What Cup drivers said after rain-delayed Atlanta win by Ryan Blaney in overtime
· Yahoo Sports
Ryan Blaney — winner: "Pretty wild. Take the front row and we'll see who can get behind me. Bubba gave me really good shoves on the restart. We got hooked up really good. Then, yeah, gosh, Bubba and I got a huge run down the front straightaway. Bubba went three-wide bottom town the back, lined up for a really cool finish at the line. I really have to shout-out Christopher Bell for being right on my bumper all the way through (Turns) 3 and 4. He was a big reason why we won the race. Appreciate that, Christopher. The fans, thank you, guys, for sticking around. Past my bedtime. Not y'all's. ... It was definitely, honestly, a pretty awesome night. Having a really fast car and sitting on the pole, winning both stages and leading a ton of laps and just in a position to win the race. You never know how these things are gonna end, honestly. There are a couple of things I probably could have done better, but we were able to stick around and just how the last couple laps played out we were able to get the lead back and just barely hold on. It’s a pretty cool day when you have weekends like that. You can’t ask for a better weekend – sit on the pole, sweeps the stages, win the race. That’s a dream weekend right there. These guys are great. They brought a rocket ship and it was nice that we were able to close it out.”
Christopher Bell — second: “It was a pretty good finish for us. I just felt like I didn’t quite have the speed to be up there with Ryan (Blaney). I could be up there in second or third but it seemed like a couple of guys with faster cars could always get by me. Great finish with our Camry. Ready to get this cast off, that’s for sure.”
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Carson Hocevar — third: “It was fun. I’m happy for Ryan. I just didn’t quite have enough help there at the end, unfortunately. Once I got a big lead, I needed them to stay three-wide and I think I would have just ran away. But they got cleared and it was just too big of a run to throw a block. We got three-wide there and I just needed a little help. Our No. 77 Chevrolet team had a lot of fun. We were able to execute at a high level all night.”
Ty Gibbs — fourth: “Wild long night sums it up honestly. Glad that we could get this No. 54 Monster Energy Camry in contention there at the end, trying to help my teammate out (Christopher) Bell and that was pretty fun. Going to move onto next week and looking forward to it. Thank you to Monster Energy, thank you to SAIA, Oakley and everyone who helps us out. Had a lot of fun there, and lets move on.”
Erik Jones — fifth: “It was good, we were kind of in it all night other than the first stage. The Camry had top-five speed, it just didn’t quite have top 2 speed. A lot of times when we were up there I felt like it was really tough to pull out of line and make a pass and maybe we were a little draggy, I’m not sure. It handled ok, we just needed a bit more speed. Either way I’m glad to make it through clean and have a decent points day and stay in this hunt for the Chase. It’s still super tight, I wish it was not as close as it is, but we got room here to keep working at it and some more traditional tracks so we will see where it goes. I feel good, I’m glad we’re in it. It’s been a long time since we’ve been this deep in the season and been in the Chase, so I’m happy about that but wish it was more. Makes you look back early in the season and so many points we gave away, but we just have to keep working hard. We’ve done such a good job of grinding with this group in just every race getting the best finish I feel like we can that day and we did it again today and we’ve got to do that the rest of the season to try to get in.”
Shane van Gisbergen — sixth: “I’m still replaying it in my head, but we’ll take a sixth-place finish. We needed a great points day. Overall, it was an excellent day for this No. 97 Chevrolet team. We were up front for most of the race. We didn’t get many stage points, but we got some. We’ll take that and move onto next weekend (at North Wilkesboro Speedway).”
Austin Dillon — seventh: “Incredibly proud of the entire No. 3 Chevrolet team at EchoPark Speedway. RCR and ECR built another fast Chevy. We battled late into the night and never gave up, making the needed adjustments and strategy calls to put ourselves at the front in the final laps. The only thing I could have done differently is take a different line for the last restart and maybe we wouldn’t have gotten bound up the way we did. We’ll carry this momentum into the next few weeks of racing with a stretch of tracks coming up that have been strong for the No. 3 team.”
Joey Logano — ninth: “That was a battle. We got some good stage points and then a top 10, so we got the points we need, which is very crucial right now, especially when you come to a track like this because you just don’t know what’s gonna happen. I wish I had something to go win with, but once we got back there I couldn’t get back to the front. That’s about as good as I could have done there.”
Chris Buescher — 10th: “That was a fight by everybody on this team to get back to 11th. We got up there and drove to the front through some good strategy, but ultimately had to keep working on it all night to even get to the point where we were able to be in the hunt for a top 10, but it was a tough night. I’m still trying to get a handle on this place. To be honest, I miss the old Atlanta, but I’m trying to get this one figured out.”
Austin Cindric — 14th: “We had a really fast Ford Mustang early on and put ourselves in position to contend. Late in the race, we got really loose and just never fully got the balance back where we needed it. It’s disappointing because we were capable of a much better finish, but we’ll take what we learned and move on to the next one.”
Todd Gilliland — 19th: “Yeah. Somehow, some way. It was not our night tonight, but that is why I love this team. No matter what, we just don’t give up, whether that means we’re running well or just barely grinding out a top 20, sometimes you’ll have those days. We’ve been just barely skating by and two more rounds. Two more really good races stand between us and a million bucks. We were just saying, I didn’t have the best night, but in two weeks that would make me feel a lot better. We’ve got the best of the best still in it and it’s time to go beat them.”
Ty Dillon — 20th: "We had a good car tonight and I thought we were going to have a shot at a top-10 but we were just too wounded to get up there in overtime. We had good moments tonight and a lot of positives to take out of this race. We'll keep working hard and be ready for North Wilkesboro next weekend."
Ryan Preece — 24th: "Before the rain came, we were not where we needed to be. But we huddled up as a team during the rain delay and came up with some ideas. We put those adjustments in the car when we went back racing and it helped. Still, not the day we wanted.”
Brad Keselowski — 26th: “Not the day we wanted. Just struggled all day. We tried to ger better. We made a little bit of progress but not enough.”
Austin Hill — 31st: “Man, I hate the way that one ended. We were gaining steam there in the closing laps and had our Chevrolet in position for a solid top-10 finish. I thought we were going to have the wreck missed, but then I got hit in the left side. We tried to make repairs, but the damage was too much. Unfortunate ending but that’s the way these drafting track races go sometimes. The guys made the car better throughout the race. We were just too tight on entry and exit. Proud of the effort overall.”
AJ Allmendinger — 37th: "It was a tough night for us at EchoPark Speedway. We had a tire go down that put us in the wall and ultimately ended our night. We had hoped to have a strong finish. We'll try to put this race behind us and look ahead to North Wilkesboro."