NASCAR CUP SERIES
TALLADEGA SUPERSPEEDWAY
GEICO 500
TEAM CHEVY POST-RACE NOTES & QUOTES
APRIL 23, 2023
Kyle Busch Prevails in Overtime Finish for Talladega Victory
Chevrolet’s Seventh NCS Win of 2023; Chevrolet Sweeps Talladega Doubleheader Weekend
In a double attempt at an overtime finish, Kyle Busch and the No. 8 McLaren Custom Grills Camaro ZL1 team came out on top to score Chevrolet’s seventh NASCAR Cup Series win of the 2023 season.
· The win is Busch’s second NASCAR Cup Series win of the 2023 season and his 62nd career win in NASCAR’s premier series.
· Busch is now the third repeat winner in the series this season, joining fellow Chevrolet drivers William Byron and Kyle Larson.
· The victory extended Chevrolet’s series-leading NASCAR Cup Series win record at Talladega Superspeedway to 44 all-time victories, including the past three races at the Alabama superspeedway.
· Chevrolet has now won the past five NASCAR Cup Series superspeedway races, dating back to Ross Chastain’s win at Talladega Superspeedway one year ago.
· The winningest manufacturer in NASCAR Cup Series history, Chevrolet now sits at 840 all-time wins in NASCAR’s premier series.
· Chevrolet swept the NASCAR doubleheader race weekend at Talladega Superspeedway, with Jeb Burton and the No. 27 Jordan Anderson Racing Camaro SS team taking the victory in the Saturday’s NASCAR Xfinity Series race.
Kyle Busch, No. 8 McLaren Custom Grills Camaro ZL1 – Race Winner Quotes
“Sometimes you gotta be lucky. Some of these races comes down to that, and you have to take them when they come your way. The seas kind of parted there when they went up the racetrack. They were trying push draft, and these cars just aren’t stable enough to do that. I saw the 23 just turn a little bit sideways and I was like, ‘Get out of the way.’ Just missed it and tried to see if I was ahead of the 12 when it was called. A great day for another new sponsor at RCR with McLaren Custom Grills. If you ain’t got a custom grill yet, these McLarens are pretty bomb so you gotta check them out. We have a great time being able to come out here and race and be a part of Team Chevy and Chevrolet and get this Camaro in Victory Lane.”
HOW CLOSE WERE YOU ON FUEL? “Well, it shut off here when I was trying to do a burnout so maybe it’s out. I went left instead of right. The fuel-pickup is on the right so maybe I ran it out. We were sweating it being close. I thought back to California and Fontana earlier this year where we have a win, and I’m like we have to gamble. We’re up here, you have to take the track position when you have it and go give it what you can on the restart and see what happens. Lo and behold, it worked out.”
MORE ON THE WIN: “You never know what’s going to happen, right? We had the track position and had the opportunity to be up front there. Short on fuel, you just don’t know so you take that chance. Luckily I thought about it, and I’m like, ‘We gotta take the chance.’ That win at Fontana really opened that door for us today. If we didn’t have that, I felt like we would have to come in to get some fuel to get points. You know, I guess I’d rather be lucky somedays and we were certainly that today. It feels good to see the seas part finally and me squeeze through and not get torn up in a couple of those wrecks late. Thanks to McLaren Custom Grills. Appreciate them, another new RCR partner for us this year. It’s awesome to get them up to Victory Lane. I hope their website is blowing up right now and they’re getting a lot of likes and selling some grills. We need all the help we can get. Our sport is doing well but things can always be better. We want to see full fields of sponsored cars.”
HOW WAS YOUR DAY BEFORE THE LAST LAPS? “Every time I got near the front, I got shuffled. That’s about what happens in these restrictor plate races for me. There in that last lap, Bubba Wallace was helping push and getting us out there and getting us to the lead. I got a little too far out, and I knew they were going to have a run so I was like, ‘You know what… take the run. We’ll see what happens in the next corner.’ Lo and behold they got crossed up. Sometimes you’re quiet sometimes and you just kind of squeak one out.”
