Austin Dillon – winner: “Not bad for a silver spoon kid, right? I’ll take that. (Teammate) Tyler Reddick, he raced me clean. 1-2 for RCR – this has been coming. We’ve had good cars all year. (Crew chief) Justin Alexander and my whole crew. I’m just so happy – thank God. … To tell you the truth, it means a whole lot. Just for the family, for everybody, all of our partners. That was fun. … I definitely had to earn it.
” I just had to have confidence that in the moment we had a car that had potential. It didn’t really run well in traffic. Justin and I both talked about what kind of happened in Kentucky with Cole, the way they ran. If you can get the track position at some point, you can be fast. You saw when we got out front, we had a hot rod.
“It came down to just some restarts, not screwing up, making it happen when it counted on those restarts, getting through the gears, timing them. I had some good pushing. My buddy Kurt Busch gave me a good push that first one. Joey Logano was also a lot of help down the stretch.”
Tyler Reddick — finished second: “What a great day for Richard Childress Racing. This organization is working so hard and to have a 1-2 finish like we did is incredible. It felt like we had everything happen to our No. 8 Cat Oil and Gas Chevrolet, but strategy was king today. We had good speed overall and earned some stage points at the end of the first stage, but we got shuffled back for the majority of the second stage when we took two right side tires. That really messed with the handling of our Chevrolet and trapped us a lap down for a while. There were a couple major wrecks later in Stage 3 that we were able to miss and that helped us get our lap back to be able to contend at the end. My crew chief, Randall Burnett, made a great call to take fuel only during the caution with about 30 laps to go and that put us up front for those final restarts with our teammate, Austin Dillon. We really couldn’t ask for much more than what we got today. One spot better would have been great, but the recovery this No. 8 Cat Oil and Gas team made today was huge. We’re racing for the big picture of making the playoffs, so we have to race smart. Days like this will help us get there.”
Joey Logano — finished third: “Air-pressure. Air is what cost us there. Air-pressure in the tires, just on the splitter too much firing off. It took us 15 laps to get rolling. Our long run speed was incredible, but it took too long and the guys up front were smart, they put fuel only and kept their car off the splitter in three and four over the bumps and maintained the clean air and just couldn’t do it. I could make runs, but I’d get to three and four and start chattering up the racetrack and had these big moments. Overall, I’m proud of what the Shell/Pennzoil Ford team did today, scoring a second-place in the second stage and a third in the finish. It’s not a win, especially when you come to Texas and all the fans here. Thank you guys for coming out, but it’s not the win we were hoping for as I look at the fire in Victory Lane is super-cool, but it’s progress. We’ve had a little rough streak on these 550 races, so I’ll take it as a little bit of a momentum-builder.”
Kyle Busch — finished fourth: “It was a good finish and proud of the effort for everyone on this Interstate Batteries team. We came a long way today. We got a lot of damage on the frontend of the car that you can’t see with the eye. Going through the grass, it killed it. I thought early on in the first stage, second stage maybe that we had a second-place car and then as the day went, we just kept getting further and further behind. Still a lot of work to do. The car didn’t drive very good at all. Just was able to get something out of nothing there at the end. We’ll go to Kansas and see if we can get a win there.”
Kevin Harvick — finished fifth: “The cars were just so bad in traffic, ours was anyway — our Mobil 1 Ford Mustang. The guys did a good job of putting us in a position and doing all the things we needed to try because we got in a wreck there and had to fix the car and put tires on it and the tires just didn’t mean anything. There were a couple of slower cars out there and no one could pass them. Just really proud of our Mobil 1 Ford Mustang guys for the day and all the fight that had in them. We got a top-five out of it. You always want to win here, but it is what it is.”
