Welcome to Running Their Mouth! Each week, we’ll go through media reports, interviews, PR and all of 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 car owners themselves. This week, here’s a sneak peek at what they all were thinking following the Gillette Fusion ProGlide 500 at Pocono Raceway:
“I knew I just had to conserve my car the first half. We rode about third for most of the race up until the halfway point, then we just turned it up when we needed to and it just was a great feeling. I hated to see that last caution – really got my nerves going. But, I’ll tell you, I can’t thank this FedEx team enough. Just great stops on pit road all day and everything just went our way.” – Denny Hamlin, race winner
“That was an extremely long race for us. The first 100 laps went pretty eventless. I knew Denny [Hamlin] was making laps, trying to work on our car, wasn’t really pushing the car, but made it difficult to adjust knowing that he was leaving a little bit out. But, you get through the first half of the race here at Pocono clean – you know the second half is going to get pretty active. I was real concerned about that. It turned out to be that way.
“You had different tire strategies, fuel strategies, then you had guys on three different sequences of tires at the end of the day to add to a pretty eventful end to the race. Track position was key. I think the key for us winning that race was two restarts that Denny made when we gave up track position. You didn’t want to give up track position, but you needed fuel at some point.” – Mike Ford, winning crew chief
“People say you have three different cars, but really truly it takes great teamwork at this level. I think it’s been Kyle [Busch] at some mile-and-a-half stuff helping Denny. I think right now both of them have really helped Joey [Logano]. Joey, I thought this was probably his best race today. We were extremely disappointed with what happened there. But I think right now teamwork has been the key for us.
“We’re thrilled about where we are… but this can all turn on a dime. We know how pro sports are. I’m never confident; I don’t think anybody on our team feels like we’ve arrived for sure. But we’ve had a good seven, eight weeks here. That’s hard to do in pro sports.” – Joe Gibbs, winning team owner
“It’s cool to have us all running like that where we can do it and have a shot to win every week. Yeah, it’s bittersweet we didn’t get a victory. But if you’re going to lose to anybody around this place, it’s certainly going to be the No. 11 (Denny Hamlin).” – Kyle Busch, finished second
“Not a beautiful day by any means, but we got where we needed to in the end. We got some track position and we had a pretty good car when we got there. I wasn’t very good in traffic and a lot of guys were racing like a bunch of idiots out there today.” – Tony Stewart, finished third
“Restarts were idiotic today. I’ve seen some of the worst driving I’ve ever seen in my life in a professional series right here today. So for anybody that’s looking for drama for the next couple races, start looking, ’cause I can promise I’m going to start making the highlight reel the next couple weeks.” – Tony Stewart, on the racing Sunday
“I got into [Joey Logano] there going into [turn] 3 and he just races with not giving people any respect and not much room. So, we just wound up getting together. It’s unfortunate, but that’s the way it goes.” – Kevin Harvick, finished fourth
“It’s disappointing, to be honest with you; we had a top-five run going with the Home Depot Toyota. I was pretty pumped up about it. Racing the [No.] 29 (Kevin Harvick); he let me go in the middle of the straightaway and then decided to dump me in the next turn. I don’t know what his problem is with me, but it’s probably not his fault. His wife wears the firesuit in the family and tells him what to do.
“It’s probably not his fault… I’m going to go to the NASCAR hauler and I guess they are going to tell me what I’m supposed to do. We will just have to see… [Joe and JD Gibbs] just said to calm down, you know we finished 13th. We rallied back from 30th in two laps, so at least we got something out of it. Not a top five like we should have finished, but it is what it is. I don’t know what I ever did to [piss] him off, but he is apparently stupid.” – Joey Logano, finished 13th
“It wasn’t much fun at all, to be honest with you. There’s so much to lose and so much chaos on the track. It’s one thing when you’re at Bristol going 100 mph; but when you’re running 200 mph and seeing some of these moves, it was pretty crazy and I hope everybody is all right on the backstretch.” – Jimmie Johnson, finished fifth, on the wild ending
“I am not really sure what happened. Kasey [Kahne] had such a run on me, and I went to defend. By the time I defended, he was in the grass. That is my bad. I feel bad about that, I really do. It is what it is, though.” – AJ Allmendinger, finished 10th
“We had a fast car all day; it is just a shame that it had to end the way it did. It was looking like we were going to finish decently. I thought we had a better car than where we were going to end up, but still we would have been better than how it did end up. I don’t know what AJ was doing there. I don’t ever really talk to him much, but you can bet I will be talking to him this week.” – Kasey Kahne, finished 27th
“I don’t know what his deal is. He totally caused that whole thing. If he is driving that blue car with the No. 43 on the side that put Kasey into the grass then yeah, it is on him. He ran him down on the grass. You can’t run a guy down on the grass. You can’t run your teammate down onto the grass. That is horrible. He could have backed out of that before he put him down like that.” – Greg Biffle, finished 28th
“Everything is so aero sensitive that it just made us bad, bad loose all day. We lost a lap before we were finally able to come in and fix it. Then I got back in the fence again with it. To come home 15th is a lot better than we were looking at most of the day.” – David Reutimann, finished 15th
The Frontstretch Staff is made up of a group of talented men and women spread out all over the United States and Canada. Residing in 15 states throughout the country, plus Ontario, and widely ranging in age, the staff showcases a wide variety of diverse opinions that will keep you coming back for more week in and week out.