NASCAR: What Drivers Said after Atlanta

Newly reconfigured and repaved track has drivers talking lots of positives

William Byron – No. 24 Liberty University Chevrolet – Race Winner: “It was so different. You know honestly the last few laps there, just trying to manage the gap to Bubba (Wallace) and trying to not get too far out front. My spotter Brandon (Lines), it’s his first win so congrats to him and just thanks to this whole team. They’ve done a great job this year. There’s a lot of changes with the Next Gen car.

“The Liberty University Chevrolet was awesome there. We had a pretty rough practice; worked hard on it and got it handling well. Like I told you, it was kind of an intermediate style with a little bit of superspeedway to it, so it was lot of fun. Thanks to everyone at Hendrick Motorsports. Super exciting.

“It’s so cool. I think these fans saw one heck of a race. It was certainly long from my seat. It was mentally taxing. Just thanks to all the fans for coming out. Been an awesome weekend. I got the win last night in the Late Model too, so it’s been a lot of fun.”

Ross Chastain – No. 1 Advent Health Chevrolet – Finished 2nd: “What a day, Regan. That’s the fight, that’s the fight in Trackhouse. This Gen 7 car to take a lick like that, blow a tire out of nowhere leading. Just cruising, blow a right rear, slam the wall, I thought our day was over. Our guys went underneath the car, got the tow closer and we got the balance back where I could drive it and this Advent Health Chevy was fast. It was so fast. I mean we were fighting with William (Byron) there at the beginning. So cool to race with buddies again. I only have a few, but the last two weeks I’ve been able to race with buddies. Can’t thank everybody at Trackhouse, the Moose, Advent Health, everybody that’s been on this car. Justin Marks and his family for what they do for me and Daniel Suarez. What a teammate to push me there at the end.”

Kurt Busch – No. 45 Monster Energy Toyota – Finished 3rd: “We were on a different planet today with the draft and the way the cars raced. Wow. I was catching air off of turn two. I had to lift to not hit the rev chip. I just had a little too much damage to not be on offense, and then we were just trying to ride around and pick our poison so to speak with the Monster Energy Toyota. We weren’t on offense, so if you are not on offense, you kind of have to ride and wait for the holes to open up and I got a top-five again. A lot of sarcasm here. We know we need to get better with the handling and some of our race craft, but another top-five – we will take it.”

Daniel Suarez – No. 99 CommScope Chevrolet – Finished 4th: “It was just like that, up and down. Our No. 99 CommScope Chevrolet was fast. We did a good job on pit road. We had fast pit stops. When we have a fast Chevrolet Camaro, it makes things easier. Everyone at Trackhouse Racing has been working very, very hard to build cars like this. We just have to keep it up. We have a few trophies coming in the near future.”

Corey LaJoie – No. 7 Fraternal Order of Eagles Chevrolet – Finished 5th: “We did exactly what we set out to do today. We made Atlanta Motor Speedway like a superspeedway. We missed the wrecks and put our No. 7 Fraternal Order of Eagles Camaro ZL1 there at the end and got a top-five finish. It’s great to start our season with three top-15’s and now one top-five. Hopefully, we can maintain the momentum over the next couple of weeks and put ourselves in a good points position through the summer. Thank you to everyone at Spire Motorsports and the No. 7 team for all the hard work to continue to build fast Chevy’s.”

Chase Elliott – No. 9 Napa Auto Parts Chevrolet – Finished 6th: “It was crazy, for sure. Hopefully it was fun to watch because I felt like it was wild from my seat. It was very much so like a Daytona or Talladega. Just trying to position yourself there at the right spot and hope it goes your way.”

Chris Buescher – No. 17 ITsavvy Ford – Finished 7th: “The pylon looks better than our race, probably. It was a hard-fought race. We had a lot of balance gremlins that a lot of the field fought early on. A lot of it was just not knowing what to expect. It got better and were definitely a competitive car at the end. We needed a little more raw speed and then going through one and two coming to the checkered I don’t know what happened there. I haven’t seen all of that yet, but coming to the finish I had what I felt like was a decent run and went to pull down and go somewhere with it and I don’t think I realized the 31 was below me there. That was the end of the day. That wreck is probably on me, so frustrating to end that way but a decent finish for us still. I’m missing the old Atlanta a lot right now. To be fair, it was my favorite mile-and-a-half before, so it was gonna be hard for this one to compare and, to me, it doesn’t right now but we’ll keep working on it and see if we can get it better for next time.”