WINNING FOR RCR WITH RICHARD CHILDRESS AT THE RACE: “It’s awesome. I know they’ve had a lot of superspeedway love for a long, long time. One of the best to ever do it was obviously one of the winningest ones. It’s fun to be able to come out here and be a part of this team and work with Randall (Burnett, crew chief) and all my guys. Pit stops today were fine. We were never really in a position to push hard, but we got everything to go our way and came out on top.”
TOP TEAM CHEVY UNOFFICIAL TOP-10 RESULTS:
POS. DRIVER
1st Kyle Busch, No. 8 McLaren Custom Grills Camaro ZL1
6th Erik Jones, No. 43 U.S. Air Force Camaro ZL1
7th William Byron, No. 24 Liberty University Camaro ZL1
9th Daniel Suarez, No. 99 Tootsies Orchid Lounge Camaro ZL1
TOP-FIVE UNOFFICIAL RESULTS:
POS. DRIVER
1st Kyle Busch (Chevrolet)
2nd Ryan Blaney (Ford)
3rd Chris Buescher (Ford)
4th Chase Briscoe (Ford)
5th Brad Keselowski (Ford)
The 2023 NASCAR Cup Series season continues at Dover Motor Speedway with the Würth 400 on Sunday, April 30, at 2 p.m. ET. Live coverage can be found on FS1, PRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio Channel 90.
TEAM CHEVY POST-RACE QUOTES:
Kyle Larson, No. 5 HendrickCars.com Camaro ZL1
Finished: 33rd
“Thankfully I’m OK but my car is absolutely destroyed. The cockpit’s a mess. I’m just thankful that I’m alright and all that. It’s just a bummer. We put ourselves in position once again on a superspeedway and the results don’t show it. Another wreck not of my doing on a superspeedway. I just hate it but we’ll keep getting better, and eventually it’ll have to work out I would think.”
Justin Haley, No. 31 LeafFilter Gutter Protection Camaro ZL1
Finished: 18th
“This one stung a little. We had a fast No. 31 LeafFilter Gutter Protection Chevy and had really good pit strategy all day. We thought we would set ourselves up for the end there and avoided all the wrecks, but we just couldn’t quite the track position back that we had all day.”
Noah Gragson, No. 42 Wendy’s Biggie Bag Camaro ZL1
Involved in a crash on Lap 189
“I’m good. It was a really solid day for our Wendy’s Biggie Bag team and LEGACY MOTOR CLUB. This 42 team was really on top of it today. Good pit stops and a fast car there in the race. I felt like we were in a good position restarting on the front row on a green-white-checkered. I got kind of shoved out there and bobbled a little bit by the 1. I just gotta look back and see what I could do better. Obviously not let the 1 get inside me. Overall it was a good day until it wasn’t. The results have sucked here lately, but we’ve been running strong. We ran in the top-five, the top-10 all day and I’m really proud of that. I appreciate Wendy’s and everybody coming out to Talladega and all the fans. We’re close. We’ll get there one day.”
Erik Jones, No. 43 U.S. Air Force Camaro ZL1
Finished sixth
“It was kind of an up and down day. We weren’t really running how we wanted to during the day. But obviously there at the end some attrition got us toward the front. I felt like our car was good and that the Air Force Chevy had speed. We just weren’t up there to show it. We’ll take it, thought. A (top-six) is obviously a strong run. I was hoping to come here and have a good day for us and get us rolling with some momentum to Dover and forward. We’re on to some good tracks for us, so hopefully we can repeat the same next week – bring a good car and kind of keep this momentum rolling.”
GRAGSON WAS UP THERE UP FRONT PRETTY MUCH ALL DAY, SO WHAT DOES THAT MEAN FOR YOU GUYS GOING TO DOVER? “It was good. I was rooting for him at the end. Obviously I, at that point, didn’t have much of a shot. I was hoping just to get up in the top-10. I saw he was up there on the front row and was hoping he could grab one for us. It would have been pretty cool for him and the team. I hate to see how it worked out for him. I felt like we had good speed too, but just some stuff didn’t go our way to get track position. Some runs didn’t work out. I thought it was good. The team definitely had more speed this weekend than what we’ve had. Hopefully we can translate it.”
