Toyota Racing - NCS Martinsville Post-Race Report - 10.31.21

MARTINSVILLE, Va. (October 31, 2021) – Kyle Busch led Team Toyota at Martinsville Speedway on Sunday afternoon and narrowly missed locking himself in to the Championship 4. With their finishes, Martin Truex Jr. (4th) and Denny Hamlin (24th) secured their positions in the Championship 4 race next weekend at Phoenix Raceway.

Toyota Post-Race Recap
NASCAR Cup Series (NCS)
Martinsville Speedway
Race 35 of 36 – 500 laps, 263 miles

TOYOTA FINISHING POSITIONS

1st, Alex Bowman*
2nd, KYLE BUSCH
3rd, Brad Keselowski*
4th, MARTIN TRUEX JR.
5th, William Byron*
17th, CHRISTOPHER BELL
24th, DENNY HAMLIN
25th, BUBBA WALLACE
37th, TIMMY HILL
*non-Toyota driver

TOYOTA QUOTES
KYLE BUSCH, No. 18 M&M’s Halloween Toyota Camry, Joe Gibbs Racing
Finishing Position: 2nd
How was your race overall today?
“We just missed last week. That's where we lost all the ground. Could have come in here with 15 more points, we would have been fine on the cut. Just wasn't it. Wasn't meant to be. Obviously it was Truex's day. We had a Hail Mary opportunity there at the end. Just didn't materialize.
All in all, just proud of the effort for sure. We slung everything and anything at this thing today, couldn't really make it come alive. Great effort. That was there for sure. We just got to get better, everybody included, the whole team, in order to be able to go race with the best and race for a championship. We're not going to do that this year.”

How will you look back on this season not being able to race for the championship next week?
“Anytime you go into a season with Toyota, Joe Gibbs Racing, this 18, M&M's team, myself, you expect to be Championship 4, in contention, eligible. Anything other than that is a failure. Guess you get an F.”

MARTIN TRUEX JR., No. 19 Auto-Owners Insurance Toyota Camry, Joe Gibbs Racing
Finishing Position: 4th
How did you make it back from the damage?
“The Auto Owners Toyota Camry was really good, first of all. Solid day. We didn’t have a winning car, but we had a third or fourth place car and that is where we ran. Everything was going smooth and then the 2 (Brad Keselowski) and 18 (Kyle Busch) came up to the front kind of out of nowhere. I got some damage running side-by-side with the 2 car, and fell back and then the 10 (Aric Almirola) stuffed me three-wide out of the groove in turn one and two and then the 1 car came by and clipped my left front and drove me into the fence off of turn two. I was like oh, damn, we are in big trouble here, but then we just fought back and did everything we could. We got a little break on the last restart. Everybody took the bottom and I saw the hole up there and I was like I have to go for it, and that worked out for us. Just thanks to everybody who helped us all year long to get us to this point. Everybody at the shop, TRD, Johnny Morris, Bass Pro Shops, Auto Owners, all of the friends who were here today, just so much support that allows us to do this. Hopefully we can go to Phoenix and make them proud.”

DENNY HAMLIN, No. 11 FedEx Ground Toyota Camry, Joe Gibbs Racing
Finishing Position: 25th
Denny, obviously you're not happy with what happened. What is your take on the contact down there?
“He's just a hack. Just an absolute hack. He gets his ass kicked by his teammates every week. He's terrible. He's just terrible. He sees one opportunity, he takes it. Obviously he's got the fast car of the week and he runs 10th. He didn't want to race us there. We had a good, clean race. I moved up as high as I could on the racetrack to give him all the room I could, he still can't drive.

Coming from the back like you did, does that make it worse at the end?
“No, I mean, we got in, do what we had to do. I just wanted to race there at the end. He's just terrible.”