Erik Jones — finished sixth: “It was kind of a weird day. I thought the Craftsman Camry was decent all day long and had good speed at times when we could get some clean air and make some passes here and there. It was kind of a struggle to make some of those passes. It was challenging there towards the end with the short runs and the restarts. Our car really took 15 laps or so to get rolling so that kind of hurt us at the end, but we’ll take it. Sixth place isn’t too bad. We needed a solid run and mistake free and that’s what we did. I thought coming into this race if we could just go in and have no mistakes and have decent speed we could run top-five and we came real close to that. We have to keep doing that. Obviously, we need to get some points, especially with two winners the last two weeks that have been from outside the Playoff picture. That kind of changes things for us. We’ll keep rolling, but a decent day for us.”
Ryan Blaney — finished seventh: “It was a strong start to the day. We were able to start on the front row and get the lead there. We pitted on the competition caution, which I thought was a good call, and that inherited us the lead later and was able to win us that stage with just being fast and being able to make up all the time. Then we were able to do the same thing in the second stage, and I thought we had a good strategy for the last stage and the caution came out maybe eight to ten laps before all the other guys that were on the different strategy would have had to pit, so that just stunk. We had to take the wave around and lined up 15th or something and could only get back to seventh in that short amount of time. It’s a disappointing finish, for sure. We had a dominant car all day, especially on long runs, but really proud of that and just unfortunate with the way it ended for us.”
Kurt Busch — finished eighth: “We had one of our best points days so far this season with the Monster Energy Camaro. We scored stage points in the first and second stages, followed by another top-10 result. I really battled a loose handling car all day, it was really difficult on the restarts and short-runs, so I really had to work my butt off there at the end with all the cautions”.
Brad Keselowski — finished ninth: “We started off really struggling and took us a little while to figure out what was wrong and about a little before halfway we made some adjustments and the car was just hitting the racetrack really bad and I couldn’t make any speed. I had to slow down a bunch in the corners, so we worked on that under yellow and kind of gave up our track position working on it and was able to work the cycle to get back up towards the lead, but still didn’t quite have enough speed. So we worked on it again some more and got up to right about fifth and sixth and that was about all we had. We ended up the last restart and got the bottom lane and fell back a spot or two to I think ninth, but, all in all, a decent finish. It’s not the day we were hoping for, but a decent finish and we keep piling in on the top 10s and top fives, which is a good feeling. Our strategy has been really good. Jeremy and I are really clicking on all of those things, just looking to be a little bit faster. If we can combine our execution with a little more speed, we’re gonna be a serious threat to win week in and week out. We’re just not quite there yet.”
Aric Almirola — finished 10th: “Man. One of these days we’ll get everything to go our way. That was my fault on the penalty, but we had such a fast car and got it back in position to compete for a win again before that caution came out. We’re still bringing fast Smithfield Ford Mustangs every weekend and we learned a lot for when we come back here and compete for a championship.”
Clint Bowyer — finished 11th: “That was a hot, tough day for sure. We worked hard all race trying to get our Rush Truck Centers Ford to turn better and the guys did a great job fixing our damage from the wreck. I didn’t know if we were going to finish because our engine temperature was so hot. They got it cooled down and we made it to the end with a good finish.”
Bubba Wallace — finished 14th: “A top-15 day for the Richard Petty Motorsports No. 43 Cash App Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 1LE team at the Texas Motor Speedway – a long, hot day that’s for sure. Proud of the efforts from our team. Cash App was on the car for the first time, so that was cool. We got Cash App a really good first finish. I thought we had a chance there. If that last caution had not come out, we maybe could have held on for a top-10 finish. But all-in-all, a great effort. Good bounce back from our last two weeks and we’ll just keep pushing to get our cars better. Shoutout again to Cash App for jumping on-board. Being a part of the sport, how cool is that? Get them their first top-15 finish and go onto the Kansas Speedway. We’ll see what we got there.”
