Here is what drivers were saying after the Round of 12 elimination race at the Charlotte Roval.
AJ Allmendinger — Winner: “My mom and dad, all my family and friends, those people see how much anguish and how much I put it on my shoulders when we’re struggling. It just means the world. I hate crying right now, but it’s a freaking Cup race, man. You don’t know when it’s ever going to happen again.”
William Byron — Finished 2nd: “It’s been a great year for the No. 24 HP Chevy team and we’ve been great on all the road courses. I had that one shot with probably eight laps to go. AJ just did a good job blocking the chicane there. He didn’t miss his marks and it was too early to make a dive bomb to him.”
Kyle Busch — Finished 3rd: “We gave it a valiant effort. That was about what we thought we would get out of here, at least what I thought. We wanted to come in here and win. This team is capable of running and they gave me a great car today. The Lenovo Camaro was fast. We had good speed in it, just wasn’t able to hold on with the tires as long as I wanted to.”
Ty Gibbs — Finished 4th: “Yeah, it was a really good day for the No. 54 Joe Gibbs Racing team. I need to be a little bit better and do a better job there towards the end. We made a couple adjustments on the car throughout the race, but overall, I just need to do a better job and capitalize on the restarts and finish it off at the end.”
Joey Logano — Finished 5th: “We executed a decent race for the most part. We could have gotten maybe a couple more on being a little quicker on some other things, but, overall, we had the speed to win if you would have put us first but I’m pretty sure anybody in the top seven would say the same thing. It was whoever was out front goes there. We ran fifth most of the day and we finished fifth and that’s just what it is.”
Tyler Reddick — Finished 6th:
Ryan Blaney and several others pointed out how Tyler Reddick was the only driver able to easily make passes. He explains why. pic.twitter.com/x0Y22fteJx
— John Newby (@JohnNewby_) October 8, 2023
Chris Buescher — Finished 7th: “We were capable of more today. We had to be smart and because of that, we didn’t get to get our absolute best finish that we were capable of. Racing for a bigger picture.”
Ross Chastain — Finished 10th: “We knew coming in that it was going to be tough. We put together a heck of a day for us on road courses this year in this No. 1 Worldwide Express Chevy. Lately, we’ve just been lacking speed and I can’t get over the curbs. There’s a lot of reasons. We’ve reverted on some of that through Watkins Glen (International) and to here (Charlotte Motor Speedway Road Course) and it’s really paid off. I’m excited with the gains we’ve made.”
Ryan Preece — Finished 11th: “I’m so proud of this team and we’re making progress each week. We definitely had some momentum on our side after a strong day last weekend at Talladega, but that’s a completely different track than this one. So, to come out here today and put all of our focus on the pit strategy and track position and to be able to stay up front until the end shows the resilience of this team. I’m looking forward to getting to Las Vegas and keeping it going.”
Ryan Blaney — Finished 12th:
Ryan Blaney's win at Talladega gave his team the ability to take a different strategy. They pitted the earliest to jump those that stopped with 3 to go and those that stayed out to get stage points. The result was a 12th-place finish. pic.twitter.com/aMucp0dQKu
— John Newby (@JohnNewby_) October 8, 2023
Kyle Larson — Finished 13th: "It was a stressful weekend, but the No. 5 team and everybody at Hendrick Motorsports did a great job working hard on this backup car late last night. I felt like our car was really good today. We were just pretty conservative there at times. I just didn’t want to make a mistake like I did last year and take ourselves completely out of it. It was just stressful there the final stage, but we were able to get in, which was the goal.”
Austin Dillon — Finished 14th: “We finished the race, what is more than we could say about the previous two weeks. Our Chevy was too tight on the right-hand turns all day, but by making adjustments on pit road throughout the day we got better at the end. It was a good recovery by our team. We got turned around mid-race and when the No. 4 car barreled into the No. 7 car who got into us. Overall, proud of the effort of this team.”
Christopher Bell — Finished 15th: “It’s definitely good to be advancing. We executed today and did what we needed to do. It’s disappointing to have to have a different strategy than when you need to win the race, but we did what we had to do to move on and it’s reset no matter how we finished today so that’s good.”
Bubba Wallace — Finished 16th: “Just proud of where we’re at and how far we’ve come in such a short amount of time. (Tyler Reddick) is in, correct? So, that’s good. I knew we had our work cut out for us. We gave up a lot of points last weekend. The way I look at it is the last restart at Texas. I look at how I put ourselves in the situation to get wrecked today. So, need to work on that, need to be better. Need to look at what the 45 did. He passed cars and he was up there in two laps, right? Just a bummer, but a lot to be proud of.”
Brad Keselowski — Finished 18th: “It’s not the day we wanted for sure, but we’ve got a lot to be proud of. We kept clawing and it just wasn’t enough today. I felt like I could have done a few things better and obviously it’s frustrating when you don’t advance and you don’t get what you want out of the day, but we’ve got a lot of great things going on and we’ll learn from it and come back stronger.”
Martin Truex Jr. — Finished 20th: “I’m definitely excited we’re not coming back here again. This track has just been a thorn in our side. Feel good about moving on and feel good about what we can do the next three races. Some good tracks for us and hopefully we can get something going. It’s been a pretty tough playoffs so far.”
Mike Rockenfeller — Finished 29th: “Well that was definitely not the result that we wanted, but thanks to the team for the hard work. We didn’t have the pace, but then also we got caught up in the incident here in the last chicane. That definitely ended our race hopes, but yeah, it was a great experience to be back at the Roval.”
Erik Jones — Finished 36th: “We’ve kind of struggled all year on road courses. We haven’t really had a good day on one this season, so I need to get better on my end – figure out what to do and how to race on them. With this car, I’ve never really had a great day on road courses, so it’s frustrating. The car is just different to drive on road courses, so just have to get better.”
Denny Hamlin — Finished 37th: “Just once we got back there it’s just so hard to pass. Overdrove a corner that was about it, really. Thanks to the whole Mavis team for giving me a solid car we qualified with. Obviously, with the scenarios going on it’s like if you stay out for a stage, you just go back to the back and you’re never to be seen again. Unless, maybe, unless you’re Tyler Reddick.”