Here’s what the drivers had to say after Sunday’s playoff race at Homestead-Miami Speedway:
Tyler Reddick – Winner: “We were in a corner, man. We had no other choice. I know we were running out of tires. Here at Homestead-Miami Speedway, that’s a death sentence. I don’t care. We did what we had to was to win this race. We’re fighting for a championship. I couldn’t believe it. I just knew I had to get right with (Ryan Blaney) on his right side. It would mean everything for Michael Jordan) Fortunately, we can take off a little bit for Martinsville, but we’re excited.”
Ryan Blaney – Second: “Obviously disappointed. Yeah, I had a great chance to win. I didn’t have a very good last lap. Man, I thought I came in hard in three races. (Reddick) just took off. It stuck for him, which is pretty impressive. Yeah, I hate to give one away like that. I mean, we got the lead back after losing on the restart. Yeah, not really the last bit. I appreciate everyone on the 12 team for having a very fast race car I had a great opportunity to go to Phoenix I’m looking forward to it I was up all night which I probably should have done differently That’s just the way it goes overall I’m very proud of the effort. Hopefully we can take them to Martinsville next week. We try to forget things quickly. I’ve tried that more and more as I’ve gotten older, move on to the next thing, good, bad or indifferent , focus on the task. This team is going to do it. Yeah, I can’t tell you how proud I am that they came in and understood what we had to do. It’s just a shame it didn’t work out.”
Denny Hamlin – Third: “I tried to cover all the lanes, but couldn’t get out of the corner as well as I needed to on that short run. Short runs were obviously not my specialty all day. Anyway, controlling the race with two To Go, you have to try to find a way to finish it. I want to be faster in the shorter term. We built a lot of that into the car, things like that Chris (Gabehart) gave me everything I needed to counter to race them. I just couldn’t get it done (Martinsville is) another shot. You’re definitely not out until they throw the checkered flag at Martinsville.
Christopher Bell – Fourth: “There were runs today during the race where I felt really good, but right after the restarts I couldn’t keep up. This is so intense and we knew that with these drivers in the eighth round we would have winners, winners and winners. When you come to Homestead you look at the guys doing well here and expect a winner from the bottom half of the grid, and I think the same will happen in Martinsville. So yeah, I’m happy we were able to maximize our points and to move up (to Championship 4) we still have to fight for the win in Martinsville. I think I’ll leave here with a top five and getting points is really good. You have to win races in the Round of 8, and we haven’t done that yet. I feel confident about where we are in Martinsville. (It) has been a good track for us in the past and I think we can build on that. Overall I’m happy, just disappointed that we weren’t a little bit better in the fight for the win.”
Chase Elliott – Fifth: “I got tighter and tighter as the day went on. I was just trying to sort that out at the front of a run, and in the end I just wasn’t managing it well. When the pace picked up and everyone started pushing, I didn’t really have anything to push anymore. It’s really been a solid few weeks for the No. 9 Chevy team, from a pacing perspective. That’s encouraging as you get further into the playoffs.”
William Byron – Sixth: “We kind of had what we had today. We weren’t good enough, and we just tried to get everything we could. I feel like sixth place is good. If it had gone green there, we would have finished in the top five. I don’t know how that changes the points, but we just have to go to Martinsville Speedway and fight for the win.”
AJ Allmendinger – Eighth: “Overall a very good day. We had to come from behind several times. (Crew chief) Andrew (Dickeson) and the whole No. 16 group did a great job. Pit stops were good, the strategy was good. We had probably needed another little turn to the front to be able to run with the leader. I felt like we had a really good pace today.
Ryan Preece – 10th: “We had a good car and finished in the top 10. That one bad restart on Stage 3 screwed us a bit, but hey, we had a top 10 car and we were able to finish there, and that’s where we should have been. We ended up where we should have ended up, we just had to fight for it.”
Josh Berry – 11th: “Yes, it was fun. I thought we did really well on the restarts. I just didn’t have the long-term speed early in the race, I think, to kind of hang there. But all in all it was a fun day and everyone at Stewart-Haas brought some good cars. So it was a lot of fun racing all of us there and we got two more.
Kyle Larson – 13th: “You make decisions in a split second. Austin (Dillon) did nothing wrong. I was just hoping that when (Ryan Blaney) walked in on him, he’d see me coming, and maybe he’d run a path away from the wall to give me some clean air. He continued to execute his line. I had a little gap and I was trying to close the gap to get in front of number 3 and get to the wall quickly to hopefully stay on the outside of number 12 or build a run to get a shot on him in (turns) one and two. But yeah, it just didn’t work. I went as fast as I could. The No. 5 Chevy team did an excellent job recovering from the flat tire. … Yeah, we’ve been strong at times at Martinsville (Speedway), so we’ll see. It’s not my best track, but I’ve been a lot better there since I joined Hendrick Motorsports. We just have to qualify well and do our best.”
Chase Briscoe – 15th: “This car had reasonable speed. Definitely not good enough to win, to be honest, just not very good in the short term. We were just terrible in the short term. I could never get it to work. It would take us 35 laps to get the car where it needed to be. And in the long run we were really good. We only gave up ten seconds in the short term and could never get them back.”
Daniel Suarez – 16th: “It was a great day for the No. 99 Chevy team. It was a little difficult when you have top-15 speed. There were a few things that didn’t go our way; a slow stop and then the strategy there at the end. We almost finished what we deserved, so we’ll take it and go to Martinsville (Speedway).”
Austin Dillon-25th: “Our No. 3 Chevrolet team fought hard today at Homestead-Miami Speedway. Early in the race, we took 14 positions in the first 20 laps. We had speed in our Chevy even though we lacked forward drive During our first pit stop we were closed in by the car in front of us, and that cost us a lot of positions on the track. We were able to push our way into the top 20, but we fought for a tight balance for the rest of the race drove in dirty air all day, which didn’t help our handling issues. It’s not the day we hoped for, but our Richard Childress Racing team will work on it and come back stronger next year.”
Kaz Grala – 27th: “It was just a tough day for us overall. We have two more races and I feel like we can finish the season strong.”
Daniel Hemric – 29th: “We started the weekend with so much speed and our best qualifying spot of the year. Unfortunately, not being able to run from the top was our biggest challenge. Trent [Owens] made some positive changes that helped add some agility to the No. 31 Cirkul Chevy and got us moving in the right direction toward the end.
Kyle Busch-31st: “I wish we could have finished with a better finish in the Chevrolet at Homestead-Miami Speedway, but not much happened today. The positive thing is that we were ahead for a few laps today. At the beginning of the race we were loose, tight in the middle and loose. Crew chief Randall Burnett and all the guys on the team made a lot of changes during the race, but we never got to a setup that worked. It’s frustrating to race in dirty air, but that’s how it goes some days. This team is determined and we still have two races to go to get a win before the season is over.”
