Joey Logano — winner: “I love NASCAR racing. This is so much frickin’ fun and to watch to be a part of it is electric. Being here at Bristol. Hearing the fans scream and yell. What else can you want? It’s huge. We’re in the hunt now. We’re right where we need to be. We had a solid run last week and capitalized again with huge points again tonight, so we’re there. We had a good race car. Team Penske put together a great car. We led the first stage there and you know it’s going to get aggressive there at the end and we were in the right place at the right time. Our cars have been good and have been getting better. The pit crew has been good. I’ve got a great team. We’ve got a team that knows how to win championships. I thought there for a minute I was like, ‘OK, I might just finish third or fourth here tonight,’ and then they all kind of worked their way up and I was like, ‘Well, Merry Christmas to me.’ I got a gift there. There’s nothing like the Bristol Night Race. This is just the coolest experience as a race car driver being in front of all you fans down here, hearing everyone scream and cheer – sometimes boo, that’s all right. It’s pretty awesome.”
Kyle Larson — second: “It was just a good fight all around for the No. 5 Chevrolet team. I don’t think we were a top-five car, but we did a great night executing tonight and that’s what it takes. We didn’t have the best car tonight, but we still came home with a top-two finish. We weren’t too hot there in the second stage, and really the majority of the final stage, but I’m proud of the pit call and the fight we had to hang on there. We got good stage points early, so we’ll take it and try to have more days like today. I’m happy with the effort, and we’ll go to Kansas (Speedway) and continue to go to work.”
Carson Hocevar — third: “I wasn’t trying to wreck him. It just looked like to me I got a run and kind of went left and he spun; I spun him. There wasn’t a whole lot of talking. He just kind of said one thing and then went after me, and I wasn’t going to take it. I mean, that was fun with (Ty Gibbs). I got ran into a lot for the win. I mean, that was for second and he wants to come fight. I don’t think anybody is left behind me, so they got an old-school Bristol show here. I don’t know what I did wrong there. I got a run to cross him over. It looked like he spun himself and then he wants to instigate a fight. I was going to finish that, and, it seemed like the crowd was pretty pumped up so I was going to play the audience for a second. It doesn’t really mean (expletive) because we didn’t win the race, but it was a lot of fun to be up front. Just really proud of our guys. That had to have been a good points day for us and a good run. We tend to run good here at Bristol. It would have been nice to close that one out. I’m a Lions fan so I know you only get a few shots within your window, so we’re pretty good here and eventually competition is going to catch up. But a lot of fun with these guys here. It was fun. Props to NASCAR, props to all the fans that came out. It seemed like bottom and top worked. The good guys could pass, and if you weren’t very good, you were going to get really annoyed not being able to pass. Yeah, just proud of this effort, proud of our group. I had a lot of fun tonight.”
Christopher Bell — fourth: “It was close, but just in the spring, I was able to pass everybody. Tonight I wasn’t. When I had the track position, I could maintain it, but wasn’t good enough to drive up there and take the lead. Overall, it was a good day to keep us in the hunt for our Toyota team. Whoever is the champion is going to have to be great. We are very much alive.”
Ty Gibbs — fifth: “It just sucks. The Camry was a fun time tonight. I just tried to stay up too high in (turns) one and two, and tried to block (Carson Hocevar) from getting a run – and (Kyle Larson) snuck in there and got us all bottled up. Just unfortunate, but we will keep going.”
Josh Berry — sixth: “Our car was honestly really strong. We were pretty tight early and took a swing at it and then the car was really strong from there on. I got a little damage coming through the lap traffic. I haven’t looked at it yet. I was going by (John Hunter Nemechek) on the outside and he decided to block me, instead of running the bottom like the 10 laps before. I ran into him and got a little nose damage. I don’t know if that hurt it, but, all in all, a good car. I would have loved a top five, but we’ll keep it going next week.”
