What drivers said after Pocono Race 1 - NASCAR on NBC Sports

A collection of post-race driver quotes following Saturday’s NASCAR Cup Series race at Pocono Raceway:

Alex Bowman – Winner: “It was like a hundred feet (from the finish). I keyed up (the radio). I’m like, ‘I’m sorry’ – he’s blown a tire (laughter). I don’t really know what to think. This is the strangest win I’ve ever been a part of. I thought I was running second, which was still going to be a good day for us with how we struggled throughout the course of the day. Then he blows a tire, we win; can’t do a burnout because I have to race the car tomorrow. I typically stand on the roof of the car; can’t do that because I got to race the car tomorrow. I typically drink all the beers; can’t do all that because I got to race a car tomorrow (laughter). I have to be way more responsible than I really want to be right now. It’s definitely been a unique win. But, yeah, I’ve never been in a situation like that. I was literally keyed up, apologizing for burning the front tires off the thing. Saw his crush panel fly out, him have a flat. Yeah, I can’t believe it.”

Kyle Busch – Finished 2nd: “Just (needed) more front turn. Our cars kind of die tight in traffic, and just wasn’t able to turn as well as I needed too late in the going in order to get a run on them. I couldn’t even get any closer than I was. I was trying like hell to get there and get into that mix, but I couldn’t even get there. I was just hindered by traffic and dirty air, stuff like that. Ben (Beshore, crew chief) and the guys gave me a great piece. It was fast early on. We made minimal changes to it all day long, so when you are well-balanced, and your car is good – that’s as much as we have for them right now. Last week we saw that we were off just a little bit, and we got our ass kicked. We certainly have some work forward, and trying to find some more, but thanks to everyone on this M&M’s Minis Toyota Camry. The guys did a great job. Thanks to Rowdy Energy, Stanley, Interstate Batteries and Rheem. We will get back after them tomorrow.”

William Byron – Finished 3rd: “The things we thought coming here, we wanted to be a little snug. So, we just kind of gained tight center off and it was hard to make the straightaways long with that, especially with the PJ1. It seems to make your car tighter. So, our Axalta Chevy was good, especially at the beginning; a little bit on the splitter. But we had the lead there and lost it. Just wasn’t quite able to pass the top two guys, I should say. So, it’s just part of it. Luckily, we get a chance to work on those things. It’s the first time for Rudy (Fugle, crew chief) and I here. It was a good run for us. We finished third and we’ll try to go win tomorrow.”

Denny Hamlin – Finished 4th: “(Needed) track position. We had the fastest car. Just that restart – I had the chance to start on the inside, but we just couldn’t accelerate on the restarts. I thought the smart move was to start on the outside in the third lane, so we could go, and it turns out we should have gone to the bottom. Our FedEx Camry wasn’t good on the restarts coming through the gears, so I don’t know that we would have got past the 18 (Kyle Busch) like the 48 (Alex Bowman) did, but I thought we had the fastest car, but we just could never really show it. We were running down that front pack big time, but it was a little bit too little, too late.”

Ryan Blaney – Finished 5th: “Starting a long way back was challenging and trying to get on some certain strategies that might help us out. I thought our strategy was really good. We were really fast for that last caution. I got really tight after that. We needed a good day in our Menards Ford Mustang after last week for sure. This is definitely something to learn about for tomorrow and make some changes and hopefully have a really good run.”

Kurt Busch – Finished 6th: “I thought it was a solid day. It was one of those days where we stuck to our strategy. We were going to pit twice; use that track position from our finish last week at Nashville (Superspeedway). That helped us stay up front; helped us stay in rhythm. I battled every lap with loose conditions. The car wanted to just keep getting loose with the rear. We just had to stay out. We just didn’t want to sacrifice our track position. Good calls by Matt McCall (crew chief) – utilized the speed of the track and the car together to keep that track position and to have a solid points day. We won a stage; we were up front. But we have to find a little more pizazz – get that rear stuck and that way I can be more on offense on restarts. Solid day for the No. 1 Monster Energy Chevy.”

