NASCAR CUP SERIES
TEXAS MOTOR SPEEDWAY
O’REILLY AUTO PARTS 500
TEAM CHEVY POST-RACE NOTES AND QUOTES
JULY 19, 2020
TOP TEAM CHEVY UNOFFICIAL RACE RESULTS:
POS. DRIVER
1st AUSTIN DILLON, NO. 3 BASS PRO SHOPS / TRACKER OFF ROAD CAMARO ZL1 1LE
2nd TYLER REDDICK, NO. 8 CAT OIL & GAS CAMARO ZL1 1LE
8th KURT BUSCH, NO. 1 MONSTER ENERGY CAMARO ZL1 1LE
12th CHASE ELLIOTT, NO. 9 NAPA AUTO PARTS CAMARO ZL1 1LE
14th BUBBA WALLACE, NO. 43 CASH APP CAMARO ZL1 1LE
TOP FIVE UNOFFICIAL RACE RESULTS:
POS. DRIVER
1st Austin Dillon (Chevrolet)
2nd Tyler Reddick (Chevrolet)
3rd Joey Logano (Ford)
4th Kyle Busch (Toyota)
5th Kevin Harvick (Ford)
The NASCAR Cup Series season continues at Kansas Speedway with the Super Start Batteries 400 Presented by O’Reilly Auto Parts on Thursday, July 23, at 7:300 p.m. ET. Live coverage can be found on NBCSN, NBC Sports Gold app, MRN, and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio Channel 90.
TEAM CHEVY NOTES AND QUOTES:
AUSTIN DILLON, NO. 3 BASS PRO SHOPS / TRACKER OFF ROAD CAMARO ZL1 1LE – Race Winner
IT’S BEEN 88 RACES SINCE AUSTIN DILLON GOT TO DO THIS – CELEBRATE WITH A WIN IN THE CUP SERIES. MAYBE THIS ONE A LITTLER SWEETER. YOU HAD TO DO IT ON THREE DIFFERENT RESTARTS WITH GUYS LIKE KYLE BUSCH, JOEY LOGANO AND KEVIN HARVICK BEHIND YOU. AUSTIN, THERE’S FANS THERE CHEERING YOU ON. HOW ABOUT THAT?
“Not bad for a silver spoon kid, right? I’ll take that. Have to thank everyone at RCR, ECR, Bass Pro Shops. Tyler Reddick, he raced me clean. 1-2 for RCR – this has been coming. We’ve had good cars all year. Justin Alexander and my whole crew. I got my baby Ace back home and my wife, I love them so much. I’m just so happy – thank god.”
WHAT IS THE SIGNIFICANCE FOR RCR? WE STARTED THE DAY ASKING YOU ABOUT THE CUT LINE. NOW, YOU’RE ABOVE THE CUT LINE AND IN THE 2020 PLAYOFFS.
“To tell you the truth, it means a whole lot. Just for the family, for everybody, all of our partners. Truthfully, I’m out of breath right now. I’m about to go down, I need a drink. That was fun.”
HOW ABOUT BEATING THE BEST IN THE BUSINESS? THREE STRAIGHT RESTARTS YOU HAD TO DO. YOU HAD TO EARN THIS ONE AUSTIN!
“Yeah, I had to change it up a couple of times. Definitely had to earn it. I changed it up. I waited the second one and I went on the last one. So, it worked out for me good.”
TYLER REDDICK, NO. 8 CAT OIL & GAS CAMARO ZL1 1LE – Finished 2nd
“What a great day for Richard Childress Racing. This organization is working so hard and to have a 1-2 finish like we did is incredible. It felt like we had everything happen to our No. 8 Cat Oil and Gas Chevrolet, but strategy was king today. We had good speed overall and earned some stage points at the end of the first stage, but we got shuffled back for the majority of the second stage when we took two right side tires. That really messed with the handling of our Chevrolet and trapped us a lap down for a while. There were a couple major wrecks later in Stage 3 that we were able to miss and that helped us get our lap back to be able to contend at the end. My crew chief, Randall Burnett, made a great call to take fuel only during the caution with about 30 laps to go and that put us up front for those final restarts with our teammate, Austin Dillon. We really couldn’t ask for much more than what we got today. One spot better would have been great, but the recovery this No. 8 Cat Oil and Gas team made today was huge. We’re racing for the big picture of making the playoffs, so we have to race smart. Days like this will help us get there.”
