NASCAR CUP SERIES
KANSAS SPEEDWAY
BUSCHY MCBUSCH RACE 400
TEAM CHEVY POST-RACE NOTES AND QUOTES
MAY 2, 2021
TOP TEAM CHEVY UNOFFICIAL RACE RESULTS:
POS. DRIVER
5th CHASE ELLIOTT, NO. 9 UNIFIRST CAMARO ZL1 1LE
7th TYLER REDDICK, NO. 8 CHILDRESS VINEYARDS CAMARO ZL1 1LE
9th WILLIAM BYRON, NO. 24 AXALTA CAMARO ZL1 1LE
10th AUSTIN DILLON, NO. 3 BASS PRO SHOPS/TRACKER OFF ROAD CAMARO ZL1 1LE
11th DANIEL SUAREZ, NO. 99 CAMPING WORLD CAMARO ZL1 1LE
TOP FIVE UNOFFICIAL RACE RESULTS:
POS. DRIVER
1st Kyle Busch (Toyota)
2nd Kevin Harvick (Ford)
3rd Brad Keselowski (Ford)
4th Matt DiBenedetto (Ford)
5th Chase Elliott (Chevrolet)
The NASCAR Cup Series season continues next weekend at Darlington Raceway for the Goodyear 400 on Sunday, May 9, at 3:30 p.m. ET. Live coverage can be found on FS1, MRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio Channel 90.
TEAM CHEVY POST-RACE NOTES AND QUOTES:
CHASE ELLIOTT, NO. 9 UNIFIRST CAMARO ZL1 1LE – Finished 5th
“We were solid. We weren’t anything stellar, but definitely a step in the right direction from where we’ve been over the last three or four weeks. Proud of that. Alan (Gustafson, Crew Chief) and our UniFirst team made a good call there to come get tires. I felt like that was the right move. I know it didn’t win the race, but I felt like that was the thing to do. Those restarts just get so wild and it’s really hard to predict what lane is going to do what. You just try to make the best choice that you have available at the time and hope it goes your way. Proud of the effort and hopefully we can just keep this momentum going forward. Hopefully, we’ll be where we need to be soon.”
YOU TALK ABOUT THE MOMENTUM GOING FORWARD. WE’VE GOT SOME REALLY GOOD CHASE ELLIOTT TRACKS COMING UP HERE VERY SOON; DARLINGTON, ROAD COURSE RACING. HOW EXCITED DOES THAT MAKE YOU FOR THE NEXT FEW WEEKS?
“I’m really just more excited about how we ran today. I felt like we got competitive there at the end, which is the first time in awhile on a 1.5-mile. I’m more excited about that than I am the schedule coming up. This is a ‘what have you done for me lately’ sport and you can change the narrative really fast. Just appreciate the effort from everybody at Hendrick Motorsports, on our No. 9 team in particular, for putting in a lot of work to try and help us get better, and I think it showed a little bit today.”
TYLER REDDICK, NO. 8 CHILDRESS VINEYARDS CAMARO ZL1 1LE – Finished 7th
“We had a really strong No. 8 Childress Vineyards Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 1LE today at Kansas Speedway, which we used to grab valuable stage points all throughout the day and top it all off with a seventh-place finish. I was able to run the wall really well during the early stages of the race, which really helped keep our track position and earn those stage points. Eventually my car started to build tighter and tighter throughout the runs, and that made my entry on both sides of the track into a bit of a challenge. Being looser definitely worked best for our car, and my team did a good job working on the balance of the car to get it to where it needed to be later in the race. We did have a slight miscue on pit road late in Stage 3, but luckily caught a caution quickly and got our lap back, letting us stay in the mix for remainder of the race. It was a good day for us. We earned the most stage points we have all year today and got out of there with a top-10 finish. The focus will now turn to Darlington Raceway, which is another good track for us.”
WILLIAM BYRON, NO. 24 AXALTA CAMARO ZL1 1LE – Finished 9th
“We got a top-10 here at Kansas (Speedway). We fought all day. The first stage looked really good, but we were fighting the balance and just wasn’t very maneuverable in traffic. We were just kind of stuck to the top lane. I could run the bottom, but it just wasn’t fast enough. We kind of had a struggle of a day. I felt like we were on both sides. We got it way too tight, way too loose, and then somewhere in the middle by the end. We got it to take off ok on the restarts and picked up a top-10. We’ll take that.”
“Really proud of the effort of the No. 24 Team. It shows the strength of our team to finish top-10 when we don’t have a good car. We’ll just keep fine-tuning those balance things and try to bring a little better package when we come back to one of these 1.5-mile tracks. We’ll work on it and definitely get better for the next one.”