“I’d say probably a good amount of drafting, a lot of momentum – no tandeming and a little bit of pushing and shoving, but I don’t think there’s the ability to get in the corner and really push like I think we thought about early on. There are some big questions there if it’s really sustainable or if we can get to that. Handling was a big thing, but you have to have some speed in the cars, too. What we had to do to get the handling decent we probably cost a little bit of speed through the day, but now we have somewhere to work off of.”

Joey Logano – No. 22 Pennzoil Ford – Finished 8th: “A long day. We spun out and then the engine wouldn’t start. I don’t know why it wouldn’t start, but it wouldn’t start until I got pushed. We lost a lap and then got our lap back. We just battled and battled and finished ninth. No stage points. It’s a regular superspeedway. We just keep crashing. What did you expect? It’s the same stuff. I guess it’s OK, I don’t know. We survived, but a lot of cars crashed today for sure, just like we would expect. I don’t know, you be the judge if it was entertaining or not. I don’t know. It’s a different type of racing.”

Justin Haley – No. 31 LeafFilter Gutter Protection Chevrolet – Finished 11th: “Obviously, Chris (Buescher) and I were going for the same real estate there at the end, so neither of us were really to blame. I did not want to be forced down below the red and white line. I have been bitten by that rule in the past, so I obviously did not want to go below it, and I was not going to check up either. We had a really strong No. 31 LeafFilter Gutter Protection Camaro ZL1 all day, but we were just unlucky at the end.”

Chase Briscoe – No. 14 HighPoint.com Ford – Finished 15th: “There at the beginning I got a little bit of damage, but our car was honestly really good. We could never lead, but I could shove people really realliy good and if I had somebody that was good in front of me I could just keep going and keep picking them off. There at the end I felt like with how my car was, and I kept going to the bottom, the top was just so fast down the straightaway so I knew I probably wasn’t gonna win with the damage I had on the nose, so I was just trying to stay committed to running the top to keep our momentum up. I thought we were gonna come out third or fourth and was trying to help the 12 and, honestly, to shove him to potentially the win and I went in there and I just got him loose into one and obviously we both hit the fence because of it. It’s unfortunate. We were both gonna have a really good day and I kind of shot ourselves in the foot there.”

Ryan Blaney -- No. 12 BodyArmor Ford -- Finished 17th: “The 14 (Chase Briscoe) just shoved me into one when we were stacked up and you can’t do that. You’ve got to get off people and we ended up just getting destroyed. We were in a decent spot to win and have nothing to show for it.”

Aric Almirola – No. 10 Smithfield Ford – Finished 22nd: “Man we had such a fast Smithfield Ford all day. It handled great too. It was nice to run up front and get some stage points. We got spun by the No. 1 car there running up in fourth and I thought our car was fine, but we heard a rattle so we came to pit road and took tires to check on it and it looked fine. When we restarted we just didn’t have full power and some mechanical issues and just had to ride until the checkered flag waved. I think we would have had a good shot at it. This 10 team will continue to fight.”

Christopher Bell – No. 20 DeWalt Toyota – Finished 23rd: “I don’t know. I haven’t seen a replay or anything, but I saw a hole there and tried to take it and we came together. I know he was coming down, whether or not – it kind of is what it is. Our DeWalt Camry was extremely fast today. We’ve been pretty fast all year, just haven’t got the results to show for it. Just have to keep digging.”

Cody Ware – No. 51 Nurtec ODT Ford – Finished 26th: "We were just riding around. I had the 77 and a couple of guys behind me and a couple guys in front of me that we all just planned on riding around and we weren’t ready to race yet. We were still just trying to figure it out to get to the end and go racing with maybe five or 10 laps to go but got that taken away from us today. I’m just really disappointed because my team brought a great Nurtec ODT Ford Mustang to the track today and it’s just a real shame that this is how the day ended.”