Michael McDowell — finished 15th: “That was a long and hot day at Texas Motor Speedway. I’m really proud of my team; they did a great job. We started off really rough and the car was bouncing really bad over the bumps through Turns 3 and 4, but luckily Drew and the guys were able to work on it and get some good adjustments in; move some packer around and finally get it to where the car stopped bouncing and we were okay. From there, we were able to get back on the lead lap and come out with a Top-15. We battled hard today for 500 miles and got a good finish.”
Matt Kenseth — finished 18th: “The results unfortunately don’t show it, but the No. 42 team worked really hard today to get the McDonald’s Chevy in a position to be competitive. We started the race way too loose and it was really hard to make any passes with the car handling that way. Chad (Johnston) and the guys kept working on it, and the handling got much better during the second stage, which allowed us to race up to just outside the top-10 at the end of the second stage. We were in a good spot to start the final stage, but got some damage that affected the handling when we were caught up in that big wreck on the frontstretch. We worked as hard as we could following the damage to make the most of our day, so, proud of the team for all the effort today.”
Daniel Suarez — finished 23rd: “I want to thank everyone for all the effort today. Our Toyota Certified Used Vehicles Camry was turning pretty good the last part of the race, but it was a struggle to find grip all day, especially in traffic. We got a respectable finish out of it, but obviously we know where we’re at and we know we need to just keep working. We have a lot of work to do.”
Alex Bowman — finished 30th: “That was not the way that we needed to finish Texas. We struggled some, but overall, our ChevyGoods.com/Adam’s Polishes team was good today. Our team worked really hard on the car today and the changes during our pit stops. We were in the wrong place at the wrong time, but we will move on to Kansas this week.”
Ty Dillon — finished 35th: “I’m bummed the way today ended for my Germain Racing team. Our GEICO Camaro ZL1 1LE was really good. We battled being loose at the start of a run, but it would get better and better as the laps clicked away. My guys worked extremely hard to turn this car around from Kentucky and we were putting ourselves in position to have another solid finish. My car jumped out on me under the No. 24 and I hate it for William and his guys too. I had a little damage on the left rear and just wasn’t expecting the car to jump out on me like that. We will rebound and get after it in Kansas on Thursday. On to the next one.”
William Byron – finished 37th: “(How hard will it be to make the playoffs?) Honestly, it’s going to be tough. We just have to find speed first. We’re not really running good at all and we’ve got to figure that out. Obviously, the 13 (Ty Dillon) got up into us there and took us out, but we were pretty far back anyway. Thanks to Axalta and everybody on the team. We’ve just got to figure it out and figure it out quick before the fall.”
Cole Custer – finished 39th: “(It looked like a chain-reaction incident, right?) Yeah, I mean it’s always one of the most humbling sports you can be a part of — winning last week and part of a wreck this week. I was on the brakes as hard as I could and then the 19, I think, came down from hitting the wall. It’s just one of those things where you couldn’t go anywhere. It felt bad. I thought we were getting our Haas Automation Mustang better as the day went and was trying to keep up with the racetrack, but didn’t really have much to show for it. I thought we would have ended up pretty good right there.”
A look at the winners and losers at Texas Motor Speedway.
WINNERS
Surprise winners — Who really saw Cole Custer winning his first Cup race last weekend at Kentucky and Austin Dillon winning Sunday at Texas except for family and dedicated fans? The wins by Custer and Dillon meant two drivers outside the top 16 in points before their trips to Victory Lane each grabbed a playoff spot. That puts pressure on those at or near the cutoff line.
Richard Childress Racing — Winner Austin Dillon and runner-up Tyler Reddick gave RCR its first 1-2 Cup finish since Clint Bowyer and Jeff Burton did it at Talladega in 2011. Reddick was 15 years old when that happened.
Joey Logano — His third-place finish was his best result since he won at Phoenix, the last race before NASCAR suspended the season for 10 weeks because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Christopher Bell — His 21st-place finish doesn’t seem like much but he climbed from 25th to 23rd in car owner points. That’s important because the starting lineup draw is based on car owner points. Those in positions 1-12 are eligible for the pole, those in positions 13-24 can draw for those spots and those in positions 25-36 draw for those spots. Bell had been stuck in the 25-36 group and had drawn 32nd of worse in the last seven races that had a random draw. Now, he knows he can start no worse than 24th on Thursday at Kansas.
