Here is what drivers were saying after Sunday’s race at Kansas Speedway:
Tyler Reddick — Winner: “We didn’t have the outright pace that I think Bubba (Wallace) and Denny (Hamlin) had. At times, we were pretty solid, but we were just caught behind them. The caution came, it gave us another opportunity, especially with those cars that stayed out or took two tires.”
Denny Hamlin — Finished 2nd: “Well, (Kyle Larson) was just laying back so much. I was trying to back up to him. Should have just kind of focused forward probably. It gave the 45 an opportunity to get up there in front of us. Just kind of sleeping on the restart, looking in the rear view instead of looking in the front. Hats off to the Yahoo Camry TRD team, just another really, really fast car, just didn’t need that caution at the end.”
Erik Jones — Finished 3rd: “All day, the No. 43 Allegiant Chevy was fast and we were up in contention. We were able to drive through the field a handful of times, so it was a good day. That was probably the fastest car we’ve had all year. We would have loved to get one there, but our year has been up-and-down and having a good run like that is just a good day for the team.”
Kyle Larson — Finished 4th: “We had a great No. 5 HendrickCars.com Chevy. It was good on the short runs and really good on the long runs compared to everybody else. I was struggling, as well, but I felt really good about my car. It’s a bummer, but sometimes it goes that way. All-in-all, we were able to recover. I only got into the wall once today. We had two great cars to start the playoffs. You have to look at the positives. We got stage points, so that’s good, as well.”
Joey Logano — Finished 5th: “Overall, I’m glad we had a decent points day. We needed it. We were on the cut-line, or close to it coming in. I don’t know where we are now. Didn’t have the best of stages. So, we’ll fight again at Bristol.”
Logano secures top-five Cup finish at Kansas
Joey Logano lauds crew chief Paul Wolfe for making an “amazing” strategy call late in the race to take only two tires on pit road, resulting in a chance at a win and eventual fifth-place result.
Kyle Busch — Finished 7th: “It wasn’t going to be a play to win the race, but it was going to be a play for our best finish. We just got a couple bad aero spots there with the last restart and probably lost one more spot than I should have, but all-in-all, that was better than we should have performed anyways.”
Christopher Bell — Finished 8th: “Ultimately, I expected to be a little more competitive today, so that is a little disappointing, but overall – we scored points in stage one, and to get a top-10, that’s what we needed to do. I wish I had Darlington back, but we will move on to Bristol.”
Ryan Blaney — Finished 12th: “Overall, not a bad day for our Wabash Ford Mustang. Pretty decent on the short runs and long runs we’d just kind of fall off a little bit too hard, just felt super loose and lose a little speed. The last restart didn’t really work out for us. We took four and we started way in the back, and could only get to 12th. But, proud of the stage points we made, proud of the short run speed.”
Ross Chastain — Finished 13th: “It was hard to recover after we got shuffled back in traffic on that one restart. We were just a few spots short of getting a top-10 for Kubota’s Geared to Give program but we’ll take a 13th-place finish and look forward to Bristol.”
William Byron — Finished 15th: “Once the track took a set in Stage One and kind of got all the rubber from yesterday’s race off, it seemed like we were just free from that point on. I didn’t know how free in that first stage – I just let the No. 45 go and it just came around on me. We tried a lot of things to tighten it up after that point, but our Raptor Chevy just kept building to the same spot on the long runs.”
Chase Briscoe — Finished 19th: “For us, this place has been a huge struggle. So, I felt like we made a lot of gains from that standpoint. We got our car at least to where it could run at least 15th, instead of struggling to run 25th. I thought we passed a lot of cars, and we finally got up to 13th or so, and then our engine shut off – went a lap down, and then just kept fighting all day long after that.”
Carson Hocevar — Finished 20th: “To come from one lap down, really struggling myself to get a grip on the racetrack to finish in the top-20 is super big for me. We finished 15th in one of the stages, and were one or two restarts away from having a great finish. I plugged the fence once or twice and got myself a little bit behind, and by that point I was kind of deep. It was a lot of fun trying to get the balance right and learn this stuff.”
AJ Allmendinger — Finished 30th: “I’m really happy with the speed we had in our No. 16 Dyna-Gro Seed Chevy. Disappointed with the small mistake there hitting the wall but really proud of my guys for bringing a competitive car. The speed we’ve had the last couple weeks is definitely encouraging and we’ll keep gaining on that.”
Bubba Wallace — Finished 32nd: “I got loose like five laps before (hitting the wall), but I realized that was kind of my line, kind of my approach to the exit of Turn 4. And then three or four laps later, it blew out. No indication going into (Turn 1).”
Austin Dillon — Finished 33rd: “We had a solid qualifying effort on Saturday, and the beginning of our race was really strong. I just pushed it a little too hard and ended up making contact with the wall in Stage 1. It knocked the toe out and ruined our race. No matter what we did after that, we couldn’t get our Chevy tight enough.”
Martin Truex Jr. — Finished 36th: “Just unfortunate and very unlucky. I took off really tight and I knew something was up, and then cut a right rear. Not really sure what happened, obviously, but it blew in the worst place possible. I hate it for my guys. We had an awesome Bass Pro Toyota Camry. We were going to have a great day, just not sure what we need to do to get some luck here.”