Todd Gilliland – No. 38 Georgia Peanuts Ford – Finished 27th: “That was very unfortunate. I went high and we kind of split the field. Something for us to learn from and we didn’t want that to happen. Our Georgia Peanuts Ford was loose to start and then we broke a toe link. We fixed it, but we were laps down. We were racing it out and then got into the fence.”

Denny Hamlin – No. 11 FedEx Ground Toyota – Finished 29th: “We had a really fast FedEx Camry. I was just trying to help Kyle (Larson) there and I just needed to let him go off turn four. The track gets light there, the car starts to lift up and that’s where I needed to back off of him and I just didn’t and spun him out. It is a shame. Our car was really fast. We definitely slowed after the first part of the damage – we were involved in that first wreck. Overall, just frustrating, but we are running well, we are just finishing horrible. I’m just making some bad decisions. It’s easy in retrospect to say I should have done this, and I should have done that, but in the moment, you are trying to battle for some stage points there and we’ve got good grip, and I’m pushing him, and everything is going well and then all of a sudden the car lifts up and he’s gone. Just split-second decision making.”

Kyle Larson – No. 5 HendrickCars.com Chevrolet – Finished 30th (Accident, Lap 208): “We were just coming to the end of the stage. He (Denny Hamlin) was just trying to help me get a run down the front stretch. He just got to me in the corner and got me loose. I hate that happened, but it’s a product of this racing and product of pushing; trying to draft and get your lane going. Nothing is intentional.

“Obviously, I wish we were still out there and both of us racing. The good thing is we have a win already. Two DNF’s in a row isn’t what we want, but our No. 5 HendrickCars.com Chevy is fast. We were able to drive to the front a few different times and avoid a couple different wrecks. I was happy with the car. The handling was off early, but we got it better. I know the speed was there to contend. We’ll move along and go have some fun on a road course.”

Ricky Stenhouse Jr. – No. 47 Kroger/SweetLeaf Chevrolet – Finished 31st (Accident, Lap 200): “No, I was just riding around and I felt really good with our No. 47. Kroger / SweetLeaf Camaro. It was really, really fast. We drove right up to the front from the back there at the start of the race. You saw a few tires let go with people leading, running in the front. I don’t know if with all the speed we have here, if the right rear can’t hang on or what.

“The JTG Daugherty guys brought a really fast car. It was another race where I felt like we were running up front. We’ve done that quite often this year. We missed it last weekend in Phoenix, but we’ll go get them at COTA. Our guys are continuing to build really good race cars and that’s all we can ask for. We’ll keep trying to put ourselves in position. I had fun.”

Austin Cindric – No. 2 Menards/Knauf Ford – Finished 32nd: “It was something I’d been watching and waiting for the entire race, the leaders getting wrecked. From my vantage point, just tried to slow down through the crash and got rear-ended by somebody. It’s just how it goes when there’s not a lot of room. This style of racing we’re all together and it’s a pretty large hit. It’s a shame to be out of the race. We were fighting close to the top 10 range most of the day, but just kind of a victim and it’s a bummer.

“It played out probably similar to what I thought it would after watching the Xfinity race yesterday. We stayed in a really large pack and handling seemed to matter a little bit, but track position seems to matter a lot. To be honest, I still can’t quite figure out if there’s a trick to what we were doing today, but just a shame. I wish we had gotten to the end and had a shot at it.”

“I would say it’s quite a bit different (from Daytona). In some ways leading into the weekend I think as an industry we probably didn’t think it was gonna be as much of a pack, but obviously the track had a lot of grip and it didn’t take long for it to widen out, so I think after watching yesterday we kind of knew it was gonna be a pack race. At the same time, the track is one mile smaller, so the opportunity to build runs and to be able to carry them into the corner but also not be handling limited, I think that’s why we have the racing that we do at Talladega and Daytona. I feel like today if you weren’t fifth on forward, you were limited by whatever was happening in the first two or three rows. I never quite figured out a method to the madness today. We kind of hung around 10th on the edge of stage points all the time. It was interesting for sure, but narrow track and not a lot of room to have errors.