Kyle Busch — He drove through the grass in that multi-car crash and rebounded to finish fourth. Busch said going through the grass “killed the front end” and that the car was “definitely not right after that.” Asked by NBCSN’s Dave Burns how he drove his car to a top-five finish after that damage, Busch responded: “KFB.”
LOSERS
Quin Houff — Trying to head to pit road from the middle lane in Turn 4 led to contact with Christopher Bell and Matt DiBenedetto and created a late caution that changed the race’s complexion. Houff took blame for the mistake. The incident led to Brad Keselowski, responding to a reporter’s question about that caution, to note that NASCAR should consider demoting drivers when they’re involved in numerous on-track issues.
Jimmie Johnson — Hit the wall early and then is penalized two laps for too many crew members servicing the car while under the Damaged Vehicle Policy. He placed 26th, finishing 12 laps behind the leaders. Worse for him, he holds what would be the final playoff spot by two points on teammate William Byron.
Ryan Preece — He has finished 40th, 38th and 40th in his last three races.
Ryan Blaney — Led 150 laps and won both stages but didn’t come up with the race win. The caution for the incident involving Houff, Bell and DiBenedetto impacted his team’s strategy and left him deep in the pack. Blaney finished seventh.
Ryan Blaney did pretty much everything he needed to do in Sunday’s NASCAR Cup race at Texas Motor Speedway.
He won both stages, led a race-high 150 laps and appeared to have the car to beat to take his second win of the season.
Except for one thing, which proved to be his undoing. In the final stage, he and his team gambled to pit early under green. The gamble didn’t pay off. Several laps later, when others pitted under caution and got newer tires, Blaney was shuffled back to 15th when he did the wave around with about 20 laps to go and started behind those cars that had pitted.
By that point, he said there wasn’t enough time to make it back to the front, leaving him to settle for a seventh-place finish.
It was just another episode where Blaney and his team have come up short this season. Instead of multiple wins, he has won.
“I thought we had a good strategy for the last stage and the caution came out maybe eight to 10 laps before all the other guys that were on this different strategy would have had to pit,” Blaney said. “So, disappointing finish for sure. Dominant car all day, especially on long runs, but really proud of our effort. It’s just unfortunate the way it ended for us.”
Meanwhile, Austin Dillon won the race, and Kevin Harvick and Denny Hamlin continue to lead the Cup Series with four wins apiece.
MORE: Austin Dillon wins Texas NASCAR Cup race
MORE: Brad Keselowski raises point on if drivers should be demoted from Cup
MORE: What drivers said after Texas
“I don’t know what the opposite material of Golden Horseshoe is, but we found it,” Blaney said. “Just kind of been unlucky a lot of the year. We’ve had really fast cars, it’s just cautions when we didn’t need them or just bad breaks.
“We feel like we should have four or five wins at this point, we’ve had the cars to do it, it just doesn’t play out for us. But I’m proud of the speed we have. I feel like we can compete with (Harvick and Hamlin) and some of the best guys that have gotten all those wins this year.
“We’ve just got to be able to have things go our way. So I feel like we’re doing a lot of things right, it’s just some bad circumstances.
“It’s frustrating when it happens. You’re like, man, bad break after bad break. Gosh, what the hell do we have to do to have things go our way?
“There’s really two ways you can approach it. You can be upset and ticked off that things aren’t going your way, or you can just think about the good things, that our cars are really fast right and we’ve been capable to win a lot of races this year, it just hasn’t played out for us. You just have to focus on what you need to do and that’s just keep bringing fast race cars, if you keep running up front and leading laps, I hope and think that things will eventually go our way.”
