Race Weekend Central

Quotes to Remember: Toyota Owners 400

“That was a heck of a first lap of the restart. I thought that the outside line might have the advantage because it had a couple of guys with new tires in the second row, and lined up on the outside. But the two tires – these cars drive a lot off the left rear – and we only took two tires, and they didn’t get that great of restart but my car launched, and I was able to drive it in the first corner and hope for the best down there. I figured four, eight, 12…how many ever tires that were on the outside of me would be better than none. It all worked out, and here we are.” Kevin Harvick, winner

“We had a good car — we just didn’t have a great car. It seemed like we were just too tight on the throttle — it wouldn’t quite turn and come up off. It really got wild there at the end — I was just lucky enough to be on the bottom. They started making holes up there in front of me and the seas parted, and I just followed suit behind (Kevin) Harvick. It was a good run. Thanks to Toyota for coming on board to sponsor this race — wish we could have won the Toyota race, but second’s not bad.” Clint Bowyer, finished second

“Pissed off. Everybody on the Depend Chevy this week did an amazing job. We had a great car. Same as last week, we had a great car. The pit crew redeemed themselves tonight. They did a great job all day, no mistakes. That is what we needed. We needed to come out of here and do with everybody smart, as he did. It is the luck of the draw. We restarted on the outside, and we were screwed.” Juan Pablo Montoya, fourth

“We were seventh there; thought I had the No. 22 (Joey Logano) beat before the caution came out. The caution came out and what the heck, we might as well try something. Luke (Lambert) made a good call there, and obviously new tires a lot better. But, worth a shot. We were going to maybe finish sixth without the caution so to pick up a spot from it was worth a shot.” Jeff Burton, finished fifth

“At a track like this track position is so important and we saw that at the end there. All in all it was a great night and we had a fast race car and some really hard racing. I had a blast and the middle 50-percent of the race or so was about as much fun as I’ve ever had at Richmond.” Carl Edwards, finished sixth

“It was up and down. In the beginning of the race, we were real strong and in the middle of the race we probably had a fifth to sixth-place car or something like that. We got it pretty good again. That last restart, just being on the outside and the 78 (Kurt Busch) drove up through there and knocked my whole side off and put me in the marbles. Just two laps, everybody is going to go for it and go for every hole they’ve got. That’s the best I could do so it looks like if I could have drawn the inside line instead of the outside line then maybe I could have ran second. Just starting on the top you knew they were going to be three and four-wide and it was just tough.” Matt Kenseth, finished seventh

“That was incredible and a lot of hard work. Great day by our guys who never gave up. That is what it takes in this series. You can not give up. At one point we were almost a lap down. We were in big trouble and Todd Parrott made so many adjustments and kept making it better and better and better. There at the end we were a solid top seven car and I was really proud of that. That was a great run for us in the hometown of Smithfield and I am really proud of that.” Aric Almirola, finished eighth

“It was an awesome run just to be in the top-five all night. Just nice and steady, waiting for the race to come to us. We didn’t make many adjustments on the Furniture Row car. We were hoping to be on the right sequence at the end. Some guys had older tires. Some guys had newer tires. We were in the mixed. A green-white-checkered at the end, it is just chaos. Cars are everywhere. People are beating and banging and shoving each other out of the way. It’s pretty wild.” Kurt Busch, finished ninth

“We fought the car all night long and finally got some track position back — we fought really hard for that. It’s a shame to get to where we were there and get spun. A little bit disappointed, but that’s the way it goes on short tracks I guess. I’ll remember if we get in that position again what I’ll do to Kurt (Busch).” Martin Truex Jr., finished 17th

“We had just a solid day. We started 20th and finished 20th. You would look at that and think it was a slow day. Actually at times we had a top-12, top-14 car, but when we were off-sequence on the leaders we were around 25th and 30th. But we did a good job on pit road and we never gave up. We worked hard all night, and maybe left a few spots on the table, but all in all it was a good night for us.” David Ragan, finished 20th

“Something broke in the engine. It was a long day but I felt we were going to get something out of it. We had a bad pit stop and then blew a tire and drove back up to the front. I thought I had a tire going down again and didn’t and got the Lucky Dog and got back out there thinking we would still have a top-10 or top-five day. Then whatever happened with the engine. It was just one of those deals and a long day but we kept finding a way to get back through all the adversity but there was nothing we could do about the last one.” Brad Keselowski, finished 33rd

“We just got caught up in an accident. The effort by these guys was tremendous. We worked on this car all night, we were competitive and I think we were getting it better and better as the race went on. Would have liked to have been in the mix there at the end.” Mark Martin, finished 38th

“This is so disappointing for us. It appears we’ve blown an engine. We’ve had fantastic power from Ford Racing and Roush Yates Engines so we can’t complain. It’s just the racing gods aren’t on our side this year. We were fast tonight and ran top 10. We are proud of that and will have to regroup and go to Talladega.” Marcos Ambrose, finished 42nd (Engine Failure)

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