“It’s certainly hard to say. From a close racing standpoint we have an entire pack, so I guess it depends on the formula you want. Not to give you a non-comital answer, but I would say if you were 10th on back today you were kind of just as passenger. You could take a run and go somewhere and then go back up and take a run and go somewhere, but you really wouldn’t make any progress unless you were putting somebody three-wide, which putting somebody three-wide was a pretty large risk and then usually lift anyway. I took advantage of that a few times and it was kind of fun, but it’s a pretty rare opportunity that you would catch somebody sleeping. Like I said, I never quite figured out a method to the madness and felt like the track was getting more grip throughout the race, so I think it’ll probably be racier with three lanes before the end.

“I think our biggest concern coming into the race was green flag pit stops because of how narrow the track is. I think that’s probably a conversation topic. You look at what Indy Car does, they use the apron as their pit entry, so if that’s a move that could pit come in. Obviously, we’ve had enough cautions today where that hasn’t come into play, but you would think in a 500-mile race statistically you would have a green flag stop, but maybe we won’t have to deal with that. I would say from a narrow track standpoint and the style of racing I’d say that was probably my biggest concern and still is, and from that point it hasn’t happened yet, so I’m not right or wrong.”

Cole Custer – No. 41 Dixie Vodka Ford – Finished 34th: “The track is so narrow here that they got together up front and everybody stacked up with nowhere to go, so we hit the wall. We didn’t really hit that hard, but it broke some of the right-rear suspension and put us out. I thought it was OK. I thought the racing was solid. We were side-by-side the whole time and that’s just part of it. We’ve just got to move onto the next one.”

Austin Dillon - No. 3 Bass Pro Shops/Tracker Off Road Chevrolet – Finished 35th (Accident, Lap 100): “William (Byron) and I had a good run through (turns) one and two. Got to the lead and he pushed me down the backstretch. I knew the Toyotas were going to go opposite of us, so I felt like having the No. 24 block bottom and me go to the top would keep the Chevy’s up front. The No. 18 (Kyle Busch) decided to stick with me. I know he probably thought he was doing us a favor, but you can’t push on the left rear on exit off turn four going as fast as we’re going. He just turned me and it took us both out of the race. It was the end of Stage One. We were going to get a run down the front stretch right there, so I don’t know why he’s pushing dead center, at the three-quarter mark. It’s part of it I guess. It was fun racing there for a while with a really fast No. 3 Bass Pro Shops Chevy. My feelings are hurt. Just two weeks in a row we’ve been taken out of the race.”

Ty Dillon – No. 42 Alsco Uniforms Chevrolet – Finished 36th (Accident, Lap 100): “We were taking it easy. We had a penalty on pit road, so we had to restart last there. I was just kind of chilling. I was trying to slow down with the wreck and the No. 14 (Chase Briscoe), I don’t know what he was looking at or doing. He just ran right through me and ended our day. I knew we had a good enough No. 42 Alsco Uniforms Camaro ZL1 to hopefully get upfront with good track position and good pit stops. Just hate that it ended our day early. It’s really hard to pass and you need help (to pass). I wasn’t upfront enough to really tell you a lot, but it was really hard to pass. Even if you were handling better, if somebody could just stay in the middle lane, you could hardly get around them unless you had a massive run and they messed up. Track position matters. We were going to need to have good pit stops. Hopefully, we would have been up front, but it wasn’t our day.”

Noah Gragson, No. 16 ChevyLiners.com Chevrolet – Finished 37th (Accident, Lap 24): “I just got loose there through (turns) one and two. It was still early in the race, so I wasn’t pushing it. I was just trying to bide my time and stay patient. It’s such a long race. It’s unfortunate. I hate it for the ChevyLiners.com team and everyone at Kaulig Racing. They’ve been putting in so many hours this year. My goal was to complete all the laps and finish the race. The No. 16 Camaro ZL1 was fast, it was just a mistake.”