Chase Elliott — winner: “Everything worked out perfect for me. Had a great push through one and two. That kind of all started with the 6. Big run off of two. Seas kind of parted and just was able to keep my momentum up. That was really it. Obviously, we still had pretty good tires compared to those guys, but what a crazy finish. Hope you all enjoyed that. I certainly did. Really proud of our team. Had a really solid weekend, win or no win. Really nice to qualify really well. We’ll certainly enjoy this, man. This is pretty cool. Just never take this stuff for granted because they’re hard to come by. Learned that the hard way. Always enjoy it. Always appreciate it. … I wasn’t going to lift, so I didn’t know what was going to happen. I figured at the end of the day, it was what it was at that point. We were both wide open corner exit. Wherever I ended up, I ended up. At that point, we were all committed. Yeah, really cool just to be restart and somehow win on a green-and-white checkered. Pretty neat.”
NASCAR’s Most Popular Driver outdueled Denny Hamlin’s dominant car for the victory.
Denny Hamlin — second: “Just super disappointing. I wanted it bad. It would have been 60 (wins) for me. The team just did an amazing job with the car, just really, really fast. Gave me everything I needed. Got the restart I needed. Just couldn’t finish it there on the last corner. Obviously got really, really tight with the 23, and it just got real tight and we let the 9 win. Yeah, just mechanical failures and different things have really hindered us in years past, and we had no power steering that last run. Low voltage. Just a lot of things and just couldn’t — just disappointing because I don’t think I’ve ever had a car that good to the competition. Man, I wanted it for my dad. I wanted it for everybody. Just wanted it a little too hard.”
Hamlin wanted win No. 60 ‘a little too hard’
Denny Hamlin gave it all he had to claim his 60th Cup Series win, but he “couldn’t finish it” exiting Turn 4 after getting tight with Bubba Wallace, opening the door for Chase Elliott to win.
Christopher Bell — third: “I honestly don’t know what I could have done. I’m leaving here feeling pretty satisfied. That was a bummer when I lost the lead on the restart when I caught the wrong timing line. Looking back, it was such a 50/50 call on those restarts whether you wanted to be on the outside or the inside. I don’t know what I would have done differently. I felt like we left it all on the table. It was rewarding to be restarting on that front row and knowing that if I win I advance, and I get out of here and don’t win, that we are in a really good spot. I’m proud of our team. We are doing a really good job of controlling what we can control and getting good finishes out of it and we are running well too. I’m excited about the Roval, we’ve been really excited about the road courses and we have some breathing room, so it should be a lot of fun.”
Bell leaving Kansas ‘pretty satisfied’
Christopher Bell is leaving Kansas Speedway “pretty satisfied” and thought he left it all on the track to contend for the win.
Chase Briscoe — fourth: “It was tough. I’ve never really been in a situation like that, where I needed really anybody but Bubba to win in that situation, but I wanted to still put it in a position where I could still win the race, too. It was just tough with those restarts. They’re so circumstantial. One thing goes your way, and you can end up winning the race. One bad thing goes your way, and you end up running fifth to seventh. Just crazy, the runs and how fast they develop. I thought I was going to, honestly, still have a really good shot to win the race, and when Bell got in the fence off of four, I had to all but stop, and it just ruined my momentum. Scrappy day for our Toyota. Would have loved to be obviously a little bit better today. Crazy, I think we’re averaging a top-five finish in the playoffs, and we’re only 20 points above. Never feel safe at the Roval, but go there and try to do our job. Our road course stuff is pretty good there. See what we can do. … That second-to-last restart, I had a huge run out of the back straightaway, and I thought I could clear, potentially. So I tried to make it three wide, but looking back on it, maybe it would have been better to hit the 20 as hard as I could and try to get him to the lead. But it is so crazy on those restarts. You’re making split-second decisions. One variable can change, and what you thought was the right move is the wrong move. Crazy race. I’m sure it was fun to watch and go on to the next one.”
Briscoe recaps ‘crazy’ restarts at Kansas
Chase Briscoe unpacks the position he was in on the final overtime restart at Kansas and the craziness that ensues as he looks ahead to the playoff elimination race at the Roval.
Bubba Wallace — fifth: “To even have a shot at the win with the way we started, you could have fooled me. We were not good. We missed it on the fire-off speed. I just really appreciate the team. Two years ago I’d probably say something dumb (about Hamlin like) ‘He’s a dumbass for that move. I don’t care if he’s my boss or not.’ But we’re going for the win. I hate that we gave it to Chevrolet there. Toyotas were super fast, and proud to be driving one. I thought it was meant to be, and then it wasn’t. All in all, the positives, though. We were minus-27 coming in; we’re minus-26 leaving. We gained a point.”
Bubba on Kansas finish: ‘Hate we gave it to Chevy’
Bubba Wallace recaps what went down in overtime at Kansas after racing hard with Denny Hamlin, ultimately giving the win to Chase Elliott and Hendrick Motorsports.
Kyle Larson — sixth: “It didn’t affect my ride, I don’t think. I actually felt pretty good after it. My No. 5 Chevrolet was good all race long. I just couldn’t go for 15 laps like the Toyotas could, but I felt like after that, we were really good. We could kind of move around and get some lines going. It’s just really difficult to pass. But overall, our team brought a really fast Chevy. I just need to study the restarts and those first handful of laps on each restart to see what I could do better with the balance that I had. But overall, it was a great day. We’re 54-points above the cutline, happy about that heading into the Charlotte Roval.”
