Kyle Larson, Tyler Reddick, Christopher Bell and Chase Elliott
By Roy J. Akers- www.skyviewsports.net
With NASCAR rolling into Atlanta for the first of ten playoff racers that will pare 16 drivers into a NASCAR champion, drivers sound off on this years playoffs.
Kyle Larson on What is more important – a Daytona 500 or a NASCAR championship?
“I don’t know.. that’s tough to say, right? I would like both.. I would like a Daytona 500 win and another championship. So I don’t really know how to answer that. I think for me, the next opportunity I have to add one of those to my resume would be a championship. So right now, I would say a championship. But I for sure want a Daytona 500. I think that’s the last crown jewel that’s left for me to win for my resume in NASCAR, so I would love to get that.”
Christopher Bell said the first round could be scary
What is your outlook for the first round of the Playoffs?
“I’ll be honest, the first round is the scariest it’s been in a long time with Atlanta, a superspeedway starting us off. We all know how that can go. And then we go to Watkins Glen, which should be a normal race track, but with the expected tire degradation with the tire change that we’ve had, it could be a Bristol style race where people are wearing tires out really early and struggling to make laps and having to pit all of the time. So, that could be another wild card race. And, then Bristol, I think everybody is expecting it to be more of the same as what we had in the spring. So, the first round could be very different than what we’ve seen in the past.”
Getting to Phoenix- Tyler Reddick
If you get to Phoenix, will you have some form of satisfaction?
“Winning the championship is the goal, but if you can just keep getting yourself to Phoenix and into that Championship 4, you are going to continue to put yourself in position for it to work out. Christopher (Bell) surprised a lot of us at Phoenix in the beginning of the year. We started that race off, and I felt like we were the best car, and he just figured it out and came to life in the second half of the race and ran away with it. I feel like we are close, and we can learn from what they did, and certainly, a few days removed from that race at the beginning of the year, I had a good mindset of where we need to be going back.”
Chase Elliott – Final Words
DO YOU SEE A ROUND THAT HAS MORE HAZARDS TO YOUR CHAMPIONSHIP HOPES THAN OTHERS?
“No, I think our odds are good. I don’t really take a look at a particular round being a problem any more than any other. I think that if we can just get the things that we need to do, going right, I think we can be good all the way through it. Obviously, Darlington was bad for sure. We ran way worse than we had hoped to run there. But when I look back at Pocono, Indy, and Michigan, I was really happy where we were headed. Some of those runs and some of the pace that we had, I thought it was some of the best of the year. So, I think if we can just get back to that, I think it’s great and I think that is all we have to do. I think it’s just having that type of pace and that type of competitiveness. If we are doing that, we are going to give ourselves opportunities to win and eventually they are going to go your way. So, it’s just about being there on a weekly basis. You do that, and you will get your chances.”
Roy J. Akers is a multi-media reporter and covers several sports for www.skyviewsports.net