Ross Chastain — First: “”That’s the dedication it takes from Trackhouse. There were people that had Saturdays off, and they came in for this Chevy. To drive on that final run and pass two cars that had been way better all night … Holy cow, we just won the World 600!”
William Byron — Second: “He was catching me, I was trying to just defend and was getting a little bit tight. Disappointning. Just to lead that many laps and such a great effort by our whole team, and I could have anticipated that last run better. Just sucks. We’ll just keep going and keep trying to put races together like that. It will be good in the long-term I guess, but I really wanted this one. Yeah, just a bummer, right? Try to learn from it. Yeah, it was tough there at the end. He was catching me, and I was trying to. Just not quite enough.”
Chase Briscoe — Fourth: “Yeah, on paper, started first and finished third, but there is a lot more to the story. We made it a lot harder 600 miles than we probably needed too. We just had that penalty early and it kind of put us behind. When you start from the front, you kind of set your car up for clean air, we didn’t anticipate 37th. It just took us forever to just slowly creep up on it. We were kind of out of adjustments. So overall, we were probably a third-place car, realistically – just wish we could have got some stage points. Overall, a good finish, I wouldn’t say it was a great night. Honestly, that is just been how our season has gone – we’ve gotten really good finishes, but we’ve not just had very good day. So, hopefully, we can put one of those all the way together here soon.”
AJ Allmendinger — Fourth: “The No. 16 Chevrolet was good all night. We ran inside the top-five, top-six through most of the race. We needed a little bit more to get to the next level, but I’m super proud of everyone at Kaulig Racing. We had a tough three weeks there, but it’s great to come back and show up with a lot of speed. I told Sgt. Nicole Gee that’s on the side of our race car, I told her family I was going to do everything I could to try to get them in victory lane. It was close! It meant a lot to be able to meet her family. We know what this day is truly about, so I’m proud I could give her a great ride. Almost got all of us to victory lane.”
Brad Keselowski — Fifth: “We had a really good car. We got mixed up in some of the different stuff in the midpoint of the race and just clawed our way out. I feel like if we could have got to the lead, we could have won the race. I wish it was a 700-mile race. You feel like you earned it. Some of these races you’re like, ‘I don’t know if I earned it.’ Today, we earned it. Just getting to the lead dictated so many things and we weren’t able to get there, but I think we had the effort to do it. By the end of the night, I thought we were one of the best cars, if not the best. I just wish it was a 700-mile race. We’ve been really competitive the last few weeks and I feel like it just hasn’t all come together and it still hasn’t all come together, but this car has got the speed to win the race and I need to go get it. This car was good enough to win. We just weren’t able to put all the dots together and some of that falls on me for sure.”
Chase Elliott — Sixth: ““We had a really good No. 9 Chevrolet. Pit road was amazing. We gained spots on pit road all day, but I would give them right back on the next restart. I just needed to be better. We were making really good pace right there in the end. I just gave up too much on the restarts.”
Michael McDowell — Seventh: “It was a great night for the No. 71 Chevrolet team. I was bummed out about my mistake there early on with missing the pit box. We had a lot of speed in our Chevrolet, so really thankful for everyone at Spire Motorsports. I hate it for Carson (Hocevar). He was up there racing for the win. Not sure what happened there, but it was unfortunate for them. I was thankful to get back up to the front after a long night. It was just a big mistake on my part. I’m thankful to get a top-10 and miss some of the wrecks there. I’m really proud of the speed we had. We’ll try to build some momentum here and head to Nashville (Superspeedway).”
Ryan Preece — Ninth: “Honestly, it felt like we were really good. We were really good compared to the competition the first 200, but I’ve got to figure out how to qualify better because we had a terrible pit selection with just the situation we were in. We kept going to 12th and then would drop to 28th and then drive forward again. Once we got there and the night cooled things off, I just got too loose for how good I was early and that was the difference. Ultimately, I’m happy with a ninth and we’re going to continue on. Ford is really lucky to have a guy like Brad on his team, and I’m really lucky to have him as an owner, as a driver, as somebody that I can lean on. He’s really been helpful, so it’s been a lot of fun and certainly we want that position. We want to be in position to win these races, but today was one of those days where we grinded it out and got a ninth.”
Noah Gragson — 10th: “I felt like we had a really good Ford Mustang Dark Horse, but at the end of Stage 3, I was too short in the pit box and screwed us as a team. We really ran up in the top eight pretty much all night. I felt like our car was pretty strong and got set back to start that fourth stage. We were the last car on the lead lap, so to drive back up through the field and finish in the top 10 feels really good.”
Erik Jones — 13th: “Honestly, we just dealt with the same issues pretty much all race long. Just consistently way too tight and couldn’t seem to get it better with any of the adjustments we made. It was still a solid day thought to finish 13th after some issues throughout the race. This is the longest race of the season, and a big success is just surviving it. We did just that and walked away with some things we can work on for next week at Nashville.”
Shane van Gisbergen — 14th: “We’ve just been chipping away the last few weeks; getting better and better. I feel like we’ve just been growing in confidence. We’ve been a bit under the radar, but we had some good pace there. Unfortunately when Daniel (Suarez) and Ryan (Blaney) wrecked, I had to go across the infield, and it damaged something underneath and we were really tight. There were about five of them jumping on the front splitter to get it back down, but it wasn’t quite the same. A lot of the cars we finished behind, we were better than them, but it was promising.”
