Chase Briscoe — first: “When I got that final pack of kind of lap cars with five or six to go, I just felt like I was going to knock the wall down at any minute. It just quit turning. I don’t know what it is about these finishes. I’ve got to stop making it so exciting at the end. Just an amazing car. And, yeah, what an amazing run we’ve been on. Should be three in a row and just glad we were able to redeem our to this team. Amazing job to this team. This pit crew has just been unbelievable. My hero is Tony Stewart. He made a pretty unbelievable run, and hopefully we can do the same thing. (The pit crew have) been an absolute key to it. When you can come down pit road and know you’re going to gain spots every time or if you’re in the lead, not lose the lead, it just makes your job so much easier as a race car driver. You don’t have to go out and do anything extra. They just have your back every time. Unbelievable team effort.”
Christohper Bell — second: “I got a lot closer than I thought I was going to, so I don’t know. We should be really good at the next couple of races. Hopefully, we can keep bringing these fast race cars.”
Ryan Blaney — third: “They did a great job of getting our car better even from our first run before I had my speedning penalty. We kind of dropped hard and were able to drive back to the front to get to 10th before the end of the stage and settled in the top three after that. I just didn’t feel like I had the pace to hang with (Bell) or (Briscoe) early in runs. They would get out there, and I would start to close the gap, but it just wasn’t enough to make up for the early run pace they had. Overall, really proud of our day after my mistakes. Really proud of the last two weeks. Places we need to get better, the mile and a halves, and we’ve been able to do that. Three solid finsihes. Just stick it in there and keep going to work.”
Josh Berry — fourth: “I felt like our car was really strong all day. We made some good progress at the start and then when the 54 got the wall on that restart we went all the way to the back again because it was right in front of us. We battled back from the back again and I was really happy with the car the majority of the race. We just kind of plugged along and finally had a real good long run there at the end and was able to make some progress. We felt like we were a better car on the long run and then early in that stage I tried to just manage myself a little bit just in case it ran long and ultimately it did. I think some of those guys started to cord their tires and fall off, but it was just a really good job by Miles and the whole group. That’s another good finish. We’ll go to Phoenix and try to do it again. I think everybody has been working really hard and it’s certainly gotten a lot better. Last week, I really liked my car in practice before we had the tire issue. I think that just kind of screwed the whole weekend up from there on out, but we kind of went back with what we learned last week there and the guys brought a really good car. Hat’s off to all of them for sticking with it and working hard. It was a lot of fun today.”
Denny Hamlin — fifth: “Just didn’t have the long-run speed. I thought the short run was OK. It was decent. We just felt a lot better in the daytime, and once the track cooled off, and the track got a little bit faster, we lost the edge we had. We got to pick up the performance. We have to execute better, be a little faster. All of the above. But overall, we’re giving it everythig we have.”
Kyle Larson — sixth: “I was hanging on. HOnestly, I thought I was going to manage that (last) run well. The top two pushed really hard. I could see Denny settling in, so I just tried to settle in and make my tires live. I just got really, really loose on that run. So just not sure if me not pushing enough made the balance shift rearward. I was just hanging on the last 15 or 18 laps. Happy to still come home with sixth and extend the points lead, but there were a couple of other guys that kind of closed that gap. All in all, a good day. Stage win, extend the points lead. It’s good, but you want to be even better. Overall, a good, solid day. That was what we had, and I feel like we maximized it again. Look forward to the next handful.”
Shane van Gisbergen — seventh: “Yeah, I’m glad the organization has gotten better. Having Ross (Chastain) up there too, we’ve had too many days of running 30th as a team, so it was good that we’ve made some progress. This No. 97 Chevrolet team has had two solid weekends in a row and we can be proud of that. We changed a lot on our cars, trying to understand them and get them better. It’s really nice to see some progress. Charlotte (Motor Speedway) seems to suit us. We seem to have a good base setup for this track.”
Joey Logano — ninth: “We’ve got to win now, we’re 90-whatever something back. We’ve got to do some special stuff from here on out to make up the 100 points. We got that damage early in the race. I don’t know what happened. They all stacked up in front of me and I packed the nose in, unsealed the splitter, which surely didn’t help any. Yeah, we were ninth, maybe we could’ve been top five-ish if I didn’t have the damage. You know, it could’ve been worse, but we just didn’t get any stage points, that’s the worst part.”
Chris Buescher — 10th: “It’s a top 10. We’ve been needing a good, solid run. We’ve been kind of inching up on it the last couple of weeks, but to drive in the top 10 and get some stage points on the day, that’s some progress. We’re not all the way there, for sure, but I’m proud of everybody to take this Fifth Third Bank Ford Mustang and work hard at it. We had a pit stop mishap and I’m proud of everybody for calling it out and catching it and not letting us go out there and have a bigger issue. Thanks to the 60 bunch for tightening it up and we clawed back from there. They did a solid job on pit road the rest of the night, so it was good work by everybody. We’ve got to raise our ceiling. I feel like we’ve been looking at it as though our ceiling is about 10th place right now, so we kind of maximized what I felt like we had today. WIthout the penalty, we might have had another spot or two, but it was a solid day overall.”