Joey Logano – Finished 7th: “We were okay. We were probably a fifth-place car. We ran about fifth most of the race. The car was pretty good the last run, I just lost too much track position on the final restart. We were able to get some decent stage points. I think we were fourth and third in the two stages and then we finished seventh. Not what we want but it is a gain on our 550 package if you look at where we have been. We were able to run towards the front and see the front and actually pass some cars. That is a good sign. Progress is being made.”

Kevin Harvick – Finished 8th: “Our car was really good at the end. It just took us all day to kind of get the track position and get the loose into the center of the corner better. It took all day but then we were able to get an okay finish out of it.”

Kyle Larson – Finished 9th: “I guess that’s one thing that’s probably keeping me excited and not depressed, is that we get to go back again tomorrow. I’m sure our backup car will be just as good as that one. Feel like we learned a lot about our car today. The track came to us a lot. I think we should be good tomorrow.”

Brad Keselowski – Finished 10th: “Our Detroit Engines Ford was really good. I got into the 41 (Cole Custer) early in the race and that got us behind.”

Tyler Reddick – Finished 11th: “My No. 8 Kalahari Resorts and Conventions team did a great job today coming up with a strategy that helped get us a good finish for the first race of the Pocono Raceway doubleheader weekend. I fired off a bit too tight, but we were able to make the right adjustments to loosen up our car closer to where it needed to be throughout the race. Dirty air definitely played a huge role in handling today. It was like a light switch sometimes when the car would snap from loose to tight, so that’s good to be aware of for tomorrow’s race, especially with how hard it was to pass today. We still need to do some work to figure out how to get over the bumps better since that was my other big issue today. But overall, my team did a good job figuring out a pit strategy that got us up into a good spot when it mattered at the end. I’m looking forward to getting another shot at this track tomorrow and seeing how much better we can make our Kalahari Resorts and Conventions Chevy.”

Daniel Suarez – Finished 13th: “It’s a gamble. You have to gamble and you have to stick with it; and unfortunately, it didn’t work out for us today, but hopefully it does tomorrow. We had, what I felt like, a top-10 car, sometimes even a top-five. We ended up 13th. We have to make a couple of adjustments to be a little bit better for tomorrow.”

Aric Almirola – Finished 16th: “This Smithfield Ford team fought all day to find more speed and just didn’t have it today. Proud of everyone for working so hard to gain as many spots as we could. It’s a doubleheader weekend, so the work doesn’t stop now. We’ll regroup and see what we can do to build on tomorrow’s race. We’ll have a better starting spot with the field invert, so we’ll take that as a positive.”

Austin Dillon – Finished 21st: “Workrise is for the people who get hard work done, and that’s definitely what the 3 Workrise Chevrolet team did today at Pocono Raceway. We battled with a tight-handling condition for most of the race, but Justin Alexander and the team never gave up. The pit crew was fast all day today as well. We earned Stage points at the end of Stage 1, then got caught with a caution after a pit stop and lost some track position. The whole time, our team used pit stops to make chassis adjustments to our Chevy. By the final Stage, our handling was okay everywhere except for Turn 1, where we were plowing on exit. It was a chore to earn track position, especially after we were issued a penalty for speeding on pit road during a green-flag stop. I’m glad that this weekend is a double-header and we have another shot at getting Workrise a win on Sunday. We’ll go back to the drawing board for tomorrow.”

Chase Briscoe – Finished 24th: “Our car was so good earlier in the race and I really felt like we had something to work with, but we fired off too tight on old tires, and in the end that hurt us. We’ve definitely got something we can build on for tomorrow, and we’ll give it another shot at putting the HighPoint.com/Webex by Cisco Mustang in the top-10.”

Cole Custer – Finished 38th: “Yeah, these restarts, you are trying to get up in those tight holes to make sure you don’t get freight trained by five cars on the straightaway. I don’t know. I haven’t seen a replay. I don’t know if it was just too tight or miscommunication or what. I really wanted a good day today. I thought we had a good car those first few laps with our HaasTooling.com Mustang but we will just move on to tomorrow. It is frustrating. I can’t tell you how frustrating this year has been. We will just have to keep surging on and go to tomorrow.”

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