Kyle Busch — 15th: “I feel like a broken record saying another difficult night for our No. 8 Chevrolet team. The weekend started out with a steering issue. We got the pump changed and were able to make a qualifying lap but had to change the rack and go to the rear for the start of the race on Sunday. We were tight in dirty air. Crew chief Randall Burnett made some changes and got it running better when I heard a loud pop. Something broke, and we’re still not sure what it was. From that point on, we were just out of it. We tried a strategy call late in the race, but we had an issue on pit road so we weren’t really able to capitalize on that. I want to thank the family of Fireman Jeffrey M Svoboda for allowing us to honor him this weekend.”
Denny Hamlin — 16th: “You can’t change the results, so you’re going to have to live with it. They’re the pros. I’m not a pit guy. I tried to do everything I could. We had a great car, fun battling up front. Heck of a battle there. Would have liked to have seen it through and unfortunately didn’t get enough gas in it and had to come back in.”
Joey Logano — 17th: “: “It was a grind it out day for our 22 team, for sure. I’m proud of the way we continued to make our Ford competitive as the night went on and just kept making progress on it.”
Ty Dillon — 19th: “I honestly think that was probably the worst result we could have got for the car that we had. We had it really fast Chevrolet, so that’s the positive, but everything that could go wrong on pit road went wrong. It’s frustrating, we’ve got to get it cleaned up. We can all work better, including myself, to clean it up. We just didn’t catch a break at the end either with the lucky dog and no caution, but still happy with our speed.”
Austin Dillon — 20th: “We had a really solid Chevrolet tonight at Charlotte Motor Speedway. I’m proud of this RCR team for all the work they did after practice and qualifying on Saturday to give us something competitive for tonight. Crew chief Richard Boswell made great calls to keep up with the adjustments on our Chevy, and we had a car capable of running in the top five. Unfortunately, it came down to fuel mileage at the end and we ran out with two laps to go while running 10th. Disappointed, but overall, we had a solid car and our handling tonight was an improvement over where we’ve been the last few races. I want to thank Bass Pro Shops and Winchester for everything they do for our military and allowing us to honor our heroes this weekend with a patriotic paint scheme. It meant a lot to be able to race with United States Army Staff Sergeant Sean Gregory Landrus on our windshield header and John A. Morris above the door.”
Connor Zilisch — 23rd: “It was a really long day. My goal was to come in and run all the laps, and we did that. Finishing 23rd isn’t horrible. Probably better than I was expecting. We got some damage when Jimmie (Johnson) had an issue and spun into us, and that kind of hurt us for the rest of the day. I felt like we were actually pretty good during the first stage and we were making up ground. But nonetheless, really proud of Trackhouse Racing. It’s so cool to see Ross (Chastain) win such a big race, and I’m very thankful to be able to get this opportunity to run in the Cup Series again with Red Bull and Trackhouse Racing.”
Cody Ware — 25th: “I feel like today was a day where we can start building our momentum. It was a hard fought 600 miles but we were there at the end. I’m just thankful for the crew to build me such a fast Ford Mustang Dark Horse today and we’ll be able to take this 25th place finish and hopefully get a better qualifying draw for Nashville and start to build some momentum. I’m really happy with it. I’m worn out and exhausted and ready to get some sleep and start prepping for Nashville.”
John Hunter Nemechek — 27th: “We had a fast No. 42 Toyota Camry for Stage 1 and 2, we just got behind, losing track position, and got stuck. We ended up getting loose there at the end and got into the fence. Promising day, solid speed, just not the result that we want.”
Austin Cindric — 31st: “It’s a bit of a shame. I thought we had a solid run going, but I got a little too free and popped the fence. I was trying to be patient all night and still didn’t quite get it. I thought we had enough speed to sneak a top 10 in there tonight, but overall it was a difficult evening and I’m proud of the hustle from the guys to be able to finish the race.”
Kyle Larson — 37th: “I saw smoke and I tried to get left through the infield and I just didn’t get far enough left. I got tagged and it ended our night. Just a bummer of a day all around. I just got super loose into turn three out of nowhere early in the race. I caught the wall and got some toe damage. I thought the No. 5 Chevrolet team did a great job in getting us back to where we were somewhat comfortable there the last 200 laps. We just needed to kind of chip away at it and I thought we could still end up OK. Just not the day that I wanted, but huge thanks to Rick and Linda Hendrick, all of Hendrick Motorsports, Arrow McLaren, Chevrolet, everybody involved in making the day memorable. It’s just unfortunate, but hopefully we can run it back someday.”
Ryan Blaney — 38th: “It was three-wide and tight getting off the corner. I thought I was kind of high enough as I could go, and it seems like, I don’t know if it was just a big squeeze, a couple of us bounced off each other – just tight off (Turn) 4. The first caution set us back and then finally got close to the top 10, but now we’re gonna go home early. It’s one of those things.”
Zane Smith — 39th: “We got a little behind on adjustments and were racing with guys that are just a little sketchier. Unfortunately, I just got tight and tried to slide up in front of (Shane van Gisbergen) and got a little free and then just got finished off by him. It’s unfortunate because we had a really good car until our halfway break. All in all, we’ve been fast this year and we just need to keep it going.”
