Each week, we’ll go through media reports, interviews, PR and all our own stuff to find the best quotes from the Sprint Cup race, capturing the story of how the weekend unfolded. It’s the most original commentary you’ll ever find: the truth, coming straight out of the mouths of the drivers, crew members and the car owners themselves. This week, here’s a sneak peek at what a select few were thinking following the Bank of America 500 at Lowe’s Motor Speedway outside Charlotte:
“This is an awesome racetrack; it is so much fun racing here. Turning in to victory lane here is just an incredible feeling. I don’t take anything for granted. Real proud of our guys. Everybody has been working really hard and putting a lot of effort in to it. We certainly want to put ourselves in position to win a championship, there is no question about that. Everybody keeps wanting to give somebody the trophy, you know what I mean, and it is only halfway through. It is not done yet.” – Jeff Burton
“I tried catching him (Jeff Burton) but came up a little bit short. It was a fun run. This track is great. You can move all over and do a lot of things at this race track. It was a fun race. I wish we could have got him. It was a good run. I’m glad to finish where we did. It was still a good run for our Budweiser Dodge and our first top five in a while, so that feels pretty good.” – Kasey Kahne, finished second
“It was great to see the front and sniff a little bit of the lead of the race with 25 [laps] to go. Give credit to Penske Racing and the overall group effort. The Penske Racing effort is showing signs of communication and strength in moving forward. I’m happy to finish third with the Miller Lite Dodge.” – Kurt Busch
“We still had bad luck tonight. I made a mistake and sped on pit road there on the second to last stop, and you can’t have that at the end of the race. It was unfortunate there – it was my fault this time. We battled back to a great fourth-place finish.” – Kyle Busch
“Really, for the last three months we’ve had great race cars. Everyone at Roush Fenway runs well. I mean, all of my teammates run well every single week, and we haven’t been able to put our finishes together, but we’ve had a lot of speed in our car – so I think to sit on the pole in the Nationwide race and then have a top five in the Cup race, it’s gonna make for a wonderful Sunday off.” – Jamie McMurray, finished fifth
“We just didn’t have it right those last three or four stops. The guys did a great job, great strategy. I had a chance on [Jeff] Burton, I knew I needed to get it done early or I wasn’t going to be able to hang with him. I got close, but we were just racing really and he was side drafting me pretty hard through the center of the turn. I almost lost it a couple of times and I thought ‘you know, that just doesn’t make sense right now.'” – Jimmie Johnson, finished sixth
“We put four tires on. It was my call. I felt four tires would be the right call. We had been really fast all night, but I was just too loose. I couldn’t do anything. We don’t wish any bad luck on him, but something is gonna have to happen in order for us to catch him (Jimmie Johnson).” – Greg Biffle, finished seventh
“It probably didn’t help that we had the damage already, so man, that just killed our night. I know we came back with a really nice finish, but it would have been so much better if we hadn’t had that damage. But to be able to come back from that… we just got the best thing possible we could out of it there at the end, and I’m very happy.” – Jeff Gordon, finished eighth
“Our run out there kind of came and went. There were times when we were a top-five car and there were times when we were a 20th-place car. We wound up in the top 10, and it was a good fight by the Army team. We were pretty good the last run but the run before that, we got way behind and it cost us a lot of track position. But we passed a lot of cars on the last run; it was fun.” – Mark Martin, finished ninth
“The car was real loose all night and we just couldn’t fix it. We’ve had that problem with this car. I’m proud of my guys. They threw everything but the kitchen sink at it.” – Elliott Sadler, finished 20th
“I wasn’t running real hard at all. I was actually taking it pretty easy. I would have slowed down if I knew the tire was going to blow. It just popped. I have to thank my guys and Hendrick and all the employees. They put together some good racecars. We just have had such bad luck. I am just ready to shake it.” – Dale Earnhardt Jr., finished 36th
“The guys told me that it looked like the No. 55 [Michael Waltrip] went down in the grass, got loose and come up and hit us. I guess [Ken] Schrader thought it was a green-white-checkered, I don’t know.” – Mike Skinner, finished 39th