Here’s what Cup drivers said after a chaotic playoff race at Talladega
Ryan Blaney, winner – “I know a lot of guys had their problems today. But we had our problem last week (at Dover), a bad problem. We have kind of been saying all week, we’ve been wanting to win races all year. Why have any different mindset? This was a huge, huge race for us. I’m pumped up
Ryan Newman, finished second – “I told Aric (Almirola), I said they spent $50 million redeveloping this place. I should have threw in 50 bucks for them to move the start/finish line, repainted it or something. It was a great run for our Wyndham Rewards Ford. Everybody at Roush‑Yates, Roush Family Racing. All the team effort that went into it was good.
“I mean, we just came up that little bit short. I don’t know what else to say. I could have pinched him some more. I could have probably took the aero. You can go back and bench race that three weeks from now. It was a good race until the end.
“I saw the guys spinning in the back. I was hoping for a yellow, but there wasn’t.”
Denny Hamlin, finished third – “(Our agenda) changed with every caution. It changed with every car that fell out. I mean, just a game of chess all day. Sure, we could have got up there and raced, got in the middle, but we would have been in all those wrecks. Didn’t make sense to me. I knew the statistics, the odds, the chances. I looked at how many cars were on the lead lap if we were to crash at that point in the race. It just wasn’t worth the risk. There wasn’t enough to gain with cars still crashing. We waited till the bulk of them got out, then went up there and tried to win. We almost did.”
Aric Almirola, finished fourth – “Obviously, when you get that close to the end and you feel like you’re in position you want to win. Man, it’s hard. It’s hard to make the right move and do the right thing at the right time. It’s so situational. There’s maybe a couple of things, maybe one thing I could have tried to get up in front of (Ryan Newman), but he was coming so fast. There was no way I was gonna block that run. He was just gonna get to my outside and then I was gonna be stuck in the middle three-wide. All in all, it was a good day. We needed a good run.
Michael McDowell, finished fifth – “You’re always looking for anything to build momentum. Results always do that and that’s always part of it. Talladega and Daytona in particular are unique race tracks and a unique style of racing. I don’t know how much it helps you going into Kansas, but it’s always good to get a top five and to have a strong day and be in position to push a Ford to Victory Lane. That’s good, too.”
Austin Dillon, finished sixth – “It pushed really well and to get up through there at times, it just didn’t seem to be able to maintain the lead. But I’m glad we were able to get a good finish. Sixth place, we needed that. The No. 17 (Ricky Stenhouse Jr.), he had a heck of a run down the backstretch. If he could have picked me up, it would have been nice. We did everything we could for what we had, and the race was very close.”
Corey LaJoie, finished seventh – “We call that stacking pennies. You take a 33rd-place car and finish seventh with it, so we’ll take it and run.”
Chase Elliott, finished eighth – “We had our ups and downs for sure today. Got caught up in that crash but my guys did a nice job of putting it back together as best we could. Just head out West to Kansas now and try to get a win out there. That’s about all we can do now.”
Kyle Busch, finished 19th – “Everybody starts getting more aggressive towards the end and some guys just started pushing and I got pushed. I don’t know if (Kurt Busch) was getting pushed from behind him or what, but just got turned sideways the wrong way on the straightaway and that was it.”
Clint Bowyer, finished 23rd – “I brushed the wall. I got into (Daniel Hemric) and was just pushing like I was all day long. I don’t know. He ran up too high and when you push you’ve got to kind of be to the outside and run me into the wall. I was afraid it was gonna go flat, so I bailed out of there and, sure enough, it went flat. And then I just got stuck down there. I couldn’t get those guys to cooperate. They stared at me for a lap. I was like, ‘Boys, we’ve got to figure this out. We’ve got to push this thing off.’ I don’t know that they knew I was stuck. I shut it off and was trying to scream, but it is what it is.”
Brad Keselowski, finished 25th – “I got wrecked, but I haven’t see the replay. We were about to take the lead. I was pushing Brendan Gaughan and was really excited about how it was looking there for a minute and it just didn’t work out.”
Martin Truex Jr., Finished 26th – “Obviously we tried to find a safe place there and chill out and ride. That’s kind of what our plan was and we couldn’t even do that. Wrong place, wrong time, which seems like about every time I come here. I feel like I should just race as hard as I can race because I’m probably going to get wrecked anyway.”
