Here’s what the drivers had to say after Sunday night’s Cup race at Richmond Raceway.
Austin Dillon — Winner: “That’s a first, but it feels good when you win. After the season we’ve had, the good Lord above blessed us today. We had a fast No. 3 Bass Pro Shops Chevy and I hated to see that caution. I knew it was going to be wild and when I got to the last turn, I just had to go for it. It was our chance; you don’t get many of them and that’s what our partners, my family and RCR want us to do, to try to win. So I just had to do it.”
Denny Hamlin — Finished 2nd: “It’s obviously mean, but it’s fair in NASCAR. It’s a different league. There’s no penalties for rough driving or anything like that, so it gives Austin (Dillon) the ability to just do whatever he wants. The problem I’m having is I got hooked on the right rear again. I was just doing my thing, and he turned left, and he hooked me on the right rear and blew my damn shoulder out. I don’t know. The record book’s not going to care what happened. He’s going to be credited with a win. He’s just not going to get very far because you have to pay your dues for stuff like that, but it’s worth it because they moved up 20 points, so I understand all that. There’s no ill will. I get it. I just hate that I was a part of it. It would have been nice if I wasn’t one of the two guys that got taken out in the last corner, but I understand. It doesn’t mean I have to agree with it. We’ll talk about it tomorrow.”
Tyler Reddick — Finished 3rd: “Yeah, Joey (Logano) stole the words right from me. That’s exactly what that move is. Unbelievable. I get the first one, I guess, about Joey trying to win the race. I’ve been threatened with suspension for right hooking people and they’ve always taken a pretty hard stance on that. I don’t know. Racing hard for the win is one thing. Just right hooking someone is another. That sounds pretty biased coming from me about my boss, but if I was in his shoes, I’d be pretty mad about it too. They put so much emphasis on winning races, people are going to lose their minds and just do ridiculous things. I’m happy for his team. There’s a lot of great people on his team. That was pretty crazy.”
Bubba Wallace — finished 4th: “We knew we had to work hard here, we were definitely under us and our team did that. We fought hard. We didn’t have the best day on pit road. Not for lack of trying. I credit them for getting better all night. They showed up when it mattered on the last stop – kept us in the race. Just execution. Our Leidos Toyota Camry was way too loose. I tried to bite my tongue from the beginning of practice. It was a handful, and it definitely bit us in the race, but we kept getting better and better – tried to give the best feedback I could. Just execution all night. I credit my team for the effort. Nice to walk away with a top-five finish. We’ve got a long way to go. We just have to keep fighting. I think you can dump someone and have someone else right-rear and it’s OK. It’s funny how that works.”
Carson Hocevar — Finished 8th: “The No. 77 Delaware Life Camaro ZL1 was pretty good. We didn’t qualify great, but we were able to get into the top 15 and in the long run into the top 10. Considering where we were in the spring and where we’ve been at short tracks, this is huge for us. Getting into the top 10 is pretty big and just a really good turnaround from almost high 20s to a single-digit finish here is really big for the Delaware Life/Spire Chevrolet team.”
Daniel Suarez — finished 10th: “That was a fun race! Those optional tires, if NASCAR and the fans didn’t like them, I don’t know what they would like because they were awesome. The strategy played a big part in what everybody did; what we did and everybody’s different agendas. It was fun. I enjoyed it and the No. 99 Choice Privileges Chevy was fast. The guys did a great job with the strategy. Unfortunately, it didn’t work out in the end, but we tried and we finished 10th.”
Ryan Blaney — Finished 11th: “I actually thought it was a good night for us. We had a terrible pit stop and lost seven seconds and that really hurt us. We were able to fight back to get into the top 10 before the final caution and finished 11th. Overall it was a good night. I definitely think it could have been better, but not bad.”
Kyle Busch — Finished 12th: “Overall, we had a respectable night in our Cheddar’s Patriotic Camaro at Richmond Raceway. The way the race played out there at the end, we were able to catch up and make up a few positions as the race went into overtime. Crew chief Randall Burnett and everyone on the Cheddar’s team did a great job tonight with the strategy and improving the car. It was a bit of a struggle at the beginning, but we were much better at the end of the race. Congrats to my teammate Austin Dillon for the win. He was really good all weekend and took advantage of his position to win tonight.”
Josh Berry — Finished 14: “It was good. We’re struggling a little bit more than we thought, but overall we had a good race. We stayed on the lead lap and got a solid finish, so we’ll build on that and go to Michigan.”
Michael McDowell — finished 15th: “I’m proud of everyone on the Love’s RV Stop Ford Dark Horse team. The race before the caution I had to really race 24 and 77 for a top 10. We were too loose at that point. We tried two tires at the end and got a top 15. Travis made a great call early on to go with red tires. We went from a clear to seventh. That changed our night and put us in contention.”
Joey Logano — Finished 19th: “Apparently he’s OK. What do you want me to say? Apparently he can go from five car lengths behind and completely destroy someone and then destroy another one all the way to the finish and that’s what we call racing. … When you get that far ahead, that’s three to four car lengths ahead in third. I even backed off the entry. I thought, ‘I’m just going to wrap the bottom here. I’m good.’ And he’s just driving so hard. Obviously he didn’t make the corner because he hit me and (Hamlin) was going to win the race, so he had no intention of racing. I beat him fair and square on the restart and he just makes a cowardly move. He’s a piece of shit. He sucks. He’s sucked his whole career and now he’s going to make the playoffs. Good for him, I think.”
Noah Gragson — finished 20th: “We just struggled all weekend, we just needed forward drive, but we’re still super proud of our group. We got the car better, we fell behind a little bit all day. We’re super excited about next weekend in Michigan and we’ll keep going.”
Chase Briscoe — Finished 21st: “For what we had here in Richmond, just from a racing standpoint – you know, it’s a little bit difficult to pass – I don’t know what it looked like outside the car, but inside the car it looked like a lot of guys were going forwards and backwards. It definitely added a new face and a new strategy to the race. I’d like to see what we would all look like if we ran on the soft tyre all the time. I thought it was fine.”
Ty Dillon — Finished 26th: “Not exactly the race we wanted tonight, but we did everything we could in a long race with no cautions. I’m really proud of our effort and feel like we executed what we had to do. I get better every time I race with Kaulig Racing. P26, and we’ll move on to the next one.”
Justin Haley — Finished 27th: “Richmond is such a tough track, but our Pinnacle Home Improvement Ford Mustang Dark Horse was good enough to do what it had to do.”
Daniel Hemric — Finished 30th: “Tough night in Richmond. Congratulations to Austin (Dillon) and RCR on the win; it’s huge for Alliance. We definitely need to bounce back, but hopefully what we saw tonight with the No. 3 car will help us on future short tracks.”
Riley Herbst — Finished 33rd: “I’ve always enjoyed racing at Richmond in the Xfinity Series, but the Cup Series is a whole different ball game. It took me a while to really get a feel for how the track changed and what it did to the car. Things happen so fast that it’s hard to come back from a few laps down, but we ran every lap and that’s exactly what I needed to do in my first Cup race here.”
Martin Truex Jr. — Finished 37th: “He hiccupped one time going down the backstretch, and then he started missing. It’s like a valve spring broke or something and then he fell apart, self-destructed real quick. I don’t know. One of those days.”
