Cup drivers talk about the Coca-Cola 600 and more
By Roy J. Akers — www.skyviewsports.net
Charlotte, N.C. — Plenty of media availabilities at Charlotte Motor Speedway as NASCAR Hall-of-Fame Drivers Jimmie Johnson, and Jeff Gordon took questions from the media. Kyle Larson and William Byron signed extensions with their respective teams and all is well with Hendrick Motorsports. We specifically asked Kyle Busch about his winless streak and when he breaks it, William Byron on the team having four drivers in the top eight and the Watermelon Man about his driving style. Let’s drop the green flag and get started.
Kyle Busch and Richard Childress
My question to Kyle Busch on if his winless streak is humbling and the party after he wins.
Kyle, obviously you’ve won a lot in your career, and this is probably the only wall you’ve had. Has this been humbling at all? And when you do win again, I imagine that Richard Childress Racing is going to have one heck of a party.
“Yeah, absolutely. We certainly have a winery and a champagne bistro there that we can get plenty of booze to have a good time. I’m excited for the next win when it is. We want to get back to that as soon as possible. It has been a little bit humbling, I would say. I feel like there’s added times where it’s motivation, and it gets you to have that itch of being able to want to get back to Victory Lane and to work as hard as it possibly needs to be. Trust me, my wife, she sees that as well, too, where I’m gone a little bit more than what I was, and so she’s on the fact of this better be worth it!”
William Byron on the Strength of Hendrick Motorsports
All four Hendrick Motorsports teams are now in the top-eight points, and it looks like you talk about the ups and falls of the season, but I imagine that you and the team must feel really good about where they’re at right now going into the playoffs and into the future…
“Yeah, like Chad (Knaus) sent us some stats this week just of how well we’ve been running as a group. I think that’s true, but at the same time, I think there’s a couple cars out there that are still the fastest every week. Usually one of us is in that mix… a lot of times it’s been Kyle (Larson), sometimes it’s been me, sometimes it’s been Chase (Elliott) or Alex (Bowman).
So, yeah, I think for me personally, I still want to chase those couple cars that are, I would say, the standard at some of the different tracks. Like when we go to short tracks, it seems like the No. 20 car and the No. 22, the No. 12 or the No. 11 are really strong. So when we come to the bottom-half, I think Kyle’s been the standard and we’ve been kind of just a notch close to that.
So, yeah, I think it’s good. We’re all running really consistent, which is great. That’s very difficult to do. We share notes really well, so I feel like all of our setups are probably really, really close. And in some ways, our driving styles are pretty close, too.
This Next Gen era is just becoming all about execution. So, you know, pit road is becoming critical strategy. The difference in first and 10th is really small right now, so trying to figure out that next little notch to be a top-three car, which I feel like we’ve been on the No. 24. But we just got to keep pushing forward.”
Ross Chastain on Drivers Frustration with his driving
Historically, or at least the last few years, your competitors have kind of voiced their displeasure about your driving and stuff. But in recent weeks, it feels like you’ve gotten a lot of flowers from them complimenting you for kind of, you know, being able to take a car that maybe doesn’t have a lot of speed and finishing well. What is it like kind of being on the other end of that when you’re getting some praise and everything, or kind of just how you’re working and running well with a car that maybe shouldn’t be finishing where it is?
“Well, I can’t drive a slow car fast, so I’ve got fast cars when you see us go forward. As far as what other people say, no real thoughts there. We get out of these race cars, and you saw it with Joey (Logano) last week — he gets out and he sprays all this stuff, and then he watches it, and he’s like, oh, whoops. Most of the time, we don’t really take accountability for what we say, good or bad. So yeah, I see some of it, I do… but yeah, as far as the car goes, I can only go forward when it’s handling right. You see that in anything. The truck race last night, go backwards when the balance is off, and go forward when the balance is right. You see that same thing in the Cup car. We go forward when we get it right.”
