| Post-Race Driver Quotes:Ross Chastain, No. 1 Trackhouse Racing ChevroletFinished: 1stIs this a ‘pinch me moment’ when you think about what happened on Saturday with the car? You started 40th and you ended up in first… “They built a whole new car. They were there when I left the broadcast yesterday, and I drove straight to the shop and sat in this car. It was just a chassis and a body, no wrap. Three-quarters of the suspension was on it. They were on the Hawkeye, and they were just trying to piece it together because the other one was destroyed. So, it took us the entire race — 590-something miles, to get to the lead. Holy cow, we just won the Coca-Cola 600. For our No. 1 Jockey Chevy team, for Busch Light, Acceptance Insurance, Wendy’s, the Moose; it’s so cool to do it on Memorial Day. This race is so big.. the Coca-Cola 600. To think about what this weekend means, I drive for a veteran owner in the Truck Series, Al Niece, and he tells me stories. He tells me some, but he doesn’t tell me all. We were in Texas sitting around the campfire and he talks about how proud he is of this country and how he served. I know how proud so many of our service men and woman are, and the ones that didn’t get to come home and paid the ultimate sacrifice, we raced for them this weekend and it’s because of them that we get to race. We get to race the Coca-Cola 600 and we just won it!” Austin Dillon, No. 3 Richard Childress Racing ChevroletFinished: 20th“We had a really solid Bass Pro Shops/Winchester Chevrolet tonight at Charlotte Motor Speedway. I’m proud of this RCR team for all the work they did after practice and qualifying on Saturday to give us something competitive for tonight. Crew chief Richard Boswell made great calls to keep up with the adjustments on our Chevy, and we had a car capable of running in the top five. Unfortunately, it came down to fuel mileage at the end and we ran out with two laps to go while running 10th. Disappointed, but overall, we had a solid car and our handling tonight was an improvement over where we’ve been the last few races. I want to thank Bass Pro Shops and Winchester for everything they do for our military and allowing us to honor our heroes this weekend with a patriotic paint scheme. It meant a lot to be able to race with United States Army Staff Sergeant Sean Gregory Landrus on our windshield header, and John A. Morris above the door.” Kyle Larson, No. 5 Hendrick Motorsports ChevroletSidelined by damage sustained in an accident on 247.Finished: 37th Larson on the accident that ended his day early at Charlotte Motor Speedway: “I don’t know.. I saw smoke and I tried to get left through the infield and I just didn’t get far enough left. I got tagged and it ended our night. Just a bummer of a day all around. I just got super loose into turn three out of nowhere early in the race. I caught the wall and got some toe damage. I thought the No. 5 HendrickCars.com Chevrolet team did a great job in getting us back to where we were somewhat comfortable there the last 200 laps. We just needed to kind of chip away at it and I thought we could still end up OK. Just not the day that I wanted, but huge thanks to Rick and Linda Hendrick, all of Hendrick Motorsports, Arrow McLaren, Chevrolet, everybody involved in making the day memorable. It’s just unfortunate, but hopefully we can run it back someday.” Chase Elliott, No. 9 Hendrick Motorsports ChevroletFinished: 6th“We had a really good No. 9 NAPA Chevrolet. Pit road was amazing. We gained spots on pit road all day, but I would give them right back on the next restart. I just needed to be better.” Are you confident going into Nashville Superspeedway next weekend? “I am. We were making really good pace right there in the end. I just gave up too much on the restarts.” Ty Dillon, No. 10 Kaulig Racing ChevroletFinished: 19th “I honestly think that was probably the worst result we could have got for the car that we had. We had it really fast Grizzly Nicotine Pouches Chevrolet, so that’s the positive, but everything that could go wrong on pit road went wrong. It’s frustrating, we’ve got to get it cleaned up. We can all work better, including myself, to clean it up. We just didn’t catch a break at the end either with the lucky dog and no caution, but still happy with our speed.” AJ Allmendinger, No. 16 Kaulig Racing ChevroletFinished: 4thHow much did you really have to fight for it because you almost made it look easy. “The No. 16 LeafFilter Gutter Protection Chevrolet was good all night. We ran inside the top-five, top-six through most of the race. We needed a little bit more to get to the next level, but I’m super proud of everyone at Kaulig Racing. We had a tough three weeks there, but it’s great to come back and show up with a lot of speed. I told Sgt. Nicole Gee that’s on the side of our race car, I told her family I was going to do everything I could to try to get them in victory lane. It was close! It meant a lot to be able to meet her family. We know what this day is truly about, so I’m proud I could give her a great ride. Almost got all of us to victory lane.” William Byron, No. 24 Hendrick Motorsports ChevroletFinished: 2ndRight at the end, though, with eight laps to go, what was going through your mind as you tried to form an attack and go after that No. 1 car there?“Well, I was just defending. He (Ross Chastain) was catching me, and I was trying to just defend. I was getting a little bit tight. Then the scenario there with the cars we were around, it was tough. So, yeah, he got a run on me and was able to get to the bottom and clear me off of (turn) two. Disappointing just to lead that many laps, but such a great effort by the No. 24 Axalta Chevrolet team. I guess I just could have anticipated that last run a little better. I ran in dirty air for a long time and heated my tires up. Then we lost a chunk of time, and the No. 45 (Tyler Reddick) about crashed in front of us. We’ll just keep going and keep trying to put races together like that.” Michael McDowell, No. 71 Spire Motorsports ChevroletFinished: 7th “It was a great night for the No. 71 Veterans 1001 Chevrolet team. I was bummed out about my mistake there early on with missing the pit box. We had a lot of speed in our Chevrolet, so really thankful for everyone at Spire Motorsports. I hate it for Carson (Hocevar). He was up there racing for the win. Not sure what happened there, but it was unfortunate for them. I was thankful to get back up to the front after a long night. It was just a big mistake on my part. I’m thankful… thankful to get a top-10 and miss some of the wrecks there. I’m really proud of the speed we had. We’ll try to build some momentum here and head to Nashville (Superspeedway).” Connor Zilisch, No. 87 Trackhouse Racing ChevroletFinished: 23rd“It was a really long day. My goal was to come in and run all the laps, and we did that. Finishing 23rd isn’t horrible.. probably better than I was expecting. We got some damage when Jimmie (Johnson) had an issue and spun into us, and that kind of hurt us for the rest of the day. I felt like we were actually pretty good during the first stage and we were making up ground. But nonetheless, really proud of Trackhouse Racing. It’s so cool to see Ross (Chastain) win such a big race, and I’m very thankful to be able to get this opportunity to run in the Cup Series again with Red Bull and Trackhouse Racing.” Shane van Gisbergen, No. 88 Trackhouse Racing ChevroletFinished: 14th“We’ve just been chipping away the last few weeks; getting better and better. I feel like we’ve just been growing in confidence. We’ve been a bit under the radar, but we had some good pace there. Unfortunately when Daniel (Suarez) and Ryan (Blaney) wrecked, I had to go across the infield and it damaged something underneath and we were really tight. There were about five of them jumping on the front splitter to get it back down, but it wasn’t quite the same. A lot of the cars we finished behind, we were better than them, but it was promising.” |
Chevrolet’s season statistics with 13 NASCAR Cup Series races complete: