What drivers said at Michigan after Cup win by Denny Hamlin and a tribute to Kyle Busch
DennyHamlin — winner: “This Joe Gibbs team just keeps giving me amazing race cars. This Toyota was just amazing. And, at the last run there, it just hammered down. It had a few good restarts, and then once we got to the lead, I was going to lay it out. The offseason, it was rough for me. It was rough for the NASCAR family. We lost a lot of people. This week, we lost Gentleman Ned, the original badass of the 11. We’re still thinking of Kyle, Samantha. Brexton, Lennix. Just an unbelievable feeling to be able to strap in every week, and I don’t take it for granted, this opportunity that I’m in, I just love we’re making the best of it.”
Chase Elliott — 32nd: “I’m fine. Totally my fault. I feel really bad for Bell. Just taking him out, I was trying to run on the bottom and make use of our fresh tires and at least get to second and hopefully stay side by side with him. I got in there and got free. And thought I was going to spin and was committing to spin out and as soon as I started to commit to spinning , it just hooked up and hooked a right and unfortuantely, sent Christopher into the wall super hard and me shortly there behind. Just racing really hard. I felt like that was kind of a turning point in the race. We needed to make something happen. Stepped over the line again and paid for it. I just told him I’m sorry. Obviously it was not on purpose. I knew that was a big hit for both of us and he took the brunt of it. I have a lot of respect for Bell and always race each other with respect on track. Nothing intentional and just stepped over the line.”
Tyler Reddick — 35th: “I’m all right. Just a bummer for our Camry. Felt like we had really good speed. Wanted to have a really good points day. We had really good speed yesterday and it showed again today, so a race I feel like we could have won got away from us, but all year long, we’ve done a really good job of staying out of messes like this. Unfortunate it finally happened. At least we got a couple of stage points. Not the day you want to have. Trying to open it up on (Denny Hamlin) after losing a little bit of ground. We’ll just have to grind it out. Pocono, we’ll have our work cut out starting early there.”
Austin Dillon — 36th: “Our Chevy was really fast. It’s super unfortunate. And I’ve seen one replay, but it looked like (Carson Hocevar) got into (John Hunter Nemechek) and turned him across. I hope at some point (Hocevar) figures it out, but I know I’m not going to show anything to him for a long time. I’m mad because we had a fast race car. We almost got through it. I saw the 11 coming down, I gassed up to get by (Denny Hamlin), and (Tyler Reddick) was there. It’s unfortunate.”
Connor Zilisch — 37th: “I was really loose, but it’s just unfortunate. Another short race for us. We’ll go try and get them at Pocono next week.”
WILL BE UPDATED
