What drivers said after Talladega win by Carson Hocevar, his first in NASCAR Cup Series
· Yahoo Sports
Carson Hocevar — winner: "I feel like every time I've ever seen the crowd, really got to hear 'em, I've had this thought up for a while. I've messed it up every which way to not be able to do it. I don't care if it took 20 minutes or whatever, I was going to figure it out how to do it. It took me a while. I'm so thankful. This is the biggest dream I've ever thought of. Thank you, everybody. I couldn't have done it in any better way. Hopefully my grandpa's watching. My grandma died last year, so I'm so thankful that I can give my grandpa a trophy now. Wish my parents were here. All thanks to Jeff Dickerson. Unbelievable. I'm just so thankful, thank you. I posted on Instagram I didn't really care, we were going to win, and we won, so... I'm just so thankful. I knew we were going to win. I really did."
Chris Buescher — second: "Really proud of everybody. That was a fun race all the way there at the end. We had that back (indiscernible) going. I felt really good where we were at coming off turn four. Felt like we were in a spot to take this Ford Mustang into victory lane. Man, it was close. Proud of everybody. Solid execution. It was a good race for us, it really was. It was clean. I'd say we probably needed (Erik) Jones behind us. He was really strong, was giving us excellent runs. When we lost him, it was a little lonely up there, yeah. Excellent job by everybody. I was proud of our group, what we did. Yeah, we've been leading last three times I've been here. We're getting closer."
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Alex Bowman — third: "Yeah, I mean, honestly, to be blunt, it just feels good to get out here without crashing. I'm getting old, don't have much of that left in me. Glad to get out of here clean. Yeah, we had a great Ally 48 Chevy all day. Felt like we played the race the best we could kind of with the situations we were given. Yeah, had a good day on pit road. Hendrick engine shop did a great job. Glad to get a Chevrolet in Victory Lane there with the 77. Happy for him. He deserves it, for sure. A perfect place for him to get his first one. The Boulevard, did they leave that open tonight? It might burn down with that going on. Yeah, just a good day for us. Excited to turn things around a little bit. Hopefully we can keep that going next week."
Tyler Reddick — 14th: “Yeah, we able to overcome problems that we had throughout the day. The second cut tire, I thought was going to be the end of our day, but thankfully we hit it somewhat true enough that all it did was bend stuff, not break it. It was just the day we needed to have with the adversity we had along the way. Bummed we didn’t get to victory lane today, but all-in-all, I think we did gain more ground on those around us in points, so to wreck and be able to accomplish that is a good deal.”
Ty Gibbs — 34th: "“Well, we had a really good first stage in our SAIA Camry. Unfortunately, not a lot of people pitted with us, and we just barely made it on the lead lap at the end of the first stage. I thought we were really fast. I thought our car was really good, but didn’t end well. Unfortunate end of the day for us. We will keep working hard. I’m excited for Texas. Not a lot of luck at the roulette table today at Talladega, so we will look forward.”
William Byron — 35th: "I was just trying to get slowed down so I didn’t get any major impacts. It didn’t feel like I hit that hard, but somebody got me in the right-front and I got damage to the suspension. We didn’t have the best Stage One, in terms of how the strategy shook out. We kind of cycled back a little bit. We were just trying to get back towards the front, but we didn’t get the chance. It’s a bummer, but we’ll regroup and get ready for Texas next weekend.”
Bubba Wallace — 36th: "Got wrecked there, unfortunately. Our Toyota Camry was a little unstable getting pushed, but manageable. Maybe that hard of a hit was too much, so unfortunately, we wiped out a bunch of cars. Got to debrief, got to be better. Just kind of riding around, not doing much in the first stage – nothing to show for it at Talladega. Unfortunate, it is a place we come to with a lot of confidence, and it is what it is. We will put this one behind us and go on to Texas and have some fun."
Ryan Blaney— 37th: “I feel like we all just got pinballing off each other there. The 1 got up in front of me. I was coming, so I’m kind of checking and trying to get on him OK, and it looked like the 23 got up in front of him while we were coming, and then we all just kind of got nose bumper tag there. You’re trying to lift and stabilize it and the 23 ended up getting turned in front of everybody and causing a big wreck. I don’t know. It’s not like there’s any blame on anybody. It’s what this thing is. We see each other. We all just kind of get bumping and banging and one guy eventually gets turned with the car being as unstable as it is. It definitely stinks to be out early. There’s no bubble. You’re just ramming through the guy in front of you. You have to be very precise with how you lift and drag brake to get on them gently. There’s no bubble at all. It’s just running through people. You’re just trying to take care of the person in front of you and it’s hard to do. We’re just all on top of each other and that’s what you get when you’re all on top of each other. Obviously, I would like a change to the race car. I feel like we can be better at these speedways with just how the car races and try to be not as all on top of each other and just running through each other. I obviously have my hand up to wanting to make a change because we’re either fuel saving or we’re running all over each other just because that’s what this car is and that’s how you go forward. You’re just running through and it’s however hard you can push somebody. The cars are pretty unstable in the back. They get tank swapping or if you get ping-ponging they just can’t take it. Hopefully, I don’t really see it changing this year at all. I don’t think you can during the middle of the year. You could, but I feel like hopefully that Speedweeks deal in January we can try a lot of stuff out.”
Joey Logano — 39th: “They just started wrecking above me. You’re kind of seeing it happen and hope they stay up there and you’re able to get by it. The wreck started moving down the hill and there we were. It’s just unfortunate. That’s Talladega. You start pushing and shoving. We got to the point where we could start racing and not have to save fuel and we’ve proven with this car we can’t race each other without wrecking. We got maybe 10 or 12 laps of racing in before we wrecked. That’s about as far as I think we’ve ever gone. I enjoyed (Stage 1). I mean, it’s a crew chief’s game at that point, and you’re just trying to do what they tell you to do. It was interesting, I think. I don’t know what it was from the fan’s perspective, but from inside the car it was interesting seeing how it all played out. The team did a good job getting our Mustang able to get some stage points there, which that’s the only positive of today. We probably got seven points on the day or whatever that is gonna be, so it’s not real good.”
Kyle Larson — 40th: "There was a big stack-up and I was just in the middle of it. It was a bummer for this No. 5 Valvoline Chevrolet team. Just another Talladega result for us, but we got ourselves back there. I don’t know what happened on our first pit stop, but we didn’t get as much fuel in it that we needed to. I was saving fuel and got shuffled to the back. We had to take a little longer on the next pit stop, so we lost the draft and had to restart in the back to start Stage Two. It was starting to get hairy there at the start of the stage, so I wasn’t surprised to get wrapped up in that crash. It’s just an unfortunate end to the day.”