Here is what drivers had to say after Sunday’s Cup Series race at Road America in Elkhart Lake, Wisc.:
Tyler Reddick — Winner: “Well, I definitely knew he (Chase Elliott) was fast, but we could stay with him on the long run. That told me if we cycled through that last pit sequence, we’d be close or get around him, and we’d have a great shot. Didn’t quite get around him. We were within reach. Thankfully, we just waited for the right opportunity and was able to take advantage of it in Turn 6. I thought he was going to run me back down. I started to make some mistakes and started to take care of the brakes; apparently I didn’t need to. Yeah, very good shape there. What a day.”
Chase Elliott — Finished 2nd: “First off, congrats to him (Reddick). I know he’s been super close to that first win, and I’ve been down that road and it can be a rocky one. I’m happy for those guys. They deserve it. I didn’t do a very good job there. I just let him stay close enough to pressure me there while we had decent tires and never could get enough of a gap. Made a couple mistakes. I was gaining a gap there a couple times and made a couple mistakes and let him get back close enough to get me out of sync. After that, just started struggling.”
Kyle Larson — Finished 3rd: “Tyler and Chase were really good throughout the duration of a run. I seemed to be okay early and then would kind of just slowly fade away from them. You know, I don’t really know. I felt honestly pretty good, but they must have just had better grip. They were really good road racers. Honestly probably a little bit better than I am. Yeah, it was a good clean race for us, happy to get a top 3, and yeah, it was successful for my standards.”
Ross Chastain — Finished 4th: “Trackhouse still had two in the top five. Daniel (Suarez) and I were just talking, and there were little bits and pieces we were off today and we still had top-five speed. Absolutely nothing to be ashamed about. We were just lacking mainly rear grip on throttle and in the rights (turns) especially. Got really slick there at the end, and those guys didn’t slow down in the end as much as we did. A fourth-place car was where we ran most of the day.”
Daniel Suarez — Finished 5th: “For the car that we had, I thought that we maximized everything that we got. Proud of my team and my pit crew today; everyone did a great job. I felt like we had a top-seven car and we finished in the top five, so I felt like we did a good job with that. With that being said, it’s not a win. We have to continue to work and continue to get better.”
Chris Buescher — Finished 6th: “I am proud of the effort of everybody through this week. We had a lot of speed off the truck again. We are just looking for a little bit more. It is a good thing to be running up front and be that close and try to find a squeak more of speed. It is tight up here. That is a good thing. I am proud of everybody. We are going to stay after it and we will be ready for the next one.”
Austin Cindric — Finished 7th: “I still love this race track. I wish we would have been a little bit better. It felt like we had a really solid day and were able to make our way through the field after staying out for stage points. I wish we could have gotten that stage win. I feel like I was probably a mistake away by myself in that first stage to get that win, so that one is on me. Otherwise, it was a really solid weekend by the team. I am happy with three top 10s in a row on three different styles of race tracks. I am proud of that. We will keep moving forward and figure out what we need to have race-winning speed in these places, but we were really solid and some days that is all you can ask for.”
Michael McDowell — Finished 8th: “It was a solid effort but not what we hoped for. We seemed to lose the rear tires a bit too much as the run went on and as we tried to dial rear grip into it we just lost a little bit of turn and then it kind of compounded. We didn’t quite have the speed we needed to run up in the top five and challenge and kind of slid back a little bit. All in all it was a solid day and we executed well. It is nice to be disappointed with an eighth-place finish, but our expectations have gone up and we want to challenge for wins. We just needed a bit more.”
Ryan Blaney — Finished 11th: “I think we didn’t start off very good. I thought it would be a long day, and we just kept tightening our car up and got better and better. I was pretty happy with our speed at the end of the race. It was nice to win a stage and come from the back and end up how we did. It was something to be proud of.”
Chase Briscoe — Finished 14th: “We really needed some more playoff points and those extra stage points as the regular season winds down, so staying out for the stage win helped with that. But once we were fighting back in traffic things really changed. It was super hard to pass, and we started to struggle. It was more difficult than I thought it would be to overcome that, but I’m proud of the guys for sticking with it and trying to get as much out of it as we could. I think we’ve got a really good setup for the next few road courses.”
Joey Logano — Finished 27th: “It was a tough day for the Shell-Pennzoil Mustang. We collected a couple stage points but fought some braking issues late. We’ll put it behind us and move on to Atlanta next week.”
