TOYOTA NASCAR XFINITY Series (NXS)
Post-Race Notes & Quotes
Daytona International Speedway – July 4, 2015
· Benny Gordon (fifth) was the top-finishing Toyota driver in Saturday night’s rain-delayed NASCAR XFINITY Series (NXS) race at Daytona International Speedway.
· Camry drivers David Ragan (seventh) and Erik Jones (eighth) also earned top-10 results at the 2.5-mile Florida superspeedway.
BENNY GORDON, No. 66 Somerset Regional Water Resources Toyota Camry, VS1 Racing
Finishing Position: 5th
DAVID RAGAN, No. 20 Interstate Batteries Toyota Camry, Joe Gibbs Racing
Finishing Position: 7th
What did you see in the accident within the closing laps?
“It looked I guess like Brian Scott and somebody was kind of playing a cat and mouse game and I just saw I think Brian get squeezed into the wall and you go low and you know they’re coming back across the race track and someone just clipped the right rear of the Interstate Batteries Toyota. I felt like I had clean air in front of me and I was going but just couldn’t quite get out of the mess quick enough. Very proud of our Interstate Batteries team, they did a nice job. We had a really good car. I felt like the winning car if we could’ve been in one piece there at the end. So, to come home seventh with some damage we’re fortunate. Our pit crew did a nice job patching the car up and that’s speedway racing. You’ll have some of those days. But, we had a car that could contend and that’s all that matters.”
ERIK JONES, No. 54 Monster Energy Toyota Camry, Joe Gibbs Racing
Finishing Position: 8th
Did you need another 10 feet to miss the final accident?
“I’d say 10 feet is the number. We were rolling along there pretty good and the bottom opened up and we went to the bottom behind the 33 (Austin Dillon) and the 2 (Brian Scott) and the 20 (David Ragan) was behind us and I thought that was a pretty good position to be in to try to get a good push to the end. All we could really do with our Monster Energy Camry. I don’t like to believe in luck, but it’s hard to think, man, what do you do different? It was a good day though. The plate races have been tough for us this year so it’s nice to get a finish. We’ll take eighth.”
Did it feel like a single file race with the top grooves struggling to gain momentum?
“It did, which was odd because it wasn’t like that at all in the spring. More like the Truck race is what it felt like. It seemed to be pretty hard to get the top rolling at all other than a restart maybe. I don’t know if we could have done anything up there with the 1 (Elliott Sadler), it was pretty tough to get things going unless you’re really, really good. Pretty single file all day and really couldn’t do a whole lot.”
TIMMY HILL, No. 26 JGL Graphics Toyota Camry, JGL Racing
Finishing Position: 11th
DANIEL SUAREZ, No. 18 ARRIS Toyota Camry, Joe Gibbs Racing
Finishing Position: 15th
How frustrating was the race with the accidents?
“This is just superspeedway racing. I was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. We just need to keep working on our luck at these kind of race tracks and get it right.”
BLAKE KOCH, No. 8 Celsius Healthy Energy Cola Toyota Camry, TriStar Motorsports
Finishing Position: 18th
JJ YELEY, No. 28 Texas 28 Spirits Stage Toyota Camry, JGL Racing
Finishing Position: 20th
ERIC MCCLURE, No. 24 Hefty Easy Grip Cups Toyota Camry, JBL Racing
Finishing Position: 24th
DAVID STARR, No. 44 Zachry Toyota Camry, TriStar Motorsports
Finishing Position: 29th
CALE CONLEY, No. 14 IAVA Toyota Camry, TriStar Motorsports
Finishing Position: 32nd
