine. With the way this year has been, if that occurs, it’s going to be ugly.”
Erik Jones - No. 43 FOCUSFactor Chevrolet - Finished 29th:
“Definitely not the day we were looking for at Kansas Speedway with our FOCUSfactor Chevy. We were off in practice yesterday and made some adjustments to help today, but just never had a good handle on our Chevy. We started the day too tight, adjusted to then be too free. Had contact with a couple of other cars racing three-wide in stage two, and then the handling was just never where it needed to be. Not sure if we broke something when we made contact, but struggled the rest of the race. We’ll go back to the shop, look over everything and refocus on Bristol next week.”
Ty Gibbs - No. 23 McDonald’s Toyota - Finished 34th:
What happened that took you out of the race?
“I don’t really know. We were just a little free and got ourselves back running in a bad area. We got a little bit of contact I think, but I haven’t seen the replay yet. We had a really fast McDonald’s Toyota Camry TRD. Thank you Toyota for all the support and McDonalds and Monster Energy. I feel like we should have run really well today and we didn’t. All of my teammates cars were good. I just need to work on my craft and need to make the car a little tighter. We had the right adjustments there and we were good right then, but just didn’t have enough time to go right after the green and then we were in the wall. Not really sure how, just haven’t seen the replay.”
Tyler Reddick - No. 8 Guaranteed Rate Chevrolet - Finished 35th:
“The right-rear tire just blew like we’ve had a few times. At Fontana (Auto Club Speedway), I was able to save it. But here, it snapped at the worst possible point and we just killed the wall. It broke the control arm on the right-front, so our day was over. We leave here with not a lot of points, so we’ll have to fight hard at Bristol (Motor Speedway).”
Kevin Harvick - No. 4 Rheem Ford - Finished 36th:
“When those two cars came up in front of me I just got super tight. When I lifted it grabbed and got loose. I just wasn’t expecting them to come up and my car getting that tight.”
Now you will be in a Hail Mary position at Bristol.
“Yeah, it is what it is. We were racing to win anyway today, so that is what we will do again next week.”