Then, Blaney concluded about Sunday’s outcome: “I’m already over it. I’m going to go to bed and when I wake up, (I’ll) look forward to Kansas (on Thursday night).”
Austin Dillon used pit strategy and strong restarts late to win Sunday’s Cup race at Texas Motor Speedway, marking the second consecutive weekend a driver outside a playoff spot won and secured a spot in the postseason.
Dillon’s third career Cup victory snapped an 88-race winless streak. It was his first win since the 2018 Daytona 500.
Dillon’s Richard Childress Racing teammate Tyler Reddick finished second. He was followed by Joey Logano, Kyle Busch and Kevin Harvick.
MORE: Race results
MORE: What drivers said after the race
MORE: Brad Keselowski raises point of if drivers should be demoted from Cup
Dillon gained track position with a two-tire pit stop on Lap 307 and restarted second to Reddick, who took no tires.
“I thought more guys would do two (tires),” said Dillon’s crew chief, Justin Alexander. “I honestly was not expecting to be starting on the front row for that first restart.”
Said Dillon of Alexander deciding to change only two left-side tires on that last pit stop: “The call was the win.”
Dillon took the lead from Reddick on Lap 312 of the 334-lap race. Dillon held off the field on the final two restarts, the final one with two laps to go.
Afterward, Dillon went to the infield care center for treatment. The race was held in 90-plus degree weather and NBCSN’s coverage showed the temperature inside cars above 135 degrees. Dillon said in his winner’s interview with NBCSN: “I’m out of breath right now. I’m about to go down. I need a drink.”
Dillon said he received IVs after the race.
The race was stopped after Lap 219 for a crash that included Martin Truex Jr., Chris Buescher, Cole Custer, Aric Almirola, Kurt Busch, Kyle Busch, Kevin Harvick, Bubba Wallace, William Byron, Ricky Stenhouse Jr., Matt Kenseth, Clint Bowyer and Ryan Preece. Cole, Truex and Buescher suffered the most damage. Kyle Busch went through the infield grass and had minor damage. Harvick and Kurt Busch each had minor fender damage. The crash started when Ryan Blaney got loose in Turn 4 and bottled up the field as it came down the frontstretch.
“It’s always one of the most humbling sports you can be a part of,” Custer said on NBCSN about being eliminated in the crash a week after winning his first Cup race.
STAGE 1 WINNER: Ryan Blaney
STAGE 2 WINNER: Ryan Blaney
WHO HAD A GOOD RACE: Richard Childress Racing went 1-2 with Austin Dillon winning and Tyler Reddick finishing second. This was RCR’s first 1-2 finish in a Cup race since 2011 at Talladega Superspeedway when Clint Bowyer won and Jeff Burton was second) … Joey Logano’s third-place finish was his best result since he won at Phoenix in March, the last Cup race before the season was suspended by the COVID-19 pandemic. … Kyle Busch’s fourth-place finish was his best result since his runner-up finish at Atlanta in early June. … Aric Almirola overcame brake problems and a penalty for violating the blend line to finish 10th, marking his seventh consecutive top-10 result.
WHO HAD A BAD RACE: Cole Custer, who scored his first Cup win last weekend at Kentucky, was collected in the multi-car crash that brought out the red flag after Lap 219 and finished 39th in the 40-car field. … Jimmie Johnson hit the wall and then was penalized two laps for too many crew members servicing the car while it was under the Damaged Vehicle Policy.
NOTABLE: Ryan Blaney led 150 laps. He’s led at least 100 laps in a race seven times in his career but failed to win all seven of those races.
NEXT: The series races Thursday night at Kansas Speedway (coverage begins at 6:30 p.m. ET on NBCSN)
Brad Keselowski says that NASCAR should consider a system where drivers are removed from Cup when they have repeated on-track issues.
