Kyle Larson — winner: “This is unbelievable. This whole day was up and down, from the B Main (the Monster Energy Open) we were in to getting a little bit of damage and repaired on the car. … (Kevin) Harvick gave me a heck of a push to get to the lead from the third row, and then to get by the 18 (Kyle Busch) on the final restart,” Larson told FS1. “Man, this is amazing. I feel like every time I’ve been in the All-Star Race, I’ve been close to winning. It’s neat to close it out. … There’s a lot of people from the shop here today, so we get to do some celebrating and I’m excited about that. … This year has been different for me. I’ve never worked out before, and I’ve been in the gym a little bit more this year with Josh Wise and just working out with him, and being around him puts a lot more confidence and ease into me. I feel like I’m just more calm. I wasn’t nervous at all that last restart, and I think partly of that is just from feeling like I am prepared. And also losing close races.
“I just ‑‑ I feel like I’ve done a good job of not getting stressed out, even with me losing the Chili Bowl. I felt like I was really calm until the last two laps and I gave the race away. Tonight I wasn’t going to let that happen. With those losses that I’ve had, you grow from each and every one of them. Hopefully we can continue this, and I feel like ‑‑ everybody becomes a better driver the older they get, but I feel like I’ve put more work and effort into it this year. (How much is your cut of the $1 million dollars prize?) I don’t know. I was joking with (son) Owen today about what would you want me to buy you if you won a million dollars, and I don’t think he understands what a million dollars is. He didn’t really have an answer for me. So I don’t have any plans. I think, too, a million dollars is cool, but just winning is more cool than a million bucks to me. I think maybe we’re just ‑‑ us drivers, NASCAR drivers are in a good place in our life, it pays well. So whatever. But just winning a big race, a prestigious event means more to me than the money. I’m all about trophies and big wins. … You know, it’s been such a rocky start and we haven’t gotten any momentum at all up until the last couple weeks a little bit, and then today I hope kind of helps it.
“This is a great time of year for me to get a win. Winning not only is important for me in NASCAR because it’s what I make my living in, it’s what I race for points and for a championship in, but this is the time of year when I start getting to race a bunch. I’m going to be in a race car, I think, every day for the next probably almost seven or eight days, so this is a good time of year for me to get some momentum and get into my sprint car season, my midget season as well as the NASCAR stuff on the weekend. Hopefully this will turn it into where I can get some double digit wins this season. … (On a scale of 1 to 10, how was that push from Harvick?) Am I supposed to answer with emojis? It was fire.”
Kevin Harvick – finished 2nd: “(How would you describe tonight?) Letdown. That’s how you take the fastest car and don’t win the race with it. You spot them the whole field and just an incredible Busch Beer Ford. Rodney and all these guys on the team just did a great job and it was unfortunate the way pit road went tonight because it wasn’t even close for anybody having a good car like we had tonight. It was a great night for performance, just a bad night on pit road. (Is second a good finish or does it suck?) It’s terrible. I mean, we shot both of our feet off with the absolute dominant car. The guys did a great job preparing the race car and we just weren’t ready to make a pit stop on pit road tonight. (Do changes need to be made?) No, they just need to be ready to race. They’ve done it all year. You can’t just show up and have it be a disaster. I mean, they’ve been great all year and tonight wasn’t great, that’s for sure. We spotted them the whole field. We started tail back with 15 laps to go. (Did you feel you had a chance to catch Larson?) Once they get single-file as soon as they drive in your lane they pushed up the groove, so you’ve got to go where they aren’t and he was fast enough to run the bottom and that’s where I needed to run to really make time. Everybody was wide-open, so once the restart thinned out everybody just kind of goes where they go.”
Kyle Busch – finished 3rd: “(Are the aero problems you referenced something you fought throughout the race?)All year long. This M&M’s Camry was fast, but just not fast enough by itself on restarts. Couldn’t hold off the guys behind us and fought aero problems after that. (How strong was your car in the race?) We had a really fast M&M’s Camry. Probably was the only guy to pass for the lead after a given set of laps. On restarts, we couldn’t go anywhere, we just weren’t fast enough, but we had long run speed. That’s all there is to it.”
Joey Logano – finished 4th: “All-Star racing, that’s what it’s all about. It was intense and the way these cautions fall and the strategy, we were there in the lead and then what do you do? You can stay out and that’s what I thought was our best shot to keep the clean air. If we got passed I knew we were gonna be in big trouble and we weren’t able to maintain the lead there. They did a better job up top pushing and pushed by me on the bottom and I lost the clean air and everyone with tires just drove by me. We had a caution there with 11 to go and pitted and went back to last, but got back to fourth. It’s frustrating. Everyone wants to win the All-Star Race. It’s fun. It’s for a million dollars. There’s a lot of prestige about it to say you’ve done it. We’ve done it before, but you always want to do it again. We’ve got the Coca-Cola 600 next week and I’d say that’s bigger than this one, so let’s make it happen there. (On the decision to pit out of fifth place?) That was the only play at that point. Our play to stay out was kind of the one that kind of got us in that position, but I feel like we had to. Our shot to win was from the front row and as the leader I was hoping I could clear those guys and be able to keep that clean air. If I kept the clean air, the tires weren’t gonna be that bad. I was gonna be all right, but as soon as I got passed on that restart when the 18 did a good job pushing the 9 I lost the clean air and I was in trouble. Once we lost that and the caution came out I was like. Well, we might as well put tires on it this time and give it a shot.’ We went back to 17th and got back to fourth in 10 laps or so. If we had one caution. A caution would have made a difference because we were in the best position tire-wise and we were in fourth-place, so if we get a caution we would have been in a really good spot to be able to try to take that million dollars from them, but it just wasn’t our night.”