Bubba Wallace — seventh: “Just kind of ran our own race. Had a couple of close calls, but for the most part our Toyota team did a good job all night. We were seventh to 10th when we come here and we were on the front side of that tonight, so we are making improvements. I really appreciate the work on the short track program. Just wanted more. I started licking my chops there at the end, but just a little bit too far back. All-in-all, pretty good. Excited for the next three weeks, mile-and-a-halves. Toyotas are super strong, and get some separation and get away from the hornets’ nest that I feel like we’ve been in for the last month or so, and get some Toyotas back on top and back in victory lane.”
Denny Hamlin — eighth: “We just have to get to running a little bit better. Today, I thought early on – in the first stage – I really liked my National Debt Relief Toyota. I thought we had a car that would contend for the win, and then second stage, when we took the stage points in stage one that put us to the back, and once we lost track position, it just wasn’t quite as good. I think the track changed on us as well. Then we got caught by that caution, so that was unfortunate. It is the way it is, but we move on.”
Ryan Preece — 10th: “I thought we maximized our day. An untimely caution almost locked us but P10.”
Austin Cindric — 11th: “We kind of hurt our own day, but got saved with staying out there with a long run, but we had a pretty decent Ford Mustang, just not able to capitalize. A lot of those cautions at the end got us cycled around on tires and all that. It’s good to salvage some decent points, but I thought we had a bit more today.”
Austin Dillon — 17th: “Long night for the No. 3 Chevrolet team at Bristol Motor Speedway. We started ninth and we held our own to start the race but ultimately struggled with handling issues. We worked on the balance of the car throughout the race, but couldn’t get it right. I couldn’t run the top and just lacked grip overall, and our Chevrolet just landed bad. We started tight then swung sideways loose. We’ll take what we can from this one and turn our focus to Kansas.”
Tyler Reddick — 18th: “Our Camry didn’t drive bad, we were just one of the slowest cars on the race track. It is unacceptable any time of year, but especially in the Chase and after a tough day in Gateway. Just off where we need to be currently.”
AJ Allmendinger — 22nd: ""It was a hard-fought night. I thought we were going to make something out of it, but unfortunately, a caution came out on one of our pit stops and hurt us. Then it probably cost us maybe two spots there, spinning, trying to get ahead of (Shane van Gisbergen), racing him and got loose. We were just loose all night, and that’s what we fought. We made it a little better and had some speed. If I could run in clean air, we actually had had okay lap times. In traffic, it was tough. We’ll learn from this weekend and move on to Kansas.”
Austin Hill — 29th: “Not a great night. Our Chevrolet was really tight rolling across the center and couldn’t get pointed for the exit. As the race went on, the whole car was light on entry and not in the track. It felt like the car wasn’t connected in all three sections of the corner - entry, center and exit. The car would snap loose on exit which stopped me from throttling down hard. We pitted every time we could to try and learn something from the race. On to Kansas next week.”
Ryan Blaney — 33rd: “I protected pretty early and (Hocevar) just kept coming left and never lifted and crashed me. Something is going to happen. The top was kind of a crush and not as good as I wanted to be up there, but we were still making it work, but I never got to finish the race. I just felt like he didn’t lift. I left him plenty of room for a lap before that. I didn’t chop him. I didn’t run him into the fence or nothing like I easily could have. I protected the bottom and he just decided he wanted to be there and didn’t lift and wrecked me. I haven’t had a problem with him for probably a year and a half, but it’s getting old. (On the pit commitment violation), we were committed and then I got told to go back on the racetrack and it was a knee-jerk reaction. I did it and I shouldn’t have done it.”
Ty Dillon — 36th: “We were tight to start the race, then it started coming to us. It just snapped loose on me. I was trying hard up there without a whole lot of grip. Just trying to keep us on the lap. It slipped, tried to catch it and it hit right rear first. We are disappointed, but we will go back to work and be ready for Kansas next week.”
