Here’s what the drivers had to say after Sunday’s race, which broke a NASCAR Cup Series record five overtimes before Joey Logano won.
Joey Logano — Winner: “There was a lot of teamwork. A lot of credit has to be given to our fueler, Nick Hensley, to our engine department with Roush Yates who built engines that could also handle fuel very well, and to some courage – a lot of courage made this possible. It’s been a tough season and being on this starting line, I can tell you it sucks. It’s just not fun. It’s tough and we just want a little pressure relief and with seven weeks until the playoffs, it gives us the opportunity to take a breather and start working on our car a little differently and sleep better, to be honest with you. »
Logano ‘out of breath’ after Nashville Cup win
A relieved Joey Logano takes his first Cup Series win of the season at Nashville, surviving five overtime restarts and conserving enough fuel to cross the finish line first in the Ally 400 after a “stressful” few weeks.
Zane Smith — Finished 2nd: “I mean, I’m obviously really happy with the result. But when you hear for 10 laps that ‘he’s supposed to go out, he’s supposed to go out,’ and then you see him shaking the car at the finish line and you just finished second, it hurts. The winning side of it hurts, but I appreciate everybody at Spire Motorsports and I appreciate the strategy. I appreciate Jockey Outdoors and Luke Bryan, having them on board here in Nashville, and all of our other partners. It’s been a tough year, but it’s a great momentum booster, confidence booster, all of the above. So hopefully we can keep that momentum going, but it was great to get your first Cup win.”
Tyler Reddick — Finished 3rd: “I don’t know, the last set of tires didn’t give our Monster Energy Camry the balance it had all day and that allowed it to fight for the lead with Christopher Bell. We just had a bad restart, I pulled back and I could tell that in the last laps we were seriously injured. The tires were corded. When the warning was issued, we were in a very bad situation. We were going to lose all our track position, but we had to put tires on because I don’t think we were going to be able to hold on to a restart, but that’s precisely what gave us the opportunity to take the victory. race. It was a great decision, a courageous decision by crew chief Billy Scott. I was upset with the position we were in, but I just continued to be aggressive on restarts and I mean we got there. It’s hard. If almost everything had happened until the last lap, I just didn’t get the job done.
Reddick ‘didn’t get the job done’ in Nashville
Tyler Reddick expresses frustration with the conclusion of the NASCAR Cup Series race in Nashville and says he “didn’t get the job done” after several favorites ran out of gas at the end.
Ryan Preece — Finished 4th: “It wasn’t pretty. Track position was a difficult thing and we always seemed to be on the other side, but for once, when it counted, we were in the right place.
Chris Buescher — 5th place: “We had the ability to run in the top 10 all night, get stage points and get a good finish out of it. I’m still just frustrated. It was just chaos at the end. Obviously I have to go back and watch what happened, but we just didn’t get a chance to run a lot. We were in a good spot there. We had good speed after the sun went down and we had tires, so we really wanted to get some laps in.
Kyle Larson — Finished 8th: “Just a lot of craziness at the end. There were a lot of cars out of fuel and we were one of them. Just a lot of chaos. On the first restart, I was just trying to wash Denny (Hamlin) off the back so I could get some fresh air and give myself an opportunity to win. I felt like second was not going to have a chance. I was just trying to run with him and got really tight with Ross (Chastain), which caused that crash. And then on the next restart, I just got out of shape and almost caused a crash. On the third restart, we ran out of fuel on the takeoff. We just had a couple of good restarts at the end. Happy to be in the top 10, but a little disappointed with how it went.”
Larson ‘disappointed’ despite remaining in top ten
Kyle Larson finishes eighth in the Cup Series race at Nashville after multiple overtime restarts and recaps the incident with Ross Chastain and an aggressive race with Denny Hamlin.
Daniel Hemric — Finished 9th: “Really, today was just another example of our season. It’s been a rollercoaster ride. We struggled with speed on the short runs all weekend in the #31 Cirkul Chevrolet. After the rain delay and a few good adjustments, I thought if we could get a track position we would be fine. We finally got it back and were caught in an accident. I thought every corner had been knocked over by the car. Somehow the seas kept parting. We were able to make a few good restarts at the end and cross the finish line in ninth position. What a weekend, but I’ll take it.
Noah Gragson — Finished 10th: “We just saved a ton of fuel to finish 10th. 110 rounds with one tank of fuel. We pushed it to the max and got another top 10. Proud of the work everyone puts into this race car.