Bubba Wallace – finished 5th: “I had it wide open on that last restart and when those guys pulled away, I knew we were done. It’s just a different class, a different animal when you get up there. I had tons of fun tonight. I honestly haven’t had this much fun in a long time. It’s been a struggle, but it was a big night for us. When you don’t have anything on the line, I guess it means something different. (What does the day you had tell you?) The first thing my mom said to me after the Open was ‘You know who that was? That was God. He’s not giving up on you yet’. I’ve realized that. As many dark moments that I’ve had and telling myself to give up, it’s been really tough. It’s been tough to keep coming in and keep going. Tonight just shows that I’ll be back next week.”
Aric Almirola – finished 6th: “You have to be super-aggressive. You can’t really pass after it gets strung out, so you’ve got two or three laps to be as aggressive you possibly can be and if you check out of the throttle for just the slightest little bit, they go by you three and four-wide. It’s crazy. It’s all about momentum. It’s all about the right lane on the restarts. Everything is very situational. If the guy in front of you wiggles and he checks up and you check up to keep from running over him, you lose four, five, six spots in one straightaway. It’s aggravating, but that’s kind of the way it is when you don’t have a lot of horsepower and the cars are so draggy. It’s all about momentum. (What do you make about this race?) It doesn’t matter. If you don’t win the million dollars, everybody else leaves mad.”
Austin Dillon – finished 7th: “Restarts were good and we could make a lot of ground up on the top if I got in the right line. I don’t know, I got turned by the 18, he said he was dragging, but I have to look at the replay. We had a pretty good run going there and when he turned us, it just killed our left front fender. Then I got in the (Denny) Hamlin wreck too and that further killed our left front. I thought I had a good restart there at the end but the left front just wouldn’t turn anymore from all the damage.”
Alex Bowman – finished 8th: “Our car was really obviously good in the Open. We just took off really, really tight. Obviously, we had that left side damage from the Open and that probably got us really tight. Something got us tight to start the All-Star and we got it better until I got driven into the fence and pretty much knocked all four corners off of it. So, we just tried to play catch up from there. Eighth could have been a whole lot worse and we will move on to the 600.”
William Byron – finished 9th“We had a good car. Starting in the back, we got up to 4th, then 3rd coming to the final stop. We took four tires and I think that was the right move, we just got in the wrong lane on the restart. We restarted on the bottom twice. It’s not fun to have the restarts that go that way, but overall there was a lot of progress and we had a good night. (Do you think NASCAR will use this package in the future?) Yeah, I honestly don’t feel like it was any different. I think it was just the circumstance of how many restarts there were and how intense this race is. I think the cars have been racy all year and I feel like a little racier before tonight, but it’s hard to tell, honestly. We were able to pass cars, which was good.”
Martin Truex Jr. – finished 10th: “It wasn’t good for us. We had a really strong Camry and got to the front early. We lost track position and then go it back, lost it, got it back, lost it and got wrecked. It’s the All-Star race. If you’re not the first couple of guys, you’re in a bad spot. No fun.”
Brad Keselowski — finished 11th: “I was crushing the splitter there towards the end of the race and couldn’t hit a lick on that restart when we fell back. We pitted and put those packers in the front shocks and the Discount Tire Ford really took off. It was a night and day difference. Unfortunately we didn’t the finish we wanted to tonight.”
Clint Bowyer — finished 12th: “I don’t know what the hell his (Ryan Newman‘s) beef was. I thought he was a lap down. Our day was over. We lost track position there, got sideways, crossed up and basically buying time there to see if something was gonna happen at the end. They got four-wide off of four. Hell, I thought he was a lap down. I checked up and he ran into my left-rear and that’s the last I saw of him. Then after the race he comes and runs into my back and turns me all around and I pull up next to him and he dumps me into four. Where I come from you get poked in the nose for that, and that’s what he got.”
Ryan Newman – finished 13th: “We struggled all night. I’m really embarrassed about our performance with the Acorns Ford. We missed it on the balance, missed it on the package. We had a good restart and got up to fifth, but didn’t have anything after that. Our car was just too tight there at the end and struggled in traffic.”
Ryan Blaney — finished 16th: “We had a pretty good BODYARMOR Ford tonight. Unfortunately issues on pit road and on-track on hurt our night. We will try to clean them up and get ready for the Coca-Cola 600 next week.”
Daniel Hemric — finished 18th: “When you come to Charlotte Motor Speedway for NASCAR All-Star weekend the only thing that matters is winning, and I am disappointed we didn’t get that done tonight. This No. 8 Bass Pro Shops/Caterpillar Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 was fast as can be, and we showed that by winning the pole on Friday night. We led the majority of the opening segment during the All-Star Open and I thought we were in a good spot to transfer into the All-Star Race but the caution came out and the car was just too tight to hang onto the lead on the overtime restart. We came in during the stage break and Luke Lambert and the guys put four tires on our Bass Pro Shops/Caterpillar Chevrolet and made a chassis adjustment that really improved the handling. We were racing hard with the No. 47 when we got together and it ended our day. We had one of the fastest cars in the field and it is really a shame we didn’t get the chance to race in the main event tonight.”
Follow @JerryBonkowski