Tyler Reddick — seventh: “ I just tried to give (Wallace) the best push I could. I was really fortunate the previous restart that he was able to hold the lead. I don’t know, I tried to push him, and we just got separated. Obviously I want to push him out, try to help him win, and then obviously keep the gap closed up to try to be in second and have a shot at it myself. It was a tough day. I really thought our beast Toyota Camry was really fast. We just had struggles on pit road. That’s part of racing. It’s tough. Yeah, obviously there’s only one thing we can do at Charlotte, and that’s what we’ll be focused on.”
Reddick survives ‘tough day’ at Kansas
Tyler Reddick discusses how he tried to push Bubba Wallace on the final overtime restart after rebounding from pit road issues for a seventh-place finish at Kansas.
Brad Keselowski — eighth: “At the end of Stage 2, the car got a lot better. We were trapped a lap down with how the lucky dog and stuff played out and we fought through that and got to the lead lap and started picking them off. And then on the last few restarts we picked off a few more and got a decent finish out of it. It’s good. It means the potential is there. We’ve just got to execute. We got a good last restart. There was a lot going on, and it was really messy, but we made the most of it.”
William Byron — ninth: “We struggled there at the beginning. We missed something, but we made a bunch of changes and our No. 24 Chevrolet came to life there in the final stage. I’m not sure… it was really confusing, honestly. I couldn’t carry any speed, and then the changes we made seemed to fix it, and I could carry speed there at the end. Even on two tires, I was competitive on the restarts. It’s just a bummer that it was the way it was early, but the bright side is that we finished well, and we found something there at the end. It sucks that we’re having to throw ‘Hail Marys’ this time of year. We don’t want to do that. But this team is resilient. We weren’t going to give up. The fact of the matter was that we had to fix it and work on it. We just had to try a bunch of stuff and we got the car going in the right direction. I could carry speed and do the things we needed to do there at the end.”
Ross Chastain — 11th: “We fought around 10th place all day. I thought our No. 1 Chevrolet showed signs of brilliance at the beginning and at the end of Stage 1. I thought we were really strong, and then I just never had that feeling again. We just couldn’t get the balance right and the grip to go with it. We’ll regroup and get ready for the Charlotte Roval next weekend.”
Ty Dillon — 13th: “I’m proud of the performance of our team. We’ve been in a hole for a couple weeks, and we chopped away at it all day. It’s probably the first clean race we’ve had in three or four weeks without any of us making mistakes. I think that just proves how we can run, and hopefully that carries the momentum through the end of the year. Proud of our effort. Our car was solid and we executed in all phases. So, now we’ll move on to the Roval.”
Kyle Busch — 19th: “The entire No. 8 Chevrolet team worked throughout the race to make adjustments to make us competitive today. We made forward progress, but it just wasn’t enough to get us where we needed to be to contend for a victory this afternoon at Kansas Speedway. This race is in the books, and our attention is now on securing that first win of the season next weekend at the Charlotte Roval.”
Joey Logano — 21st: “It was a hard weekend. I thought we were recovering pretty well scoring stage points in both stages after starting in the back. I’m like, ‘Alright, we’re OK here. We can kind of roll through here and we’ll be alright,’ and I just got caught up in that wreck on the restart and tore something up. I don’t know, but it wouldn’t turn after that. We tried to throw a ‘Hail Mary’ with two tires, but there were too many restarts and you can’t hold them off. I kept getting used up, so it sucks. We’re plus-13. It is what it is. We’ve got to go race, but it’s going to be close.”
Ryan Blaney — 24th: “I thought we probably could have run eighth to 10th. That was kind of our max potential with this thing. I thought we got a little better through the day, which was good. We did two on the last stop and tried to get some track position and make something happen, but I sped. I was just trying to be aggressive knowing that I really didn’t have much to lose, but I’m proud of the effort with this backup car and coming from the back. I just made a little mistake. We’ll go have a good weekend (at the Roval) and try to win a stage and win the race. The road course strategies get pretty up in the air, so we’ll just go try maximize our day.”
Austin Dillon — 27th: “Not the day we wanted for our Chevrolet. We posted a decent qualifying effort yesterday, but our Saturday speed didn’t translate to Sunday. Our Chevy was really loose at the beginning of the race, and we never got the balance right, then we ended up getting some damage in a wreck in Stage 3 that destroyed the right front. We damaged our splitter and definitely didn’t have anything we could work with after that. Thanks to Richard Boswell and everyone on this RCR team for fighting through challenges and never giving up.”
Austin Cindric — 31st: “I definitely passed a lot of cars today, but never really in a points-paying position. I’m proud of the effort from the team all weekend. I never really made it easy on myself to start from Saturday and it’s hard to sit here and say we had speed to contend. A cheap wreck there on the front straightaway, and I had to run the last 50 laps without power steering, so mentally, physically and emotionally I’m very disappointed for the result. Our goals are pretty clear for next week — (win). It’s that simple.”
Zane Smith — 31st: “It was a wild ride, no doubt. Before I knew it, I had a decent restart going and I just get wrecked by the 42. He just drives through me and then I was sliding on the wall. I was just mad at that point from how our day was going and this just pissed me off even more because that’s what really hurt was just flipping down the track. It was violent, no doubt, but we had such a fast Ford today. It’s just a bummer. Right before that caution came out we were gonna have a top 10 day, racing up inside the top 10 a majority of the day and it’s a shame that it has to come to an end out there. I want to give a shout out back to everyone at FRM for bringing another really good car, especially at a mile-and-a-half. Hopefully, five more. Hopefully we bring some more good ones.”
Josh Berry — 33rd: “It looked like Zane and (Nemechek) had got together obviously, and Zane was up on his side. I just tried to go by on the bottom, and (Nemechek) spun down and clipped us in the right-rear and we wrecked, so it’s just part of being back there. It’s an overtime restart and everybody has to make up for how bad they ran all day and try to pass everybody in one corner.”
