Shane van Gisbergen — winner: “What an awesome race, Kyle (Larson) and Christopher (Bell) driving really good and got a little rough. But man, the battle was awesome. And we had a fast Chevy. I lost it a little bit at the start of Stage 3 and whatever they did for the rest of the race. Unbelievable. Really enjoyed that and was a long time
waiting, hoping the yellow wasn’t going to come out. I got (Larson) in a little bump at (Turn) 7 by accident, and he just slammed me, and that sort of set it off. But it was fun. I hope he’s not too pissed off. But I hope it was good to watch, too.”
Kyle Larson — second: “I’m happy with a second-place finish for this No. 5 Chevrolet team. Shane van Gisbergen is just so good. It was a fun battle with Christopher (Bell), too. To start the final stage, we were trying to break up his (SVG) rhythm and race, and I thought it was playing out well. He was just so fast. I tried riding. I tried saving my tires, but I just can’t do it as well as he does. But overall, it was a great finish and momentum to head into the Round of Eight.”
Christopher Bell — third: “What made the difference, I don’t know. It felt kind of like the rest of the road courses. We had a hell of a race for second between me and my Camry, (Chris) Buescher and (Kyle) Larson. It is that (Shane van Gisbergen) car was what 30 seconds ahead of us. Congratulations to Shane and that Trackhouse team. They have set the bar, and we are all clearly having a hard time getting up to it.”
Chris Buescher — fourth: “That’s where we ran all day right there, sitting around fourth. I’m proud of this team for bringing up a Ford Mustang that was this good. Today’s race was a big step in the right direction at the Roval. It was a lot more fun to drive this go-around, and I’m sure we want more and have a bit more to go, but it was much better than last week. We’re proud to take a top five.”
Michael McDowell — fifth: “I’m proud of the effort today by this No. 71 Chevrolet team. We executed really well. We had top-five speed, and we sort of stayed there all day long. There wasn’t a lot of excitement for us with just managing our track position. I’m bummed we didn’t have a little bit more speed to contend. When I would push hard, I could hang with (Shane van Gisbergen), (Kyle Larson) and (Christopher Bell) for a little while. But then I would fade, so I sort of had to run my pace to keep the tires underneath me. I’m proud of the top-five effort, but we come to these road courses to try and win. Today, we just didn’t quite have enough to do that. We were close. We were definitely in the game. The tire was fun. It was a tough 15 to 18 laps, depending how long you had to run your tires. They were falling off so hard and so fast, so that was cool. Goodyear did a good job of that. It mixed up the strategies, as we saw. I felt like we played that right. I think we ended up where we should have, as far as our speed goes. Proud of Travis (Peterson, crew chief) and everyone on this No. 71 team. We’ll keep building on our road course program. A couple top-fives this year, so that’s good. We’ve got good speed, but we just need a little bit more.”
Ryan Preece — sixth: “I feel like at many of these road courses, Mexico, Watkins Glen, COTA and here, we’ve had strong days for it being my first time at these tracks with RFK Racing. This result with our Ford Mustang is definitely something to build on and keep progressing from. It also felt good to get out of that ten-week slump and get back to where I feel like we can be on the racetrack.”
Eighth at the Roval a ‘solid’ result for Elliott
Chase Elliott felt he had “respectable” pace despite missing on strategy at the Charlotte Roval and feels his team kept the sense of urgency entering the Round of 8.
Chase Elliott — eighth: “We were trying to do something different on the strategy front. Unfortunately, never really went our way. I thought our pace was actually respectable. To get restart, you know, in the mid-20s there behind 20th place on a couple of occasions and get back inside the top 10, I feel like we were decent.
Just, yeah, needed to have something kind of go our way with the way we were running it, but yeah, overall I thought it was a solid day for us and certainly gave it our best effort. Excited to get to Vegas.”
Ryan Blaney — 13th: “That was not a bad day. We had a pretty solid day. It was nice to get a stage win out of it with our Ford Mustang and we finished fairly decent. I’m proud of the effort today and I’m looking forward to getting to Vegas. I’m just excited to get there and excited to see what we’ve got when we unload. We’ll see where practice goes and then the race. I don’t really know until we get there, but I’m looking forward to it.”
‘Long-run pace’ may have cost Reddick at the Roval
Tyler Reddick discusses missing the NASCAR Cup Playoffs Round of 8 cut and what went wrong at the Bank of America Roval 400.
Tyler Reddick — 10th: “I don’t know if anything necessarily went wrong today for how the race was playing out. We wanted to prioritize setting up to win the race. I think you could pick it apart – a couple restarts and what not, just kind of, as the race unfolded our long run was not where it needed to be with the top guys. Stage three there, we didn’t make the progress that we needed too, so we kind of went long there hoping for a caution there, and lost a lot of spots, but at the end of the day, we were trying to set ourselves up for a caution late. Looking back on it, my crew chief, Billy Scott, said we were only out by 14 – maybe we could have chased point a little bit harder there, so a few things to look back on, but coming into this, we played it the way we should have.”
William Byron — 11th: “I think I was just kind of out there trying to figure out something that would work. We were just kind of sliding around too much, especially on the restarts. We really needed green-flag runs. Once we got green-flag laps in, I felt like our No. 24 Chevrolet was pretty decent. I’m not sure, but overall, we came home with an 11th-place finish. I felt like we got better there at the end, which is a good thing.”
