There was a lot to be said following the GEICO 500 at Talladega Superspeedway. Here’s what most of the Sprint Cup field thought about its day, which saw Brad Keselowski come away with his fourth win at the track.
BRAD KESELOWSKI — Finished 1st: “The last three or four restarts before (final restart), the high lane had went and as the leader a lot of it is out of your control. You need the cars behind you to push and a couple of them they did and a couple they didn’t. That’s just part of racing and there was nobody at fault with that. We actually lost the lead and got a better run. Jamie McMurray behind me gave me a great push and then Kyle Busch gave me a push that was big to clear the 41 and without those two I couldn’t have made it to the front, so thank you to them. It’s Talladega. This is my fourth win here. I never thought I’d win at Talladega four times and I’m super-pumped. This is awesome.”
KYLE BUSCH — Finished 2nd: “It was some moves that you made that were just lucky and just trying to get through some of the holes that were there and that were forming and guys bumping and banging each other, pushing all around and everything and trying to get the most out of what we had with our Skittles Camry. You know, second’s not bad. I think the quota of three cars on their lids today is a little high, but its racing.”
Austin Dillon — Finished 3rd: “My guys, man. It’s a testament to my guys. They work their butts off. They never panicked today. We’ve panicked a lot this year on certain problems and today was smooth and calm and they handled the situations that they were put through and it was a great race for us.”
JAMIE MCMURRAY — Finished 4th: “I was really fortunate. I was only caught-up in one of the wrecks. And I don’t know exactly what happened in the other two. Honestly, I don’t even know what happened in mine. I was so lucky that I got hit in the back and I spun to the bottom, but it didn’t tear-up the front-end. It didn’t tear the splitter up. And I don’t know that my car was faster afterwards, but it didn’t seem to hurt it any.”
Chase Elliott — Finished 5th: “You can’t have a good day unless you finish. Just trying to focus in on that. Obviously it got a little wild. For us, we just tried to keep that in mind and make it to the end.”
Clint Bowyer — Finished 7th: “Man we had a decent shot at it today. We were able to stay out of trouble all day and that’s what you have to do to be there at the end. Proud of the effort and we will take a top 10 today.”
Kurt Busch — Finished 8th: “Just didn’t get the best final restart. It’s like a roulette wheel on restarts and how you get a run and who is there pushing and how the line is going to form and stay together. Just feel bad. My guys deserve to win. They built me a great car, the put me in position to win and I didn’t deliver for them. It was a great day with the Monster Energy colors on board, hoping to get into Victory Lane for them, we just didn’t quite get it done.”
Ryan Blaney — Finished 9th: “It was a good day. We felt like earlier in the race I couldn’t pick a lane that was worth a dang. We kept going backwards. Hopefully this turns around for us. There was one run before we got in that wreck where we got up through there into the top-10. I think we got to fifth actually again and then lost spots on the last pit stop. We got in that wreck too. They did a good job fixing it. It ran fine after that. I didn’t want to see that last caution. I thought we were set up good to go to the end there and I wanted to keep digging. Everyone bailed to the top and I didn’t have a lot of help on the bottom.”
Trevor Bayne — Finished 10th: “We were on the bottom on that last restart and when they all went to the top, I might as well just be driving out of the rearview mirror trying not to get run over. We pushed the 41 to a really good start. I think he might have cleared the 2 and I had help from the 21 but I think the damage on the 21 deterred some help. They all went to the top and we ended up 10th. I thought we had a great race car. I am proud of what my guys brought to the track this weekend but we finished 10th.”
Martin Truex Jr. — Finished 13th: “We ran a good portion of the race in the top 10 and a number of laps in second, but something always seemed to come up to stall our progress. This is Talladega and you have to drive with your head on and put your car in holes that it will fit into. Not much else to say except we’re looking forward to Kansas next week. That was one race we should have won last year.”
