Chase Elliott — winner: “Man, first off, thanks everybody for coming out. Great crowd, as always. I have not been a huge fan of this place, and I’ve made that very obvious, but we continue to work hard. I really think this is a testament to the whole No. 9 Chevrolet team. But not just the No. 9 team, but everybody at Hendrick Motorsports. We’ve not been where we wanted to be throughout portions of the season, but everybody’s just been digging in really hard – from the engine shop at Hendrick Motorsports to all the setup shops and everybody at Team Chevy. It’s just crazy. As much as we’ve struggled at Texas, to have won two races here now in the last few years, is pretty wild. Just super grateful for all the people that helped make this possible and looking forward to celebrating with them.”
Denny Hamlin — second: “I could’ve risked it off of (turn) 2 and crashed both of us. I thought had I hung onto his quarter panel anymore, I just thought that I was going to end up hitting the fence. Just not quite what I needed. I got the first part of the restart really well just he got that push from the 48 (Alex Bowman) right there right entering turn 1 and it was just enough to slow my momentum and pick his momentum up. Really close – just not quite enough. These mile-and-a-halves have been really, really good for us on this 11 team and all of the Toyotas really. We’re doing a great job with what we’ve got, and I wish we’d get the wins with as fast as we are but we’re still putting together good races.”
Alex Bowman — third: “I think we made some big gains on our No. 48 Chevrolet from where we unloaded. We struggled in practice, but we qualified well. This team chipped away at it all day. There are some things we can definitely clean up. We still need to be better, for sure, we had a really good Chevy today. Proud of the pit crew. They did an awesome job. It’s nice to get this team some good finishes. It’s been tough on them this year and glad to bring home back-to-back third-place finishes.”
Tyler Reddick — fourth: “We were hoping that as it played out there on the restart behind (Chase Elliott) that we’d have a little something left to be able to close the gap and maybe be close enough to pass for the cycle or after and unfortunately for us and our Camry, it didn’t play out that way. We were all very close with (Elliott) and (Hamlin). Just kind of spread out a little bit there. I was hoping I was going to have a little bit of speed late in the run to close and it didn’t really happen for us. All in all, it was a solid day. It was nice to go for it there with two tires. Just had a couple passes that took a little longer than they needed to and that was the difference. I don’t know if we would’ve got back to the lead, but I think if we played it perfectly, we could’ve got second. All in all, it was a good day.”
Chris Buescher — fifth: “Real proud of everybody to get a top five here. To finish where we’ve run here so much. We finally put it together. Our mile and a halves have been really strong. This is three now with top 10s. We’re close. We’re scratching at the door here. Little bit of work to do yet, but that feels good because it’s been rough here over the years. So that was a solid day.”
Daniel Suarez — sixth: “Very proud of the No. 7 Chevrolet team. We had another fast Chevy this weekend. This weekend was a perfect example of having a fast racecar and we just had a lot of things go against us, like the tire yesterday in practice. Today, the first run of the race, we just really struggled. The car had potential, we just struggled quite a bit. I’m just very proud of this team for never giving up.”
Carson Hocevar — seventh: “It was a good run for everybody at Spire. It was great for us. We led a lot of laps, ran up front, finished second in Stage 1. Put ourselves in a good spot to start Stage 2, then got that caution that put us behind the 8-ball and had to start in the 20s. We made an adjustment we probably shouldn’t have. I was just tight all day. Just had to inch at it one at a time. It’s just hard to pass here for sure. Just fun to run good especially after last week and put ourselves sixth in points. That’s really strong for us.”
Ryan Blaney — 10th: “Proud of the effort from this 12 group to stay in it all day. We fought through some struggles early but slowly regained track position throughout those longer runs to get us in a decent spot for that final restart.”
Brad Keselowski — 13th: “A good solid day of execution. We made the most of what we had. I would’ve liked to have been a little bit faster, but I thought our team did a good job of executing with all three cars.”
Ryan Preece — 14th: “I felt like we had a really fast Ford Mustang Dark Horse, but we ultimately never had the track position to show it. It was a good car and a good day.”
Austin Cindric — 15th: “Overall, a steady day for our Ford. Mustang. We stayed out of trouble and kept it clean. Not quite where we want to be on speed, but these are the kind of clean days that help you stay in the hunt.”
Connor Zilisch — 16th: “It was a better day here at Texas Motor Speedway for the No. 88 Chevrolet team. We’ve struggled on these intermediate tracks all year long. Although 16th isn’t where we want to be, it’s a step in the right direction. Thank you to everyone at Trackhouse Racing for continuing to work hard through the tough days that we’ve had the past few months. It feels good to finally get a good result, run on the lead lap all day and get a decent finish for this team.”
Shane van Gisbergen — 17th: “We struggled in qualifying, so we had to makeup for that. That was my fault yesterday. The No. 97 Chevrolet was much better today, but I just kept hitting the bumps and having big moments. It kind of limited us to the bottom lane. It was a good points day. We struggled the last four or five weeks in a row, so it’s good to get a decent result.”
Austin Dillon — 18th: “We had to battle through that one. Starting at the back of the field without practice made it a long one for our team but we kept chipping away it. Our Chevrolet was tight from the start, and dirty air definitely didn’t help. We ran some of our fastest laps of the day towards the end of the race though, so we made it better from the start. Proud of this No. 3 team and everyone at RCR and ECR.”
Kyle Busch — 20th: “Disappointing end to the day for the No. 8 Chevrolet team, but we are making steps in the right direction. We ran in the top-10 for most of the race today at Texas Motor Speedway, and started the weekend with a solid sixth-place qualifying effort. Unfortunately, we ended up with right-front damage after contact battling for position on the final lap. It turned our top-10 day into a 20th-place result.”
Ty Dillon — 24th: “It was a grind. We battled through it all day, worked hard. Got a solid day out of it. I’m proud of our effort; branching forward and taking a big step forward from where we were at Kansas. It’s something that we can grow from. It’s not everything that we want, but it’s in the right direction.”
AJ Allmendinger — 25th: “We were on top of the racetrack today. The balance was decent at times, but you have to be perfect to have any speed. We kept bouncing back and forth (between aero-tight and very loose), just trying to get the most out of the day. We took two tires on the restart, got caught in dirty air, and hit the wall, which cost us a couple of spots. In the end, we finished about where we ran all day.”
Ty Gibbs — 35th: “I haven’t seen the replay. It broke one of the little welds on the front clip, so it probably wasn’t the best decision to go back out. We weren’t going to be fast, so we’ll go racing next week.”
Joey Logano — 37th: “The whole field’s passed you because the pit stops are so fast with two tires, someone just checked up in front of me and stopped. You’re trying to look and get up out of the way. They just stopped. There was nothing I could do. I couldn’t stop in time. Been a tough year, to say the least. I’m proud of the speed we had today. Had good speed, speed capable of going up there and running. At the end of the stage, we were one of the best, if not the best car, which makes it hurt even more to be honest with you. But glad we had speed at least. All you can do is keep digging, go to the next one.”
Christopher Bell — 38th: “It’s a bummer, but I’m still thankful. I’m thankful that I get to drive really fast race cars. Thankful that I got to lead laps today. Thankful that I get to drive for Joe Gibbs Racing. I was a couple of feet away from having a good day. But yeah, it’s going to turn around at some point. It was another one of those 50-50 calls. Me and Denny (Hamlin) were side by side and I saw him (Todd Gilliland) spinning and Denny lifted and I thought that I could shoot the gap on the bottom. And I thought I did shoot the gap on the bottom but I got clipped.”