AJ Allmendinger — Finished 11th: “A long and tough day. I felt like as the race went on we improved the race car. We didn’t manage to get a good track position before the end. Unfortunately, that strategy didn’t work. We managed to avoid all the crashes, get back on track and make the most of our day. Overall, there’s something fun to learn. Good finish for both cars. Good day for the race team.”
Denny Hamlin — Finished 12th: “We went out on a caution. (Crew chief Chris Gabehart) was watching the fuel pressure. I let him know what the fuel pressure was. We were in good shape, we were just out of gas and we went out on a caution. It was the right call. I was coming down pit lane out of gas. I’m surprised we lasted that long on the green and white checkers, honestly. It’s a shame to be 15 seconds off the win at the end, then 10 seconds off the win, then finish 12th. That’s part of the game.”
Hamlin: Multiple OT restarts are ‘only part of the problem’
Denny Hamlin battled his fuel until the very end, but ultimately ran out of fuel during the final caution, and he unpacks the chaotic end to the NASCAR Cup Series race at Nashville Superspeedway.
Chase Briscoe — Finished 21st: “I was kind of the worst case scenario for the last 70 rounds or so, from a strategic standpoint as to how it played out. We had to come back to 30th place because of the way the strategy went and the cautions came down and we were able to come back to around 15th place. There, in the end, you don’t really expect to have three or four green-white pawns, so we ran out of gas taking the white flag. It definitely stinks every time you’re in contention there. I thought in the second to last I had a good chance to potentially win the race and we finished 21st or something like that. It’s frustrating but that’s part of the problem.
Josh Berry — Finished 26th: “Today was a difficult day. We started very tight and couldn’t find the balance, but my team worked hard to get me the car I needed and we finally found it after the rain stop. We picked up a bunch of spots and had a much more competitive No. 4 Dark Horse Ford Mustang. It was chaos in the end. We tried to deal with all these reboots and ended up getting caught up. It’s a shame we didn’t finish well this week in Nashville, my home race, but we learned a lot. »
Kyle Busch — Finished 27th: “I am proud of all members of the zone team and RCR for their efforts today. We struggled early on, but our guys continued to make changes to our zone Camaro throughout the race. Randall Burnett made some great choices to put us in position to finish top five. Those cautions at the end of the race and in overtime really worked against us because we were close to fuel level. On that final restart, we were fourth when the #5 (Kyle Larson) ran out of gas right in front of me and I had nowhere to go. It’s frustrating, for sure, but we’ll bounce back next week in Chicago.
Bottlenecks on Cup field after Larson runs out of gas
Kyle Larson runs out of gas as he approaches the green flag on the third overtime restart at Nashville Superspeedway, with Kyle Busch taking the brunt of the damage.
Austin Dillon — Finished 32nd: “Our luck is incredible. We started today with a fast #3 Chevrolet BREZTRI AEROSPHERE® at Nashville Superspeedway. Even though our handling started to deteriorate around the middle of the race, crew chief Justin Alexander and the entire RCR team worked hard to improve the balance of our Chevrolet and by the end of the race we were felt pretty good. We were 11th when the caution flag came out in Stage 3 and we decided to pit for the right side tires, knowing it would be a fuel shortage if we stayed out. A car flipped right in front of us on the restart and we had nowhere to go. This ended our evening and ruined any chance of a top 10 finish. It’s not the finish we deserved or hoped for, but I’m proud of this team for bringing a strong Chevrolet to the track. We will be heading to the Chicago Street Race next week and hope to have better luck.
Michael McDowell — 35th place: “I just came out of Turn 4 and thought maybe something broke in the driveshaft or something, but it was actually in the transaxle. Something broke and put a hole in the side of the case. This is not what we wanted. We were saving a pretty decent day, so that was unfortunate.
Christopher Bell — Finished 36th: “I found myself in a pretty tricky situation at the first corner. I got stuck there and lost my composure to do something, found myself in a sticky situation and spun. »
Bell’s Nashville dominance ends after spin
Christopher Bell swept the stages at Nashville Superspeedway, but a spin in the third stage while driving in traffic sent the No. 20 into the outside wall and ended his chances of winning back-to-back Cup Series races.
Riley Herbst — Finished 37th: “I just felt like (Corey LaJoie) kind of outplayed me, but I had fun. It was a fun day. It was cool. I learned a lot.”