YOU GO FROM 41 BACK OF THE CUTLINE, TO 14 BELOW NOW, ENTERING THE NEXT RACE. HOW WOULD YOU DESCRIBE TODAY?
“It was not strategy in our Cat Oil & Gas Chevrolet. We had good speed in our Chevrolet ZL1 1LE, but we just couldn’t get our Camaro back in contention after we took right-sides (tires). It really shifted the balance of our Camaro. That just put us behind, and we had to catch a few breaks. Some cars got collected in carnage. We avoided it, but you can’t ask for much more than we got there. Me and my teammate (Austin Dillon) on the front row there in those last couple of restarts and you know, he’s done this a little bit longer than I have, and I’m a little rusty. I haven’t been on the front row in a while and he just snookered me those times. Kyle (Busch) was doing a really good job of pushing me, but that last one I put us in a big deficit and I just couldn’t get back out of it.”
WAS IS GOING THROUGH YOUR MIND THAT YOU REALLY WANT THIS BUT MAN, THIS IS MY TEAMMATE AND THIS LOOKS GOOD TO RC?
“Well, I knew it was going to be important. There was one restart where I probably could have went to his inside and I just wanted it to be between us. I didn’t want to bring other cars into it and make sure we could fight it out. We just got the restarts that kept giving us the opportunities. Unfortunately, we just couldn’t get it done today. But, hats off to the No. 3 and all those guys. They’re working hard. It gets one RCR Chevrolet to the playoffs and now we’re below the cutline. We’ve got to keep fighting. If we can keep running like this, we won’t have to worry about points.”
KURT BUSCH, NO. 1 MONSTER ENERGY CAMARO ZL1 1LE – Finished 8th
“We had one of our best points days so far this season with the Monster Energy Camaro. We scored stage points in the first and second stages, followed by another top-10 result. I really battled a loose handling car all day, it was really difficult on the restarts and short-runs, so I really had to work my butt off there at the end with all the cautions”.
BUBBA WALLACE, NO. 43 CASH APP CAMARO ZL1 1LE – Finished 14th
“A top-15 day for the Richard Petty Motorsports No. 43 Cash App Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 1LE team at the Texas Motor Speedway – a long, hot day that’s for sure. Proud of the efforts from our team. Cash App was on the car for the first time, so that was cool. We got Cash App a really good first finish. I thought we had a chance there. If that last caution had not come out, we maybe could have held on for a top-10 finish. But all-in-all, a great effort. Good bounce back from our last two weeks and we’ll just keep pushing to get our cars better. Shoutout again to Cash App for jumping on-board. Being a part of the sport, how cool is that? Get them their first top-15 finish and go onto the Kansas Speedway. We’ll see what we got there.”
ALEX BOWMAN, NO. 88 CHEVYGOODS.COM / ADAM’S POLISHES CAMARO ZL1 1LE – Sidelined by accident on lap 318; Finished 30th
“That was not the way that we needed to finish Texas. We struggled some, but overall, our ChevyGoods.com/Adam’s Polishes team was good today. Our team worked really hard on the car today and the changes during our pit stops. We were in the wrong place at the wrong time, but we will move on to Kansas this week.”
TY DILLON, NO. 13 GEICO CAMARO ZL1 1LE – Finished 35th
“I bummed the way today ended for my Germain Racing team. Our GEICO Camaro ZL1 1LE was really good. We battled being loose at the start of a run, but it would get better and better as the laps clicked away. My guys worked extremely hard to turn this car around from Kentucky and we were putting ourselves in position to have another solid finish. My car jumped out on me under the No. 24 and I hate it for William and his guys too. I had a little damage on the left rear and just wasn’t expecting the car to jump out on me like that. We will rebound and get after it in Kansas on Thursday. On to the next one.”
WILLIAM BYRON, NO. 24 AXALTA CAMARO ZL1 1LE – Sidelined by damage sustained in an accident on lap 250; Finished 37th
YOU STARTED THE DAY 15TH OUT OF 16 DRIVERS TRYING TO MAKE IT INTO THE PLAYOFFS. NOW, HOW TOUGH WILL THESE NEXT EIGHT RACES BE WILLIAM?
“Honestly, it’s going to be tough. We just have to find speed first. We’re not really running good at all and we’ve got to figure that out. Obviously, the 13 (Ty Dillon) got up into us there and took us out, but we were pretty far back anyway. Thanks to Axalta and everybody on the team. We’ve just got to figure it out and figure it out quick before the fall.”
Team Chevy high-resolution racing photos are available for editorial use.
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