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What drivers said after Auto Club 400

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Kyle Larson and Kevin Harvick bumped during Lap 37, which took Harvick out of the race, while Larson ended up finishing second.

MARTIN TRUEX JR. — WINNER: “Honestly, it just feels good to win. I don’t really care. I don’t really worry about who’s winning, who else is fast. Obviously (Kevin Harvick) has been quick. They’v got a great team. Kevin is an awesome driver. They had it going on the last couple weeks. As we seen today, we can put together a run like that as well. I think most of all it feels good we’re able to find that speed we’ve been looking for the last couple weeks. Like I said, we’ve been close, but not quite close enough. We knew we were off a bit, so it wasn’t a surprise that we weren’t winning. Today I felt really good about what we had. It was really fast. It’s just kind of reassurance that what we’re doing is working. We have a lot of things we have to look forward to this year. That’s because of the hard work of the guys, just everybody in our program, Toyota, TRD, all the guys in Denver, JGR chassis, all we do together with them. It’s been an unbelievable couple of seasons. Hopefully, we can keep it rolling.”

KYLE LARSON — Finished 2nd: “We were racing really hard, and I was better than (Kevin Harvick) in three and four, and he was better than me in one and two. I would side draft him down the frontstretch, and he would side draft me down the backstretch, and I don’t know if he was just coming down to side draft me or what, but we made contact, and it spun his car to the right. So, you never want to make contact with anybody, but all in all, it was a good day for our DC Solar Chevrolet team. We had a lot of weird issues like vibrations and stuff that made us have to restart in the back, and we would have to go back forward. It always seemed like we would get to third or fourth and kind of stall out there. But it was still a very good day. (Martin Truex Jr.) was really good, and I think (Kevin Harvick) was probably the best car again although he didn’t get to race a whole lot. We are right there, and we just have to continue to work hard.”

KYLE BUSCH — Finished 3rd: “Just thought we were closer than that but obviously not. We were right on top of the 78 (Martin Truex Jr.) yesterday. The first run I thought we were really good and showed some strength, but from there on out showed no strength.”

BRAD KESELOWSKI — Finished 4th: “We had exceptional speed today with the Wurth Ford Fusion on the short runs, but not very much for them there on the long runs, that’s for sure. I was hoping to get a late-race caution, and I could make it exciting for the fans that are here, but it didn’t pan out that way. I still think the 4 car (Kevin Harvick) is probably the best car in the field right now. Things didn’t come together for him today. There will probably be a race in the future where he’s not the fastest, and it does come together. That’s how things work.”

JOEY LOGANO — Finished 5th: “The 78 had a great car. I was in front of him for about five laps and I was like, ‘Hey,’ but it was short-lived. Overall, it was a good weekend. We got a top-five here, and a win yesterday is great. I would have liked to sweep the races here at Auto Club, and we’re just trying to get this Auto Club Fusion to Victory Lane at Auto Club Speedway. I’ve been so close for quite some time now, and it’s been a great race track for us and a lot of fun to race here, I just need more speed to be able to keep up there. We made one change that the car didn’t like right before the last stage, and we lost some track position there, and by the time we were able to start catching back up it was too late. We probably could have finished fourth, maybe third at the end if we didn’t have that bad run, but overall that’s where we’re at.”

DENNY HAMLIN — Finished 6th: “We just had a mistake on our pit stop. I flew through my box again. Once I got that remedied, it looked like were somewhere around a fourth or fifth-place car. Even a third place at times. In the long-run we were exceptional but we were just too slow on the short run to keep up. Those guys would pull 7 seconds on us, and we’d maintain after that and gain a little.”

ERIK JONES — Finished 7th: “It was a really consistent day. We fought the handling here on the SiriusXM Camry. We couldn’t quite get it to turn the center and stay with the drive-off all day. Struggled a little bit with that in practice. A good day overall. We had about a seventh-place car, and we finished there. So we did a good job of running where we supposed to and not making any mistakes all day. We have to keep doing that. We need to be a little bit faster, and I think we’ll get there. It’s going to take a little bit of time. We’re working hard but a good finish.”

JIMMIE JOHNSON — Finished 9th: “Each week, we have been getting a little bit better. We are definitely not happy with where we are right now, but we are seeing the improvements. We have been seeing it internally. We are making the cars drive better and better, and we are getting more competitive.”

AUSTIN DILLON — Finished 10th: “It was a pretty solid day. We struggled, truthfully. I thought we were way closer in practice, and it just didn’t work out. We took off. We were plowing. We freed up way too much. Our balance was decent at the end, we just weren’t far enough up front to really do anything. I think we were a top-five car at the end. We just waited too late to get there.”

CLINT BOWYER — Finished 11th: “We got really lucky to finish this race today. That tire was coming apart, and I didn’t think we had any chance of making it to the checkered flag, but it did. We wanted more than 11th, and at times today we were really good. We got some stage points, but we have some work to do. We’ll be ready for Martinsville.”

RYAN NEWMAN — Finished 21st: “We made a major overhaul to our Chevrolet Accessories Camaro ZL1 last night. Our car fired off fast but wasn’t as fast as we needed it to be on the long run like our teammate’s car. Unfortunately, from the beginning, our handling was way off. Our car was so tight in the corners and loose off. We’re scratching our heads right now figuring out what went wrong. It wasn’t for a lack of trying on our part. We threw everything at it, had one run in the top 10 but could never get the handling in our favor to stay up with the lead pack.”

TY DILLON — Finished 27th: “This was a real test of our team and how much fight we have in us because Auto Club Speedway was not kind to our Twisted Tea Camaro ZL1 today. It’s such a rough and old surface that it wears out your tires and can make car control incredibly difficult. Like a lot of other cars this weekend, I tagged the wall early in Stage 1 and got some pretty heavy right-side damage. We adjusted around that as best we could, but then we had to deal with a broken track bar at the end of Stage 2. It was certainly not the day we wanted to have, but I’m proud of my guys for battling back and not giving up. It’s easy to get down, but our team kept going. Even though it’s disappointing, we will not let this get to us. We will turn our focus to preparing for Martinsville and be ready for them next weekend.”

KEVIN HARVICK — Finished 35th: “I went down to side draft, and he was coming up, and we touched, and it just knocked the thing to the right and spun out. I don’t know that it’s his fault. I think that’s my fault for coming down the race track right there and trying to side draft and then as we touch it just came back up the race track. I was just trying to get a little too much right there. I knew the stage was coming in. I’ve just got to thank all of my guys. They did a great job on our Busch Beer Ford, and it was just my fault back there.”

TREVOR BAYNE – Finished 37th: “It’s not something where you would normally keep it on the outside of him (Ryan Newman). He was a little faster than us, but (the leader Martin Truex Jr.) was coming. I saw (Paul Menard) was having issues, so you have to stay in that lucky dog spot or the free pass, so I stayed on the outside of (Newman), and he just kept coming up and squeezed us into the fence. I think he thought he would clear us, and I was still just there. It’s unfortunate. It wasn’t really that much contact and I didn’t smell that bad of smoke through turn one and two, but then coming down the back I thought we better just hit pit road because we had a lot more to lose than to gain by staying on the race track. I turned to come down pit road and as soon as I turned off the wall the right-front blew at 200-whatever we’re doing here and the problem with here is you see the wall coming forever, so that’s not a fun ride when you’re on the brakes, and it isn’t slowing down, and it’s not turning. You know you’re going to hit hard, and I feel like I should be hurting right now as hard as that was, so that’s a testament to what NASCAR has done with safety because I feel like I should be looking at you funny right now, and I feel great. That was a hard hit.”

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