Home US SportsNASCAR What drivers said after Brickyard 400 win by Corey Heim

What drivers said after Brickyard 400 win by Corey Heim

by

Corey Heim — winner: “That was a damn handful. I was hanging on for dear life once the shade went down and the pace picked up. My car got really loose, and I never really be in a lot of clean air throughout the day. So that was the hardest I’ve ever fought in my life just to make sure I focused on exits and keep him in dirty air. That was a workout. This is a dream come true. Winning at the Brickyard, that is unbelievable. Thank you so much, fans, for coming out here. That was awesome. Oh my gosh. I had a break early with the pit cycle and just executed. Made not mistakes all day, my pit crew and my team 23XI did a fantastic job with my Camry. I just had to be aggressive (on the restart). It’s for the win. I’d have to see it back to see if I really did anything wrong, but I think we both know we’re racing for the win. I think he has every right to be a little frustrated with me. But I think he would have done the same thing. Just had to be on top of it. Got a good push from (Joey Logano) to be next to him and just, man. It’s crazy.”

Christopher Bell — second: “Honestly, I didn’t think I’d be able to get there at all. My guys were telling me (Heim) was going loose and I knew that really that was going to be my only opportunity was going to be a mistake from him. I just needed one bobble. If he would have had one bobble, I was going to be able to get there. He did a great job. He showed excellent mental toughness and put together 35 really good laps, and I didn’t have the opportunity. This is a good second place. We’ve had a lot of bad second-place finishes, but this one is a good one. We were buried after qualifying. Adam did a great job with strategy to get us up there. Just proud of Adam, proud off this team. We pulled together a really good day. We’ve run second a lot, there’s been bad seconds, but this was a pretty good day.

Advertisement

Denny Hamlin — fourth: “Everyone’s trying to fight to win the race. When you’re clear by an inch, you’re going to take that inch. It’s really more on us, (Bell) and (Chase Briscoe) to just not orchestrate good pushes there. We became detached at the wrong time. I thought (Bell) was on board with giving us the push, it was just way too early before the restart zone, and I can’t go until I get to the restart zone. He said Briscoe was on him way, way early or laying back. That’s how you lose them. These restarts, when everyone know you’re going to go, it’s about the pushes. That’s essentially how I got the lead. It just came back the other way around. I maybe was in there just a hair into Turn 2, and he shut the door, but everyone’s fighting for a big Brickyard victory. It’s earned on their side, and it’s on us as a team on the other side. I’m sure maybe I could have done something different with the restart on the timing of it, but man, just getting a shove so early didn’t allow me to get my car straight before taking off and Logano really timed the bump (to Heim). But I don’t know what we do different. Just part of circumstances and the inside line didn’t get organized. But really proud of 23XI overall. That part-time effort that Bootie and Corey put together. Most times at the racetrack, they’re the fastest car. They’re just doing a heck of a job. Definitely a well-deserved victory.”

Carson Hocevar — ninth: “The first caution just kind of put us into a bad spot on fuel. The reason why we took tires was just because we were going to have to wait on fuel, so we might as well just put four on. I was able to pass three cars, which might have been the most in the field, it seemed like. When we got our No. 77 Chevrolet in clean air, we were kind of in our own zip code. Our lap times there at the end, we were way faster than most of the field. Overall, it was a good points day for this team. We were the top Chevy of the field, results-wise, and now were the top Chevy in the points standings, so that’s pretty good for us.”

Michael McDowell — 18th: “A good points day here in Indy, but that debris caution hurt us pretty badly and we had to sit on pit road longer to fill up on fuel. Track position is so important here, we had a great Chevrolet Camaro and not the result to show for it, so that hurts because I think we had enough for a top-five day, but that’s part of it. Our whole Spire Motorsports organization was fast and we saw that in qualifying, so there is a lot to be proud of coming out of this weekend. We just needed a little bit more, but we will go into the off weekend with some solid momentum leading into the last few weeks of the regular season.”

Austin Dillon — 29th: “Frustrating day for the No. 3 hevrolet team at Indianapolis Motor Speedway. We struggled with grip throughout the race. Our Chevy didn’t really come to life until halfway through the run, and the front would wake up. You could see the difference, and when the switch would flip, we were one of the best cars on track, especially the last six laps of the race. We’ll make notes and regroup once we get home. I’m looking forward to the off week and then getting back at it in Iowa.”

Advertisement

Ty Dillon — 30th: “It was just a rough day for this No. 10 Chevrolet team. We really didn’t have the speed all weekend. We kept trying things, but I think we just missed it overall on the package for the weekend. We’ll build and get better from it. We’re ready for a week off to recharge and put ourselves in a better position for Iowa.”

Austin Hill — 33rd: “Long day for our Chevrolet team. On the initial start, our car fired off tight but the guys kept working on it. The front tires took a while to come in. It was really slick on top of the track in all four corners. If I missed the mark by half a tire width, the front end would just slide. Then towards the end, we got pushed into that wreck from behind. Nothing we could do. Clay (Alexander, car chief) and the guys worked extremely hard to try and get us back out, but we ran out of laps. Tough ending, but we will take a much-needed off week before finishing the season strong.”

Kyle Larson — 39th: “We just had a tire let go. I wouldn’t say pushing it had anything to do with it. I was only going three-tenths quicker than I had been with saving fuel. It was just a little bit of bad luck, I guess. I’m proud of this No. 5 Chevrolet team. We qualified 10th and did what we had to do to gain the track position to get to the lead. We executed all of that really well. There was still obviously a lot of the race left, but I feel like we were positioning ourselves within the race and within the strategy to set ourselves up well to go after a win. It’s a bummer, but we’ll get back after it at Iowa (Speedway).”

WILL BE UPDATED

Source link

You may also like