Kevin Harvick — Finished 15th: “Landon Cassill trying to cause a wreck for the last 40 laps and he finally got it done there at the end. It was just unfortunate for our Busch Trophy Can Chevrolet. We just got shuffled out there and in a pretty big wreck there at the end. But all-in-all it was an okay day. We led some laps and ran up front; just got shuffled out when the No. 20 and don’t remember who else. We got back there and racing where we didn’t need to be racing and got crashed. We still finished, it is just torn up.”
Ricky Stenhouse Jr. — Finished 16th: “The nose damage that we got in that earlier wreck punctured our radiator which is why we had to keep coming to pit-road to add water late in the race. On that last restart, we were on the high side and we were moving forward. It’s unfortunate but it’s just a product of superspeedway racing.”
Michael McDowell — Finished 21st: “We were in position there to have a top 10 and we just got caught up in a wreck. Not sure exactly what happened, just got hit from behind, ran into the No. 10 and she spun. It was just one of those chain reaction deals. I will have to go back and see. Everyone did good, the Thrivent Financial Chevrolet was up front, got some TV time, was running hard, unfortunately, we didn’t get the finish.”
Jimmie Johnson — Finished 22nd: “It’s Talladega, plate racing. Handling wasn’t a big issue. We could all run in the throttle hard and it really just came down to aggression from behind the wheel from behind the wheel, from everything that I saw it created all the madness.”
Matt Kenseth — Finished 23rd: “We got behind a little bit there and I went to pass the 22 (Joey Logano) and he ran me off the race track and lost four or five spots and then got us back there where we didn’t want to be. I don’t know, somebody must have gotten turned out of the top lane and just collected me. I was just going straight and saw a car come from the right side and cleaned our clock.”
Danica Patrick — Finished 24th: “I mean I’m okay. I got an X-Ray so that was a concern. Just taking a deep breath. I hit my foot pretty hard and hit my arm pretty hard. I have hit the inside wall at a superspeedway I think like four times how, and that was the hardest. You know these races are just….I get the running close and pushing. But the No. 95 was just drilling me every time. There is a high likelihood that he can take himself out. I’m all about bumping, and pushing and being close but when you hit people with a certain amount of momentum, it is a problem. I can’t quite remember exactly what started it. I know I got drilled from behind and turned sideways and hello wall.”
JOEY LOGANO — Finished 25th: “It’s unfortunate. We had a pretty decent car. I wouldn’t say it was the fastest car out there. It took us all day to get towards the front, but we positioned ourselves well at the end there with around 20 to go up there in the front row and in the lead. I was proud of what our Shell/Pennzoil team did. We worked hard all day, but unfortunately didn’t end up as well as we’d like to two days in a row. A couple big hits, so I can’t wait to get out of this place.”
Ryan Newman — Finished 28th: “We did what we needed to do. We raced a strategy we felt comfortable with. We dodged as many accidents as we could. We made the move when it was time to go and got caught up in the big wreck. The Caterpillar Chevrolet raced up into the top 10 and when we were wrecked, the team did the best they could to get us back out so we could finish the race.”
Carl Edwards — Finished 35th: “Definitely sorry to the 88 (Dale Earnhardt Jr.) guys for getting their car involved in that. We had something torn up there, drove down into Turn 1 and I just felt the right front fall down and that was it. You’re kind of just along for the ride.”
Kasey Kahne — Finished 39th: “Guys were being aggressive and it felt like it was late in the race the whole race. That first run was as wide-open as I’ve had it. As I remember it in a while at times of the first run, probably three-quarters of that first run. It was pretty wild how all that went down, but we had a good car. It was going to be a strong race if we just stayed out of trouble.”
DALE EARNHARDT JR. — Finished 40th: “Yeah, I feel good. It was pretty hard. I don’t know. I think Carl (Edwards) hit harder. He had a longer way to go to get the fence than I did. That is why I was riding up there in case anything happened to our car we wouldn’t have far to go before we hit anything. I was in a pretty good spot to withstand something like that.”
