Official Release

Tundra driver Todd Gilliland was a lap away from capturing his first career NASCAR Camping World Truck Series (NCWTS) race when he ran out of fuel at Texas Motor Speedway Friday night on the final lap.

Ryan Blaney recorded the second 200 mph NASCAR Cup Series qualifying lap on a 1.5-mile race track Friday evening during time trials for the 14th annual AAA Texas 500 Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series Playoff race at Texas Motor Speedway.

RYAN BLANEY, No. 12 Accella/Carlisle Ford Fusion -- YOU SAID EARLIER YOU MADE GOOD CHANGES TO THE CAR, CAN YOU GIVE MORE DETAILS TO THAT? “We just kept loosening the car up to make it turn better. That was kind of what we have done every round here in the past. We seem to get tighter round to round. We kept freeing it up and I messed up round two pretty bad. I got really greedy in one and drove it in there too deep, so we freed it up even more and I backed my entry up and that helped. Yeah, just trying to help it turn. That was really all we worked on all day, just getting it a little looser.”

RYAN BLANEY, No. 12 Accella/Carlisle Ford Fusion - QUALIFIED 1ST “It felt really fast. That is what you get with this night time qualifying. High speeds. That is really what you get. That is cool doing under the lights qualifying. Speeds pick up and it has been cool here today. We have had a really good Ford all day and it is nice to back it up in qualifying. It doesn't mean a lot if you are fastest in practice and blow it in qualifying. It was cool to be solid all day. Really big thanks to this whole group for giving me a really great race car and I am excited to see how it is in race trim tomorrow,”

DENNY HAMLIN, No. 11 FedEx Office Toyota Camry, Joe Gibbs Racing - Qualifying Position: 6th - Do you feel pretty good about where you’re starting? “We’d like to be a little bit further up. The Ford cars have a lot on us right now. We’re excited about it. We definitely did a good job at maximizing what we had. It got us a good starting spot and a good spot on pit road. Hopefully, we set ourselves up for a good race on Sunday.”

The Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series, NASCAR Xfinity Series and Camping World Truck Series will be in action at Texas Motor Speedway. The Monster Energy Series and Xfinity Series head into their second races of the Round of 8 in the NASCAR Playoffs, while the Camping World Truck Series enters the second race in the Round of 6.

FORT WORTH, Tex. – Ryan Blaney may have exited the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs, but that doesn’t mean the desire to win has left the driver of the No. 12 Team Penske Ford.

KYLE BUSCH, No. 18 M&M’s Toyota Camry, Joe Gibbs Racing - How aggressive do you expect this race to be? “I think there’s opportunity to be aggressive here if you want to be aggressive, but there’s a lot of risk for reward at this place, especially on restarts with as slick as we’ve seen it be, as narrow as we’ve seen it be the last few years since the repave."

MARTIN TRUEX JR., No. 78 Bass Pro Shops/5-hour ENERGY Toyota Camry, Furniture Row Racing - What were you hoping to get out of texting Joey Logano? “When things calm down, you think about it a little bit. I didn’t expect to hear from him, so I wanted to tell him how I felt.”

CHRISTOPHER BELL, No. 20 GameStop Camry, Joe Gibbs Racing - Where have your thoughts been after the last Xfinity Series race at Kansas with the first lap accident? “I’ll be honest, the days after Kansas I started to get pretty apprehensive just because nobody expected that and it’s just kind of a wakeup call, right?"