Brendan Gaughan, finished 27th – “It was okay, it was just one easy, quick flip and we put it down. The only thing you worry about then is somebody hitting you. That is what you don’t want and that is where the fear comes in. Other than that, I am fine and like I said, some people would argue that I have anything up there that’s going to hurt. Thank you to Chevrolet and thank you to the Beard family, love you guys, and yes, I will see you at the Daytona 500. Mom, sorry.”
Kurt Busch, finished 28th – “I was just trying to make the middle lane work and all hell broke loose. I was having a lot of fun out there. Just trying to hold it steady and gain some points. I don’t even know who is left. It was pretty wild. These cars are so unstable in those big packs pushing hard. It just takes the smallest little mistake.”
Daniel Suarez, finished 29th – “I don’t really know what to say. I don’t know what we could have done different. We were just racing hard and then went straight to the back. We were coming back to the front and then the whole mess started in front of me and I turned the wheel a little bit too hard to try to avoid the wreck and I ended up spinning out myself. It was either spinning out myself or wrecking, so nothing really I could have done there.”
Matt DiBendetto, finished 30th – “I saw a car go up in the air and over. It’s just crazy. I don’t know. The car was fast, pushed great obviously. … I wanted to get this car to victory lane so bad for Toyota and LFR (Leavine Family Racing). It just stinks being that close. Man, that’s insane. I was pushing Kurt (Busch) earlier before that all happened and was just focused on pushing ahead of me because my car did it so well locking on the guys in front of me. I don’t know. Seems like a dang routine. We run a superspeedway race and then I meet you guys here for an interview after the care center. These races are crazy.”
David Ragan, finished 32nd – “Everybody just got to pushing and shoving and that’s just a product of speedway racing. These guys race extremely hard. The cars are really safe. I don’t really think anyone is gonna get hurt, so that probably makes everyone drive a little bit more crazy than they should and when you’re pushing and shoving at 200 miles an hour eventually you’re gonna wreck people. I think most of the big wrecks today were because of that and that’s just the way it is, so you get out there and you tear all of these race cars up. I hate it for the car owners, but the fans saw a lot of great racing today. Our Envision USA Ford Mustang was fast. It was fun, but it just didn’t last to the end.”
William Byron, finished 33rd – “Obviously, our noses are pointed and it just jacked me right up and turned me around. I have to look at it. Yeah, it just turned me to the inside first. I don’t know what to do different there to get the push better. Just unfortunate for us. We had a really good run going. I felt like we were going to at least finish pretty solid. Our car was good, just trying to bide our time. Just unfortunate, for sure.”
Erik Jones, finished 34th – “It looks like the 1 (Kurt Busch) turned the 24 (William Byron) and kind of caused that wreck, so it’s unfortunate. We had a really fast car today. It’s one of the best superspeedway cars we’ve brought as far as single car and pack speed. It’s disappointing. The DeWalt Camry was definitely a contender, I thought, for a win today. We battled back from a lap down and got right back to the front. It’s unfortunate. We’ve just been on a bad streak and we haven’t been able to shake it. Hopefully next week at Kansas – it’s been a good track to us – we can get things back going again.”
Alex Bowman, finished 37th – “My guess is that I threw a block I shouldn’t have thrown a block. I got shoved way out there. I knew the No. 22 (Joey Logano) was coming and I just tried to move down just a little bit. As soon as he touched me, it just turned it sideways. They just had a bigger run than I realized. I should have let them go and shouldn’t have thrown a block. I apologize to all the cars that got torn up, that’s on me. Talladega happens. I hate it for all of our sponsors.”
Jimmie Johnson, finished 38th – “I was just drafting and looking through the window like we do on the back straightaway and I noticed out of the left side of the windshield that the 88 was down there sideways by himself. So, something happened up there that got him pitched out of the line and unfortunately just slid right back up in front of myself and Chase (Elliott). I hope I did not knock Chase into the 88, and I feel like fortunately I may have turned him away from it and down the track. Hopefully he can still get some points here. It’s just one of those plate racing incidents and I hate it for Alex but a few people made it through from the Hendrick side of things in having a couple cars still in the race
Kyle Larson, finished 39th – “I just saw a little bit of smoke. I was in the top lane just hoping to get through it and it all happened quick. I saw the No. 88 (Alex Bowman)’s door numbers and I got into it. Yeah, that was a huge hit on my part. Thankfully, I’m OK and we’ll move onto next week and try to get a run at Kansas.”
