Here’s what drivers were saying after Sunday’s All-Star Race at North Wilkesboro Speedway:
All-Star Race
Joey Logano — Winner: “A lot of fun when you’ve got a car this fast. The Shell/Pennzoil Mustang, it’s just so great to get in Victory Lane. All of our sponsors and everyone who stuck with us to get a win, it feels nice. It’s been a while. I wish it was for points, but a million bucks is still a lot of money and I feel great about that.”
Denny Hamlin — Finished 2nd: “I needed more of an advantage to pass for sure. I would run to (Logano), and then you couldn’t pass. I would lose a little bit of air there, and I would try to give my car a break and then run to him again — just have to be so much faster to get around. Hats off to the track, NASCAR and Goodyear for giving it a try. Hopefully, we learned something here for future short tracks. I hate it for our whole Mavis Tire team, but at least we had an exciting fight in the end – something to talk about.”
Chris Buescher — Finished 3rd: “We stayed on reds all night, so that worked out pretty good for us. I’m really proud of our team. Friday wasn’t very good to be straight up about it and they worked really hard and pulled some strings, hit some buttons and got us a whole lot better for tonight, so I was proud of that to bring our Fastenal Mustang home third. I felt like we had a decent shot at it there. I was able to pace the 22 pretty good, but there at the end just took too long to get around the 5 car and really didn’t have sight of the leaders at that point. It’s a good night on a night where only one position matters. I’m proud of the group. It’s good to keep our momentum up and we’ll go onto the 600 and go win us one.”
Kyle Larson — Finished 4th: “I thought we were in great position there. Got to fourth pretty quickly; got to third pretty quickly. I thought I could just be patient. I built really loose for a little while, and then they started kind of inching away from me. I moved up and I was kind of hanging on from there. I was surprised that the guys that didn’t pit were as strong as they were. I thought we were going to be in the best position there to win. Hats off to the No. 5 HendrickCars.com Chevy team. I know they had a lot of work this week; having Kevin (Harvick) practice, swap seats and everything back to where I could drive it. Proud to go back and forth and have a shot to win.”
Ryan Blaney — Finished 5th: “It was an alright race. We knew we had to be creative to get up through there and we did a good job in the first caution when a lot of guys came up and put yellows on. We left the reds on and that’s how we got our track position, and then we had to leave them on until the end and actually held on alright. I didn’t get a very good restart on the front row, and then I about spun out into (Turn) 1 and that lost me second and lost me third and then I’m just trying to make it back up, although I probably could have run about third. Overall, not a bad night from where we started.”
Bubba Wallace — Finished 6th: “We were just okay. It was a good rally for the team. Just didn’t have what it took to get up there. I thought we were pretty good. I was like here we go — the 5 (Kyle Larson) and the 23 charging through the field again, just kind of stalled out and our stuff got burnt up. It was a fun battle with the 12 (Ryan Blaney). I wanted to act like I was mad at him, but I wasn’t. It was fun.”
Noah Gragson — Finished 11th: “We started in the back and got a lap down early, but got the lucky dog and came back to 11th. We just never got a handle on the balance all weekend. We were pretty loose in, so we need to go back and do our homework on this place. It’s tough. It’s a new place, but we’re a better race team than we showed all weekend. I’m certainly grateful for the fan support to allow us the opportunity to get in the All-Star Race. It was a fun weekend overall, but we just kind of struggled. It seemed like the soft tire was better for our car than the hard tire for whatever reason that is, but I’m just super grateful.”
Ricky Stenhouse Jr. — Finished 20th: “We passed (Busch). He left the middle open there. Short race, you’re trying to get all you can get. We passed him and I guess he was mad. So, parked my car in his pit box. Figured he’d do something like that. Maybe Richard (Childress) will hold my watch after the race.”
RICKY STENHOUSE JR. PUNCHES KYLE BUSCH.
— NASCAR on NBC (@NASCARonNBC) May 20, 2024
Stenhouse waited for Busch after crashing on Lap 2 of the NASCAR All-Star Race. pic.twitter.com/K63dZabKie
All-Star Open
Ty Gibbs — Winner: “Yeah, we were pretty good. I feel like it is pretty solid. It’s good to make it – and good to see Bubba (Wallace) make it too. Hopefully, we can go and win it. I think (Michael) Waltrip did it once. Let’s go win a million bucks — maybe we can go buy some sprint cars or something.”
Josh Berry — Finished 3rd: “We had a really good practice. We were loose in qualifying and that kind of translated to the first run. The boys on pit road had a great pit stop and got us some track position. I think the tire compound tightened us up a little bit and we were better. We still needed to be a little bit tighter. I was doing everything I could without a doubt. I really found a lot in (Turns) 1 and 2. I was fast in (Turns) 1 and 2, but just couldn’t quite put together (Turns) 3 and 4 to make a charge at them. From where we started we knew it would be tough, but all in all it was just a great effort.”
Justin Haley — Finished 4th: “I wish we could have started where we qualified yesterday — in second. We were just mired back in the pack and struggled a little bit early but the Rick Ware guys brought a great car. Everyone at Ford Performance did an awesome job. It’s cool to keep running competitively and running fast. It’s enjoyable to drive. Having the time of my life. Just wish a little bit more.”
Alex Bowman — Finished 6th: “It’s not what we wanted for Hendrick Motorsports, Ally and everyone on this No. 48 Chevy team. Honestly, we just kind of missed it a little bit. We were really tight on Friday and just jumped the fence a little bit today where we were too free. I felt like if I could clear the No. 23, get up and take care of my stuff, I’d be OK. I just heated up my right rear tire trying to get clear of him. When I finally couldn’t clear him, I was in a lot of trouble there for a little bit until I got pulled back down.”
Chase Briscoe — Finished 7th: “We just didn’t really have the short-run speed. It seemed like once we got single-filed out, it was hard unless you were really, really good to go forward. On the normal tire, we were really, really loose at the start, and on the soft tire we were really, really tight. I felt like if the race was 100-lap runs, we would’ve been alright. We were pretty good on the long runs, we just didn’t quite have it on the short runs. We’ve just got to do a better job. Especially this weekend, it’s just a little tough having different tires, but I need to do a better job just understanding from practice kind of what I need for the short run versus the long run. Hated it for all of us.”
Ryan Preece — Finished 8th: “We just needed a better balance, needed better track position, kind of everything. I don’t know, I guess we just didn’t have what it took to be in the All-Star Race today.”
Austin Dillon — Finished 9th: “We gave it all we had. Our No. 3 SENIX Chevy was really fast. We had the fastest lap in qualifying. Unfortunately, we had to start back in 15th. We made our way forward into the top-10 with 50 laps to go. We decided to put yellows on, and everyone in front of us took reds. We were hoping that because of that, they would fade, but it just didn’t happen fast enough. We were making a pretty good charge there at the end, but there just wasn’t enough time and lost too much ground on the hard tires on the takeoff. Would have liked to have seen what happened with red’s because they got to beating and banging up front, but unfortunately we don’t get another shot at it.”
Kaz Grala — Finished 11th: “It was cool to have as much speed as we had this weekend. We got shuffled back on the last restart, and still drove back up to 11th. Both of our RWR cars were top-five on pace in the Open and I think both of us would have had a great chance to transfer if we had lined up in order of qualifying. We’ve had a lot of potential lately, and it’s exciting every week when we show up to the racetrack. I like the momentum that we have heading into the Coca-Cola 600.”