WHY DID THREE-WIDE SEEM A BIT EASIER TODAY? “I don’t know. We were a big proponent of most of them up there kind of pushing and leading. I felt like we could get the third lane rolling really well a couple of times. We got to the front and just couldn’t quite clear myself down. I think people are just getting more confident with their pushes and more aggressive with them. I think that’s leading to more three-wide racing.”
Daniel Suarez, No. 99 Tootsies Orchid Lounge Camaro ZL1
Finished: 9th
“It was an up and down day for the No. 99 Tootsies Orchid Lounge Chevy team. I felt like we had a very, very fast car. The guys did a very, very good job with that. This is probably one of the best cars I’ve had at a superspeedway. We did a good job in the first stage. In the second stage, we just couldn’t recover on track position and the final stage was the same story. It’s part of it. We will learn from it and see what we could have done differently. But the positive is that we finished in one piece for the most part and the car was very fast.”
TEAM CHEVY RACE HIGHLIGHTS:
Stage One
· Defending NASCAR Cup Series winner Kyle Larson led Chevrolet to the green flag from the ninth starting position in today’s GEICO 500 at Talladega Superspeedway.
· A single-car spin brought out an early caution on lap three. A handful of cars opted to hit pit road during the caution, including Team Chevy’s Chase Elliott, Ross Chastain and Daniel Suarez to make a fuel only stop.
· The first green flag pit cycle started during the latter part of Stage One, with a majority of the Bowtie brigade coming to pit road together on lap 39.
· The second caution of the day flew after an incident entering pit road on lap 43. The top-six of the running order were occupied by Team Chevy drivers that had yet to make a pit stop, led by LEGACY MOTOR CLUB’s Erik Jones and the No. 43 U.S. Air Force Camaro ZL1 team.
· The field took the green for the restart at lap 47, with the top-six positions taken by Team Chevy drivers who had already made a green flap pit stop.
· After starting 29th, Elliott moved his way up through the field throughout the stage, ultimately taking the green-white checkered flag for his first stage win of 2023.
· Seven Team Chevy drivers scored stage points in Stage One, including a sweep of the top-five positions:
1st Chase Elliott, No. 9 NAPA Auto Parts Camaro ZL1
2nd Alex Bowman, No. 48 Ally Camaro ZL1
3rd Ross Chastain, No. 1 Moose Fraternity Camaro ZL1
4th William Byron, No. 24 Liberty University Camaro ZL1
5th Kyle Larson, No. 5 HENDRICKCARS.COM Camaro ZL1
7th Noah Gragson, No. 42 Wendy’s Biggie Bag Camaro ZL1
10th Daniel Suarez, No. 99 Tootsies Orchid Lounge Camaro ZL1
Stage Two
· The majority of the field came to pit road during the Stage One break. Kaulig Racing’s Justin Haley came down for a fuel only stop, gaining 14 spots on pit road to take a front-row spot for the start of Stage Two.
· A relatively quiet race throughout the first half of Stage Two, a third line began to form with 24 laps remaining in the stage, led by a string of Camaro ZL1’s coming from four different Chevrolet teams.
· During the closing laps of Stage Two, manufacturers began another round of green-flag pit stops with Chevrolet leading the charge to pit road with 17 laps to go in the stage.
· Once green-flag pit stops cycled through, Elliott regained the top spot with a continued battle for the lead building in the closing laps of the stage.
· With a side-by-side battle to the line, Aric Almirola edged out Elliott at the line for the Stage Two win, with Elliott taking second-place stage points.
· Elliott led Chevrolet to three top-10 finishes in the stage, including Ricky Stenhouse Jr. (ninth) and Noah Gragson (10th). This is the first time this season that Gragson has tallied top-10 finishes in both stages in a single race.
About Chevrolet
Founded in 1911 in Detroit, Chevrolet is now one of the world’s largest car brands, available in 79 countries with more than 3.2 million cars and trucks sold in 2020. 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 at www.chevrolet.com.