Briscoe explains managing nausea at the Roval
Chase Briscoe explains why he feels the biggest struggles of the Cup Series playoffs are behind him after finishing 14th at the Charlotte Roval despite dealing with some nausea.
Chase Briscoe — 14th: “It was definitely an odd day. We definitely just weren’t that great. I don’t know. They gave me a pill in the beginning, and I felt a lot better. I was just so dizzy – I’ve been fighting something all week, and I sound terrible, I’m sure. After those first 20 laps, I was able to kind of feel fine. At the end I was struggling a little bit, but I was just focusing on not making any mistakes. Not a super pretty day for our Toyota. It was good enough, that’s all we needed to do.”
Bubba ‘thrown for a loop’ by tire used at Roval
Bubba Wallace was “thrown for a loop” with the tire used at the Charlotte Roval and ultimately does not advance into the Round of 8 of the Cup Series playoffs.
Bubba Wallace — 15th: “Just was thrown for a loop with this tire, and it is funny to look at myself and Denny (Hamlin) and a couple others at the short tracks, when tires degrade, we are pretty good at being able to save tire. Him and I both suck on road courses and we can’t save tires on road courses. It is just frustrating. It is back to how I was a couple of years ago. Frustrated at self, just knowing what was on the line, and didn’t produce, but it wasn’t for a lack of effort. I appreciate everyone on this Toyota team for pushing hard. This one sucks worse than last week for sure. I had high hopes coming in here, and it is what it is.”
Logano: ‘We’re still in. We’re still alive, baby’
Joey Logano navigates a sea of boos at the Charlotte Roval to talk about advancing to the NASCAR Cup Playoffs Round of 8.
Joey Logano — 20th: “Yeah, everyone was telling me how close it was going to be there. And hey, we’re still in. We’re still alive, baby. We’re still going. I’m so excited. Such a close finish there. And yeah, I knew it was within a point there. And I knew we were going to be tied there at the end. And Ross is going to do whatever he had to do to make it happen. Just wasn’t quite fast enough today with our car. But overall, man, it’s the drama of the playoffs, right? If you want drama, the playoffs bring it every time. Want an entertaining finish there. And to come down to a tie there, basically, at the end before the wreck. So I’m proud of Paul Wolfe. We made some really hard calls today. Three -stop in the end there. Kind of an audible there at the end, just our falloff was a little bit too much. So making that call there at the end was ultimately what kept us there in
the game. So as a championship performance from the team. Wish I was a little faster, but overall, we’re proud of the team and we still got a shot.”
Chastain: ‘I’d restart the whole day’ at Chalotte
Ross Chastain reflects on his “terrible” showing at Charlotte Roval, where a pair of rebounds couldn’t outweigh a series of mistakes that resulted in finishing 21st in the Cup Series Round of 12 playoff race.
Ross Chastain — 21st: “I’d restart the whole day. For Trackhouse Racing, they expect so much more out of me. And to speed on pit road, I went off the end of pit road and
didn’t turn. I had more room and just trying to get to the yellow line. and just completely started the downfall there and then came out of the pit stall and double clicked up into third (gear) and Just unforced errors. It’s just terrible. So it’s heartbreaking for almost 200 employees at Trackhouse, our teammates, our ECR engines. Everybody that makes this go around. Justin (Marks) hired me to carry this 1 car and to drive it and to be the leader, and I just completely unraveled our day. So, yeah, not acceptable.
Like, just completely unacceptable.”
Hamlin doesn’t fault Chastain for move at Roval
Denny Hamlin admits he was not aware of the position Ross Chastain facing playoff elimination at the Roval and does not fault the driver for a final-lap move that ended with both drivers backwards at the finish.
Denny Hamlin — 23rd: “I wasn’t aware (of the playoff situation). I definitely wish I was aware, but nobody told me. I never saw (Joey Logano) that last run, and I saw (Ross Chastain) fading, but I assumed if it was close, someone would have let me know. Obviously, I was the guy in the way.”
Austin Dillon — 32nd: “Tough weekend for our Chevrolet team. During our qualifying run, the left front locked up which put us at the rear of the field for the start of today’s race. We knew it was going to be a battle with having to pass a lot of cars in the race. Our Chevy fired off loose at the initial start but the adjustments crew chief Richard Boswell made on our first stop definitely helped. Forward drive stayed with us the entire run after that, and we were playing the long game with taking care of our tires. Unfortunately in Stage 3, we got contact from behind and ended up in the tire barrier. From that point on, it was a grind to the end.”
Kyle Busch — 35th: “It was a rough start for the No. 8 Chevrolet today at the Charlotte Motor Speedway Roval, getting wrecked in Turn 1 on the first lap. Despite the early damage, the entire Richard Childress Racing team never quit and we were able to get our Chevy running better as the race progressed. This wasn’t the finish we all thought we’d have today, but we’ll take some learnings from this week and focus on getting a win next weekend in front of my hometown crowd in Las Vegas.”
Austin Cindric — 37th: “I’m bummed out, it definitely wasn’t the day we needed, and it wasn’t even really close. I just found myself involved in a lot of stuff, and we got spun out a few times and racked up a lot of damage. So you’re not going to win when that happens.”
