Here's what drivers were saying after an action-packed short track race in Newton, Iowa.
William Byron — winner: "Man, how about that for some fuel mileage? We've had our fair share of things not go our way with fuel mileage, and just super thankful for Rudy, all these guys, all the engineers, all the engineers back at the shop. Just this whole race team, we've been through a lot this year. It's been a lot of growing pains. It's been tough on us. But it feels really good today to get a win. Honestly felt like we had a good car and just kind of raced it and just tried to be there at the end, and we were, and luckily the fuel was enough there at the end. I think I ran out right there. That's why I stopped. ... Yeah, I think our confidence in each other never wavered. I feel like our speed has been better than it's ever been, and that's a big reason why we stay confident. I feel like every week we work really hard together and show up prepared, show up fast, and yeah, we needed just one to go our way, and today it did. Honestly, (the races) haven't, but today it did."
Chase Briscoe — second: "First off, just want to apologize to the 45 and 20. That was a really boneheaded move on my part, and got in there and got loose and ruined their day. That's 100 percent on me. There at the end, I was running William down. I thought I was really in the catbird seat there, and I just got there and kind of stalled out. I kind of experienced that when I was leading earlier. I caught the back of the field, and same thing; as soon as I got there, I just kind of died. Yeah, unfortunate. You're kind of limited where you can go with the repave and everything, but yeah, overall great finish for our Toyota. For us to end up second was a good recovery. Our day kind of got flipped upside down whenever that caution came out and trapped us and was able to rebound. Congrats to William. He did a really good job, and go on to the next one.
Ryan Preece — fifth: "Pretty eventful. So yeah, eventful would be the word of the day. But I am super proud of everybody at RFK. Derrick and the entire group for making solid adjustments having a little bit of luck there when that caution came out and and allowed us to kind of take another shot at it. So thanks to RFK. I thought if we had a bunch of restarts, we were going to be OK because we were so so good in that third lane, but it just seemed like the long run that last run wasn't wasn't the best thing for us. When we were able to get to third, I thought we were going to have a shot at it, and it seemed like we could close in on the 19 and the 24 a little bit, and then I just got loose and when Brad was catching me, I thought of what's the best thing to do for a teammate in the company. I wanted to give him the opportunity even if it was a deficit for
us, but ultimately I look forward to Watkins Glen, Richmond and Daytona. All three of us can still get in, and it's going to take a lot of perseverance and a lot of luck but we have fast race cars, and we can get the job done."
WILL BE UPDATED
Category: General Sports