Chase Elliott — 12th: “It definitely affected it, how much, we’ll never know. We had a loose wheel there that one stop, and then I sped on the other one. I didn’t think I was speeding. I wasn’t concerned about my lights, at least, so that one surprised me based on our pre-race run. But it was what it was at that point. Unfortunately, it was a bad time to do that with starting the final stage. To get back to 12th, that was pretty good for all things considered.”
Ryan Preece — 15th: “The team worked really hard throughout the day to make the car better but really we weren’t where we needed to be. We made the best of what we had but certainly on days where you have a few of these other guys in the Chase you want to capitalize more on that. So, we’re on to Phoenix.”
Austin Cindric — 17th: “It’s a shame that our final run of the race went the way it did. It was pretty uncharacteristic from the other portions of the race. Past that, I thought that we had a pretty fast Ford. Yeah, it’s just a shame that last run was by far our worst of the race. We’re going to have to go back and review that, but we still got some solid points.”
Michael McDowell — 19th: “It was a busy day here in Charlotte. We had some speed in our Chevrolet, just not enough to accomplish what we were hoping for this weekend. We put ourselves in a great spot late in Stage 1 and Stage 2, unfortunately pit road was so tight and we got some damage there during one of our stops. We had an opportunity at a top 10, but it just wasn’t meant to be. Glad to have this 1.5-mile stretch behind us and looking forward to racing at home in Phoenix next weekend.”
Connor Zilisch — 21st: “I really appreciate the hard work by everyone on the Red Bull Chevrolet team today. We made improvement from where we started the race and had a respectable finish. Randall and the guys made the car better, but it was still too tight there at the end. It’s certainly a step in the right direction.”
Austin Dillon — 26th: “I thought we had a good No. 3 Chevrolet as the race got underway. We were a touch tight, but we were driving forward and were inside the Top 10. Unfortunately, we got a speeding penalty on pit road and lost those gains, but I was able to drive our car forward again. We just built too tight as the race went on and the track changed. The 54 ran into us towards the end of the race, and after that we built even tighter. We were out of the track and snappy at the end. Proud of everyone’s efforts and look forward to Phoenix Raceway next weekend.”
AJ Allmendinger— 28th: “On the first run, I thought we really had something. We were pretty tight, but we had some speed toward the end of the run, so I thought we’d be better than we were during the rest of the race. Then, on the next restart, I had to miss (Ty Gibbs) crashing in front of me, which cost us some track position, and we just never got it back. We were tight all day, just sliding around, and the car felt stiff. Everything we did to try to fix it never really woke the car up. It’s tough because after Vegas (Las Vegas Motor Speedway), we thought we’d be better.”
Brad Keselowski — 29th: “Something happened with (Ty Gibbs’) car and was broke. He crashed in front of us, and we got into it. It did some kind of damage to the car, and we lost a lot of speed.”
Ty Dillon — 30th: “We tried all race to fix our tight-handling condition, but nothing seemed to make it better. I think we had good speed, but the front of the car just wouldn’t turn. It didn’t seem to matter whether we were in clean air or in traffic. We’ll review everything before we get back to another 1.5-mile track. We never give up.”
Austin Hill — 32nd: “Long race for our team. Nothing seemed to go according to plan today. Without practice or qualifying yesterday, we hoped the speed and balance from May would transfer over, but we fired off loose with the rear tires being out of the track. The guys kept working on it the entire race. We got on the other side of the balance but then were too tight. Our front windshield had a haze from the drop of the green flag and we tried everything. Removed all tear offs, cleaned the inside and outside windshield - nothing seemed to help. We’ll have to look over our Chevrolet back at the shop and improve for next season.”
Bubba Wallace — 37th: “No warning. I saw it in the last second. (Alex Bowman) come up and clippe us. No hard feelings, that is just racing. I was starting to drop, and it gets into a tight spot. To get on pit road smooth, we wanted to stay in front of him. He just got loose and got us. The first hit wiped our brakes out. The second hit got me good. But we are good. Still got nine fingers and nine toes (laughter), so we are fine.”
Alex Bowman — 38th: “I just got loose. Honestly, I had been really tight. I don’t know, as soon as it got to the exit of the corner, it snapped and it kind of didn’t stand a chance. Unfortunately, I grabbed too much wheel, overcorrected it and got in those two guys’ (Bubba Wallace and William Byron) way. I hate that for our No. 48 Chevrolet team. We had a pretty fast car. I hate that for the No. 24 and No. 23 teams. It’s one thing to get loose and crash, but to ruin their days too really sucks. It’s on me. I just didn’t hang onto it well enough. I was just caught off guard. I don’t know why I got as loose as I did. I hadn’t been loose at all, but that’s part of driving a racecar and unfortunately I didn’t do a good enough job of it.”
William Byron — 39th: “It looks like the No. 48 (Alex Bowman) just got loose and overcorrected it into the wall. I was running the top and I lifted right away, but I couldn’t get low enough because he kind of came back off the wall. I hate it for this No. 24 Chevrolet team. We had a top-five run going, so it’s just unfortunate.”