Keselowski made his comments after Sunday’s race at Texas Motor Speedway when he was asked about rookie Quin Houff causing a caution on Lap 307 of the 334-lap race. Houff cut down from the middle lane in Turn 4 to head to pit road. He made contact with Christopher Bell and Matt DiBenedetto to bring out the caution.
Austin Dillon took two tires during that caution and restarted second to teammate Tyler Reddick, who took fuel only. Dillon took the lead and held the field off on two more restarts to win his first Cup race since the 2018 Daytona 500.
Asked about how a random incident such as Houff’s changed the race’s outcome, Keselowski said “there are two ways to look at it.”
Keselowski acknowledged the incident helped create “a more entertaining finish, so if you like chaos, then that was good.”
But Keselowski had another view of the matter.
“I think on the other side of that there’s the, ‘Hey, I’m a professional race car driver that’s worked my entire career to get here,’ ” he said. “Had to jump through a lot of hoops to make it and would like to think that those efforts have created a spot for me in this series to be joined with peers of similar talent levels.’
“I have nothing personal against anyone that has an issue like that because they do happen from time to time, but there are certainly a handful of drivers that kindly I wonder exactly how they got to this level. Part of it plays into all the rules. When you’ve got this rules package with cars that are super easy to drive by themselves, it’s very hard for NASCAR, I think, to be able to tell who’s got it and who doesn’t.
“So it kind of puts them in a box until you actually get in a race, but one thing I would like to see, and I think I’ve been pretty consistent with this, is I would like to see drivers be able to graduate into this level and equally I’d like to see them be able to be removed from this level when they have repeated issues.
“I can’t speak enough to the gentleman that had that issue today, but I have seen in the past where drivers that have had this issue multiple times somehow are still here, where I think they should effectively be placed in a lower series or asked to go back to a more minor league level to prove their salt. But that’s ultimately not my decision to make. It’s what I would like to see, but it’s not my decision to make and until it is, I guess I should probably just shut up, but I certainly think there’s some merit to it.”
Houff posted a video on social media taking blame for the incident with Bell and DiBenedetto.
“We were trying to get to pit road and I didn’t get called off in time and the guys that were committed underneath me were already there and that’s my fault,” Houff said. “I had a spotter mirror that we use in the window on the left side of the car and it had fallen off, so I couldn’t see out of that. Rookie mistake. It’s one of those really tough learning instances. It’s unfortunate because it was a new car for us. … Only way to go is up.”
Really tough one to swallow… Hate this for my team and those I got into trying to get to pit road too late. Will just learn from this and move forward. I can’t thank @StarcomRacing and @Permatex enough for all their hard work and support. Onto @kansasspeedway pic.twitter.com/HEIcMIwvFf
— Quin Houff (@P1_Houff) July 19, 2020
The incident was the third time Houff has caused a caution in the last nine Cup races. He had an incident in the first Pocono race where he spun while underneath another car and hit the inside SAFER barrier. The StarCom Racing Twitter account stated that Houff was alongside another car and the air sucked the car around. Houff tweeted that day “Embarrassing my @StarComRacing guys don’t deserve that. We will be back stronger tomorrow!” Houff also was listed on NASCAR’s race report as being in an incident at Martinsville in June.
Houff also has had better moments on the track this season. He finished a season-best 23rd at Indianapolis, a race that saw Ryan Newman, Erik Jones, Alex Bowman and Denny Hamlin crash because of right front tire issues.
The 22-year-old Houff has 35 career Cup starts. He ran 17 races last season and has run all 18 races this year for StarCom Racing. He had 10 Xfinity starts, no Truck starts and five ARCA starts before he moved to Cup in 2019.
Kyle Busch raised a similar concern about some drivers at Las Vegas in last year’s playoffs. Busch was upset after contact with Garrett Smithley. Busch said after the race: “We’re at the top echelon of motorsports, and we’ve got guys who have never won Late Model races running on the racetrack. It’s pathetic. They don’t know where to go. What else do you do?”
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