NASCAR Charlotte Roval post-race driver quotes

Joey Logano — Finished 2nd: “We won our league (laughing) because no one was beating that other car — Chase Elliott and Alan (Gustafson, crew chief) and that whole 9 team. They’re light years ahead of us when it comes to the road course, I mean everybody even their teammates. I can’t really put my finger on it. I got a good look of what it was and watched him cruise around not even trying and he would keep on driving away from me. Overall, I’m proud of what our Shell/Pennzoil team did today. We had to come in here and execute.  Obviously, there were plenty of crazy things that could have happened starting in the rain, going to slicks, stage points, trying to get ourselves in position. Obviously, there were times that (Kyle Busch) was in the spot and we were racing (Alex Bowman) with only a couple points between us, so it was close, it was stressful, but I feel a lot better now and will be able to sleep well tonight and then fire away to try and get into that Championship 4.”

Erik Jones — Finished 3rd: “I knew we were there and had tires. We were in a really good spot, but I knew that (Chase Elliott) was really fast and has been pretty tough to beat here the last few years. They’ve got something figured out, they’re really quick here. I was just kind of losing time to him everywhere. He caught me and I couldn’t hold him off more than a couple cars. The Craftsman Camry was good, it was good to get a top three. Probably a little bit better than what we ran, but we’ll definitely take it.”

Kurt Busch — Finished 4th: “It was a great improvement for our road course program. I’m really proud of everybody at Chip Ganassi Racing; looking at issues and working on what we need to do improve. Whether we were locked-in or not, we came here to go for it. I’m really proud of how our race unfolded. We just seemed to cook the rear tires after about 15 laps into a run, but we had really good braking, so I had to use my strength. I was ready for (Martin) Truex to banzai it in there, I was like ha, ha, I got you bro! He (Truex) axle-hopped, hit us and I was able to recover quicker than him. Really good day for our Monster Energy team, just wasn’t as fast as (Chase Elliott). I’m glad he is on to the next round along with Alex Bowman, we got as many Chevy’s as we could pushed through to the round of eight.”

William Byron — Finished 6th: “Yeah today was a tough one. I’m really frustrated with the speeding penalty. I felt like I was to the good and I obviously wasn’t so I’ll have to go back and look at it. Overall, today was a good day though. We led a lot of laps and felt like our car was capable of running up front with (Chase Elliott). I would have liked to see what we could have done there at the end and battled with him. Either way it was a good day for us and we’ll go on to Kansas and try get a win.”

Martin Truex Jr. — Finished 7th: “Had a little bit of a run on them coming to one to go and probably stuffed it in there a little too far. Tried to get out from inside of (Kurt Busch) and hit that water back there and from there it was all over. Little too aggressive there at the end. Overall, just a so-so day for the Bass Pro Toyota. We had decent speed, not winning speed, but had a lot of fun out there, especially in the rain.”

ALEX BOWMAN — Finished 8th: “(Advancing) means a lot to me, but also to my race team. These guys work really hard all year. I feel like sometimes my team at least doesn’t get the respect they deserve. I feel like it kind of like validates all their hard work. Obviously we have a long way to go to try to make the Round of 4 at Phoenix. These guys work so hard, do such a good job, give me such great racecars. I’m really happy for them. I wish I could have been a little better today. We struggled with our race car quite a bit. Still ended up with a solid top 10, had what we needed there for points. (How he was feeling in the car) Didn’t feel too well. My nerves got to me more than I would have liked. I think it’s one of those deals under green you’re fine, but when it’s like caution after caution after caution, sitting there under caution just wasn’t feeling so good.I’m all good now. Definitely was nervous, though.”

Cole Custer — Finished 9th: “We had a lot of ups and downs today. The HaasTooling.com crew stuck with me today and the pit crew did a good job. I think we learned some things today with road courses that we can use in the future, which is a positive.”

Clint Bowyer — Finished 10th: “We had them covered in the rain and we were one of the fastest in the dry, but those cautions at the end of both stages came at the wrong time. Then that wreck killed us because we lost power-steering. The guys gave me a great car today.” (About going to the care center after the race) “I’m good. Was definitely outta gas. Another couple, three laps and I’d have been on the ground after the race crappie floppin’. Self inflicted. I shouldn’t have knocked the power steering out.”

Kevin Harvick — Finished 11th: “It was definitely interesting. Our car was just way off handling-wise. We were just way too tight and had no drive up off the corner, whether it was wet or dry. We struggled with our Mobil 1 Ford and still probably should have finished somewhere seventh or eighth, but didn’t have the car where we needed to and wound up on the wrong side of all the strategies and things, but everybody did a good job and kept battling. It was actually a lot of fun.”

Tyler Reddick — Finished 12th: “Every time I come to a road course, I grow as a driver. We had a great No. 8 Cheddar’s Scratch Kitchen Chevrolet today, and I want to thank my team for working with me all day long. It wasn’t an easy day, but we all kept with it and improved throughout the race. It took a little bit of Stage 1 to re-familiarize myself with the course, so I spent a lot of that stage being careful to not overstep and wreck. After a pit stop and adjustment during the second stage, I was able to rotate a lot better all throughout the track, which helped me gain a lot of traction on the field. We had a couple cautions fall later during the race that helped us with some track position a little bit, overall, it was a really good effort by my No. 8 team today.”

