NASCAR Cup PR

Pocono Gander RV 400 Preview: The Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series will return to Pocono Raceway for Sunday’s 400-mile race around the 2.5-mile “Tricky Triangle.” After a close second-place finish last weekend in New Hampshire, Hamlin and team will be looking to extend their strong form and capture the team’s third win of the season, as well as Hamlin’s fifth career victory at Pocono.

Five Toyota drivers placed inside the top 10 for a second time this season. All four Joe Gibbs Racing drivers and Matt DiBenedetto scored top-10 finishes after accomplishing the same milestone at Sonoma Raceway in June.

After earning a career high 11th-place starting position at the ‘Magic Mile’, Ricky Stenhouse Jr. cut a tire sending the Fastenal Ford into the outside wall forcing him to settle with a 36th-place finish in Sunday’s Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series race at New Hampshire Motor Speedway

WILLIAM BYRON, NO. 24 LIBERTY UNIVERSITY CAMARO ZL1 – Finished 12th YOU GUYS CAME FROM THE BACK AND BATTLED HARD FOR A DECENT FINISH “It was okay, we were just tight. We never had super-great track position and its tough to pass. I felt like our last run was decent, so going on to Pocono I think we will have a good race there.”

KEVIN HARVICK, No. 4 Busch Beer/National Forest Foundation Ford Mustang – VICTORY LANE INTERVIEW – WHAT MORE CAN THIS WIN DO FOR YOU? “We’ve run well enough a few times this year to win, but we’ve just made mistakes and to finally battle and get over that hump is a great day for everybody at Stewart-Haas Racing and everybody on the 4 car. I was really questionable about how that was gonna go and the thing took right off. The only thing that wasn’t good was we got the traffic and my car started pushing. I knew that he was gonna take a shot. I would have taken a shot. I stood on the brakes and just tried to keep it straight. I just didn’t want to get him back from the inside and let him have another shot. I wanted to at least be in control of who was gonna have contact in turn three and four. It was a heck of a finish, closer than what we wanted, but it was our only chance. I would have never done it, but that’s why he’s on the box and not me.”

HOW MUCH IS THE TRACK GOING TO CHANGE DURING THE COURSE OF THE WEEKEND? “I don’t know if it was a different mixture or what, with the grip. The grip compound feels so much different than it did last year or the year before. It’s weird, to be honest. So, I don’t know. It definitely doesn’t feel nearly as gripped-up as it has in the past. But that could also be my car.”

RICKY STENHOUSE JR., No. 17 Fastenal Ford Mustang – DO YOU HAVE A PLAN FOR MAKING THE PLAYOFFS IF YOU DON’T WIN A RACE? “Short of winning, yeah. We’ve been trying to get stage points as much as we can and we’ve been doing that the last few weeks. We had a strong car last week and cautions and pit strategy didn’t exactly work out the way that we wanted it to, but I think we were in sixth or seventh position coming to the white and, I don’t know, a couple cars got together underneath us and moved us outside the VHT and we ended up finishing 12th there, but I felt like we had a top 10 car and got to lead some laps and just build confidence that the mile-and-a-half program is where it needs to be."

CHASE ELLIOTT, NO. 9 KELLEY BLUE BOOK CAMARO ZL1 Media Breakout Session Highlights: ON THE FOLKS THAT BROADCAST THE RACES “When I think of listening to races, I just think of the picture that you guys create in someone’s head when you’re riding down the road listening to the races, is second to none. It’s been awesome to grow up around that and have the broadcasters paint the picture of what’s going on.”

“In practice in my first run I felt pretty close to good. Then in the last two runs I made, the car was just too out of the track too much. So, hopefully we will make the right adjustments on it during this little break and be good here shortly for qualifying. I don’t know if the track changed a whole bunch for us there or if the cycled tires or what. But the balance changed from round one to two.”

JOEY LOGANO, No. 22 AAA Ford Mustang – WHAT DOES IT FEEL LIKE TO COME BACK HERE AS A CHAMPION?  WHAT HAS THE REACTION BEEN LIKE?  “It’s actually been, I didn’t really think about it before I got here much because you’re kind of thinking about how do you win here, but I went out this morning for the champions breakfast that Speedway Children’s Charities does every year and to see some of the support there, and I guess that’s when it kind of hit me."