AUSTIN DILLON, NO. 3 BASS PRO SHOPS/TRACKER OFF ROAD CAMARO ZL1 1LE – Finished 10th
“We held in there all day to earn another top-10 finish in the Bass Pro Shops/TRACKER Off Road Chevrolet. We started the race sixth, but it took us a while to get the handling of the No. 3 Chevrolet dialed in. We were tight, then we would get better for a while, and then we would end up tight again. At the beginning of Stage 3, we raced from 17th to 10th in one lap. There was a lot of restart chaos. With about 10 laps to go, we pancaked the outside wall hard. I was doing the best I could, but we were just too tight to make the move stick. We had to pit, and it put us all the way back to 22nd in the lineup, so I’m pretty happy with the top-10. That is exactly what this team does. We make the best of it. We do it every week.”
DANIEL SUAREZ, NO. 99 CAMPING WORLD CAMARO ZL1 1LE – Finished 11th
YOU GUYS OVERCAME A PIT ROAD PENALTY. HOW DID YOU BRING IT BACK WITH A SOLID FINISH LIKE THAT?
“Well, the guys, they never give up. We had a good car, but we never really found the balance on the car. The car had good speed. We have had this package on some other 1.5-miles and we were fast in the Top-10. But this time, we were just all over the place. We were just talking about that; like on the splitter, tight, loose, all over the place, and we were never able to find the right balance. By the time that we were decent, it was late. I felt like we had probably a shot at a good Top-10 right at the end, but with the No. 20 (Christopher Bell) blocking and all the mess, it was like starting all over again. I feel like we were lucky a little bit in that last restart with four tires. The car was fast in the beginning and we were able to rescue a decent finish.”
ROSS CHASTAIN, NO. 42 CLOVER CAMARO ZL1 1LE – Finished 14th
“A nice effort today by everyone on the Clover team. I felt like we had a solid day for our mile-and-a-half program. We had good speed in our car. We had ourselves in a pretty good position near the end for a top-five or top-10 finish, but with bunching the field up on the late restarts the car just got really tight. It’s all about momentum on a track like Kansas Speedway. This is a good day to build on for our team”.
KURT BUSCH, NO. 1 MONSTER ENERGY CAMARO ZL1 1LE – Finished 15th
“That one was a battle; it was rough. Our strength is normally restarts and I couldn’t do anything. The car was swapping ends on me and I was like ‘do this, do that’, trying every different sequence we could. Man, we were just stuck. We were welded 11th to 15th. It wasn’t our best Kansas outing. We just have to figure out what trends are happening and with the way things are shaking up with the tires, I couldn’t be aggressive on restarts. The car wanted to swap ends. That’s not my normal deal – normally I’m able to plug the holes and go and grab us spots. The pit crew were the ones gaining us spots today. We’ll just keep plugging away.”
ALEX BOWMAN, NO. 48 ALLY CAMARO ZL1 1LE – Finished 18th
“Pretty trying day for us to say the least. We had a bunch of issues going on with the car. Just really missed it all day and couldn’t get the car where we needed it. Our Ally 48 Camaro was just not great. Greg (Ives, Crew Chief) and the guys worked on it a lot. We don’t really know what happened, but we will go home and get to work and figure out why we weren’t where we needed to be.”
KYLE LARSON, NO. 5 HENDRICKCARS.COM CAMARO ZL1 1LE – Finished 19th
KYLE, EVERYBODY WAS WATCHING YOU AND EXPECTING YOU TO BE THE ONE TO BEAT TODAY AND YOU WERE. TAKE US THROUGH THE END OF THIS RACE, CAUTION AFTER CAUTION, AND HOW THAT IMPACTED YOU GUYS.
“I had the No. 2 (Brad Keselowski) behind me and he didn’t get to my bumper. I think he had to protect from the guy behind him and it just allowed the bottom to get a good jump on us and the bottom lanes cleared me. I fell back to third and I just planned on pushing (Ryan) Blaney as hard as I could. Obviously, I was just pushing too hard, got him loose and chased ourselves both up into the wall. Just was trying to help him stay side-by-side with the No. 18 (Kyle Busch) down the back to allow myself to have some sort of opportunity and, like I said, I just pushed too hard. That’s really the first time I was behind anybody on a restart. I thought I could push around the corner, but I learned for next time.”
ERIK JONES, NO. 43 BLACK ENTREPRENEUR INITIATIVE CAMARO ZL1 1LE – Finished 25th
“Just a tough day for the Lonely Entrepreneur Chevy. Have some things to improve on for the mile-and-a half’s, but we know what direction to go.”
Team Chevy high-resolution racing photos are available for editorial use.
About Chevrolet
Founded in 1911 in Detroit, Chevrolet is now one of the world’s largest car brands, available in 75 countries with nearly 4 million cars and trucks sold in 2019. Chevrolet models include electric and fuel-efficient vehicles that feature engaging performance, design that makes the heart beat, passive and active safety features and easy-to-use technology, all at a value. More information on Chevrolet models can be found www.chevrolet.com.