Ryan Preece — Finished 14th: “It was a solid day all around for our Maxwell House Chevrolet. We were really good on the long run, and were able to play the strategy and lead laps for the first time this season. Ultimately, the tires wore out and it affected our handling and we weren’t able to hang on to the lead, but I’m really proud of the work everyone at JTG Daugherty Racing put into our road course cars this season and give me something that we could work on during the race and continue improving all race. We finally have had a really good string of races, and we’re going to keep on building off of that for these final four weeks.”

Aric Almirola — Finished 16th: “It was tough. I struggle here in particular. I’m not the greatest road course racer, but specifically here has always been a challenge for me and I just struggled all day. We really struggled on the rain tires and I spun out over there in that water that was draining across the racetrack in Turn 4, and then we had an issue with a pit gun or something on pit road and got a lap down. We fought hard. It was definitely a fight, but just not the day we needed for sure to move on, but we still got a few races left to go perform at the highest level we can and try to get the most points we can. I’m still really proud of our season and proud of the effort of this team.  We’ve got some racing left to do and hopefully get this Smithfield Ford Mustang in Victory Lane in one of these last few.”

Ricky Stenhouse Jr. — Finished 17th: “Road course racing traditionally has not been my favorite, but we’ve been able to put together a few strong road course runs this season in our Kroger Chevrolet. We had a really special paint scheme this weekend honoring Breast Cancer Awareness month and names of JTG Daugherty Racing family members that have been affected by breast cancer. I’m honored to have our public relations director Jennifer Chapple on the car as she just fought a battle of her own to beat breast cancer. We had a restart where I thought we could really put ourselves in a good position to lead and stay at the front, but had contact that spun us and lost that position. Fortunately, we still had time to get back in the top-20 and still have a strong day for both myself and my teammate.”

Brad Keselowski — Finished 18th: “(The race) started off real strong in the rain and there’s part of me that wishes it would have just stayed raining, believe it or not, but once it got dry I just kept falling off too much on the long run. I’d fire off real good and fall off and couldn’t keep pace, so I’m thankful that’s over. It’s a testament to the four wins we have earlier in the year. It gives us those bonus points and made this a lot easier day than it looked like it was gonna be, and we’ll move on to hopefully four good race weeks for us.”

Austin Dillon — Finished 19th: “We tried our hardest, but nothing fell our way toda. We were looking pretty good at the end of Stage 1. We took tires and got to fifth by the end of the stage, but an unlucky caution happened and that cycled us. We knew we were dead meat at that point because we didn’t have dry tires on, so we pitted at the end of Stage 1 to try and jump some people. That backfired on us because we had to go to the tail end of the line since pit road wasn’t open. We just had a lot of stuff happen to us today. Again, a caution fell late in Stage 2 while we were running 12th. We had no help from cautions. The race just didn’t play our way. I’m actually pretty happy with our performance as far as my road course racing has been. I feel like I’ve improved. I raced hard all day.”

Bubba Wallace — Finished 21st: We survived thank the lord! Apologies to the 47 team. The run before that dumb move, I was mad at myself for not being aggressive enough…welp found my limit.”

Ty Dillon — Finished 23rd: “Well, we got another stage win – our third as a team – which is a huge accomplishment. I’m so very proud of our GEICO team. Today was another fun day and I had a blast behind the wheel. We didn’t finish exactly where we wanted, but we made a bold call there at the end right before that last caution came out to try and make it to pit road before it closed. That ended up costing us some track position, but to finish 23rd with a stage win feels like finishing 13th. It feels fun to win anything. I’m so thankful for everyone at Germain Racing and we will keep chugging along to finish strong.”

Daniel Suarez — Finished 25th: “We came here with pretty good expectations but I guess it just wasn’t meant to be. We started out on a wet track but it ended up drying pretty quickly. Our Coca-Cola Camry was pretty decent – I think better than a 25th-place car – but we ended up struggling with the brakes and that is not a good thing on a road course. It made it pretty tough to race people all day.”

KYLE BUSCH — Finished 30th: “Just trying to get everything we could get. You come into a race like this and you throw a couple Hail Mary’s and they rarely work, especially when you don’t have the car. That (Chase Elliott) car is spectacular here and it was superfast. I followed him for a lot of laps trying to figure it out and he just gets smaller and smaller as he’s driving away. I don’t know, it’s not just this race. It’s a whole season and it’s a culmination of things that led to this and led to our elimination. We knew it coming into this round that this was going to be the hardest round for us to get through. Pretty much impossible and it was. We weren’t able to make up enough or get a win. We’ll just have to fight for a win here the rest of the year.”

Michael McDowell — Finished 32nd: “Well, not the day that we had hoped for with Love’s Travel Stops and Speedco. We had a decent car at times, but then we had something break toward the end of the race and we tried to fix it, but just couldn’t. It’s unfortunate for us because we had two good races: Talladega and then the ROVAL, where we could have scored a lot of points and didn’t. To Love’s Travel Stops and all of our other partners, I’m sorry that we didn’t get you guys a good finish today, but we’ll try to stay positive, keep plugging away, get it figured out and get ready for Kansas.”

John Hunter Nemechek — Finished 36th: “The Roval was not our friend today, unfortunately. Our No. 38 CITGARD Ford Mustang fired off pretty decent, but the rear end just stepped out on me in the first half of the race and I couldn’t save it. We pitted for damage repair and received a penalty that put us two more laps down and we couldn’t really recover from there. Sometimes mistakes just hurt. Hopefully it was still a good show for the fans. It was great that we were able to have them with us in in person at home. We’ll add what we can to our notebook for next time and get ready for Kansas.”