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What Cup drivers said after Richmond win by Joey Logano

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Joey Logano — winner: “My team did a great job. The pressure was on everybody to make the right calls, to execute the runs, to have a good pit stop there. We were door-to-door pretty much onto pit road. That tested everything we had. I thought we were gonna be in good shape because the run before that we were a lot faster than (Chase Briscoe) right at the end, but we weren’t able to be the same amount of good as we wanted to be. This is the first time I’ve had all of my kids here for a win, so this is a real special one for our family. I’m looking forward to enjoying it. It’s a great recovery so far. There’s a long way to go in the season, but we can see the front from here. We’ve still got a couple more to gain some more points to set ourselves up better. I just like doing burnouts. That’s really all there is to it. I thought it was a cool opportunity to do a burnout right here. I might get my hand slapped, but it was worth it.”

Chase Briscoe — second: "Yeah, I don't know what more I needed. I thought that last run I was a little bit better than him. To get there at the end, prior run to the pit stop, I just lost brakes, got really, really loose. Gave up a three-second advantage. That was ultimately the difference. One bad run. Like I said, that was the difference maker there in the end. It's weird to be running second here. This has been a real struggle to me, this place. I think that's my first ever top 10 here even. To get close, not get it done is so frustrating. I had a really fast Toyota and wasn't able to seal the deal there in the end. The brake deal was interesting. I had great brakes. I felt like a large majority of the race it was to my advantage. I could get into the corner so deep compared to everyone. As I kind of lost that, I lost my advantage. I came not mediocre, but I wasn't quite as strong as what I needed to be to maintain there. Yeah, definitely frustrating from that standpoint, but still huge improvement from what I've been here, for sure. Go on to the next one. Yeah, that's great (to clinch a Chase spot). Obviously that was the goal. You want to be able to race for a championship. A long way to go. We need to get fifth in points. We continued to do what we needed to do from that standpoint, had a great points night. It would have been great to have 15 more points at the end. Yeah, just frustrating to say the least to have one slip away like that at the end."

Austin Cindric — third: “Yeah, that’s kind of the name of the game here, especially since they introduced this right side here last year. I thought that was one of our strengths. We could fire off good enough, but I thought I was one of the best cars, especially after about 30 laps. We were a little too good too late in the runs, but, overall, like I said, it was a much needed run for our Ford Mustang. I feel like car performance-wise, for sure. You saw that from all four of our cars. Obviously, with Joey getting the win, the 21 was super strong all night and Ryan had pace, so I think it’s important for everyone in the company and we need to keep doing it. Yeah, absolutely, I mean I think from an execution standpoint but also just car speed all weekend. With the exception of qualifying really, I’m super proud of the race car and the package. Everybody at Team Penske, all four cars that came out of that building this week were super strong. I felt like I had a car that could have won tonight and we didn’t and that’s my only frustration, but as far as the big picture goes for the season, it was a very important night for us to capitalize on a good car.”

Denny Hamlin — fourth: “Really, really good Toyota that third stage, we just had 10 seconds of extra pit stop there. Our left side jack stop was broke, so couldn’t quite get the jack up under it, so that cost us 10 seconds, and that’s right about where we ended up behind the front. Really good car that last stage, and great to overcome that to come back for a top-five.”

Chase Elliott — fifth: “I thought we were kind of hovering around seventh and eighth, somewhere in there. And then, obviously most of the field committed to three-stopping the last stage up until that caution. We elected to stay out and I know a few guys chose to pit there, put on some scuffs, and maybe burn a set of stickers. It ended up working out pretty well for us. Obviously it’s not a win, but for how things have been going the last few months, it feels nice to just have a really solid night and hopefully we can get things rolling in the right direction. There’s been a lot of hard work put in across the board; everyone on this No. 9 Chevrolet team and Hendrick Motorsports. I appreciate that effort. Everyone shows up with it each week, even after a bad day, so hopefully we can get things rolling here.”

Christopher Bell — seventh: “I mean, we weren’t really competitive enough to race for the win, but the alternate strategy kind of gave me hope. I thought it was going to be a lot closer than it was, but whenever they got to me with 20 to go or whatever, I was like dang, I thought it was going to be a lot closer to the end of the race, but it didn’t work out that way for this Toyota team. On to New Hampshire.”

Josh Berry — eighth: “It was a decent night. I felt like we left a little bit out there. We just kind of that one restart I got tight and got jammed up behind the 48 and we were one of the last cars that stayed out there. That one didn’t work out, but, all in all, the car was pretty good. For getting trapped under yellow twice and waving around and all that, it was still a solid day with stage points. We’ll just go to New Hampshire and try to do better. I don’t know (if the car was damaged on a late restart). We should have pitted, but we didn’t, and (Alex Bowman) kind of got on my outside. I got tight and then I just got ate up by the cars that had tires and then the race went green. Like I said, I’m a little disappointed with that, but nothing really went our way strategy-wise. We were always fighting from behind all night, but everybody still did a good job for another top 10. Yeah, obviously, these are a lot of good tracks for us and me, but at least I can run good at some tracks I guess, people will say. A good stretch. I’m excited to get to Loudon.”

Ross Chastain — 12th: “We just need to keep running in the top-10 like we did tonight. If we would have been doing this all summer, we would be in a lot different spot. This is way above where the summer was for this No. 1 Chevrolet team. We want more, but we’re getting better.”

Shane van Gisbergen — 14th: “We were better than what we qualified. We were making gains on our No. 97 Mitti Chevrolet throughout the race, similar to the front-half of the top-20, maybe better. And then, the strategy put us into the top-15 and gained us a lot, so that was great. The line I used during the Truck race seemed to work for us, especially when the tires wore out. I could roll the top and gain quite a few spots. Clean air, as well, seemed to work.”

Austin Dillon — 19th: “Not the night any of us wanted here at Richmond Raceway for the No. 3 Bass Pro Shops/Winchester Supreme Long Range Chevrolet. We struggled with the car’s balance the whole night despite the best efforts of the entire team, nothing they did or I did seemed to work. While we were tight in Stage 1, we trended loose the remainder of the race. I couldn’t turn, and I couldn’t get down the straight away. It felt like the car was dog tracking from the moment we took the green. It seemed like we were only able to make progress through the field in runs that were 35-40+ laps. We’re thankful for the success we’ve had here the past two years, but after tonight, we’re going back to the drawing board when we get home to Welcome, North Carolina.”

Austin Hill — 23rd: “Really proud of everyone on this No. 33 team. Our Chevrolet was strong tonight and while the finishing position does not show the full story, we had speed from the start. After the initial green flag, we steadily moved forward and I knew we were going to be in good shape. On the first green flag stop, we had a tire get away and lost a lap on our pass-through penalty. We put ourselves in position for a break but it unfortunately never came. No one gave up all night though. We consistently ran lap times that would have put us inside the top-10, so this was something to build off of moving forward.”

Ty Dillon — 32nd: "That was a tough race. We would start off good and then fall off. It felt like our rear tires would shut off after about 20 laps. We'll figure it out and get ready for New Hampshire next weekend."

AJ Allmendinger — 33rd: “We started the race in the top 15, and after about eight to 10 laps, the car was a little tight in the center and a little free off. It just continued to get tighter, and then we lost all our rear grip. We made a lot of adjustments throughout the race, trying to make it better, but I just didn’t expect it to be this tough tonight. When it went, it really went. The car was just sideways. We kept working on it all night and just kept fighting. All we could do is get what we could out of it.”

Carson Hocevar — 37th: “Really unfortunate end to a really tough night for the No. 77 Chevrolet team. We were hoping to salvage a decent finish with pit strategy in the last stage, but we had some mechanical issues the team will have to take a look at. I hate it for the guys, Chevy, and everyone at Spire. Hopefully we can turn this all around the next two weeks and bridge the points gap.”

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