CHEVY NCS AT RICHMOND: Post-Race Notes and Quotes

WILLIAM BYRON, NO. 24 LIBERTY UNIVERSITY CAMARO ZL1 – Finished 3rd - “Thought we probably did the best job we could. It didn’t quite work out. I thought there at the end they told me I was just racing the 19. I’m like ok I got him, but then the 4 and the 11 were on a totally different planet. That’s just part of it. There wasn’t anything I could do about them, so it was probably four or five to go and Brandon (Lines) was coaching me on keeping the tires underneath it and having good exits and entries. Especially making those guys go around me on the top was definitely better. The times that guys would get underneath me was really, really hard to get back connected and get a good lap put together. The middle of the race we were terrible and we just couldn’t get in the corner at all and if you can’t get into the corner you can’t put consistent laps together. It’s nice to have a run like we had today.”

KYLE LARSON, NO. 5 HENDRICKCARS.COM CAMARO ZL1 – Finished 5th
“I assume we netted out good with our strategy or better than we were. I didn’t think those guys the 11 and the 4 were going to get to us, but then all of a sudden, our tires kind of fell off a cliff there and got really slick. We just kind of had to nurse it home. Glad we got a top-five after three bad finishes in a row. We will move on to Martinsville and try to get a good run there.”

DANIEL SUAREZ, NO. 99 COMMSCOPE CAMARO ZL1 – Finished 16th
“It was a tough day. I just feel like we missed it the entire weekend. We didn’t have the speed yesterday. We didn’t have the speed in qualifying. Today was a battle. I feel like we were OK in the long runs at times, but overall, we just didn’t have a lot of speed. We just have to go back home and try to learn what we did right, what we did wrong and come back strong.”

AJ ALLMENDINGER, NO. 16 ACTION INDUSTRIES CAMARO ZL1 – Finished 27th
“That was a tough day. The guys did all they could to try to make our No. 16 Action Industries Camaro ZL1 better. I just fought super loose in and burnt the rear tires off it. I wasn’t ever able to get a good balance. We made the best of what we could, it just wasn’t very pretty. Our pitstops were really good – our guys did a great job all day. I just need to be better, so we will keep trying.”

JUSTIN HALEY, NO. 31 LEAFFILTER GUTTER PROTECTION CAMARO ZL1 – Finished 29th
“We couldn’t catch a break today in our LeafFilter Gutter Protection Camaro ZL1. We bounced back early from our drive-through penalty but struggled with an ill-handling car for the majority of the day. We had a pit-road issue on our last green-flag stop, which really sealed our fate for the end. I’m looking forward to getting to Martinsville and putting today behind us.”

TEAM CHEVY – RACE QUICK NOTES
STAGE ONE
· William Byron led the field to the green from a front row starting spot, his third top-10 start of 2022.
· Three Camaro ZL1’s placed in the top-10 at the end of stage one, led by William Byron in second. Ross Chastain was third to conclude the stage; with Chase Elliott rounding out the Team Chevy top-10 in sixth.
STAGE TWO
· Stage two saw the 160-lap run go caution-free.
· Pit strategy played a huge role in track position throughout stage two, with teams making the run either a one or two-stop stage.
· Three Camaro ZL1’s placed in the top-10 of stage two, with Ross Chastain capturing his second top-five stage finish of the day in third. Chase Elliott finished the stage in sixth; with Hendrick Motorsports teammate, Kyle Larson, rounding out the Team Chevy top-10 in ninth.

FINAL STAGE
· After a string of cautions at the beginning of the final stage, No. 24 Liberty University Camaro ZL1 Crew Chief, Rudy Fugle, made a pit strategy call to not pit following the fifth caution of the day, giving William Byron a front row restart position.
· Byron took advantage of the track position, piloting his No. 24 Liberty University Camaro ZL1 to the lead on the restart, making it the first time Byon has led in his NASCAR Cup Series career at Richmond Raceway.
· Byron led Team Chevy to two in the top-five and four of the top-10 in the final running order. In seven points-paying races thus far, the Camaro ZL1 has now posted 20 top-five’s and 32 top-10’s to lead all manufacturers

TEAM CHEVY TOP-20 UNOFFICIAL RACE RESULTS:
POS. DRIVER
3rd WILLIAM BYRON, NO. 24 LIBERTY UNIVERSITY CAMARO ZL1
5th KYLE LARSON, NO. 5 HENDRICKCARS.COM CAMARO ZL1
8th ALEX BOWMAN, NO. 48 ALLY CAMARO ZL1
10th AUSTIN DILLON, NO. 3 BREZTRI CAMARO ZL1
12th TYLER REDDICK, NO. 8 GUARANTEED RATE CAMARO ZL1
14th CHASE ELLIOTT, NO. 9 A SHOC CAMARO ZL1
16th DANIEL SUAREZ, NO. 99 COMMSCOPE CAMARO ZL1
19th ROSS CHASTAIN, NO. 1 ONX HOMES / IFLY CAMARO ZL1


TOP FIVE UNOFFICIAL RACE RESULTS:
POS. DRIVER
1st Denny Hamlin (Toyota)
2nd Kevin Harvick (Ford)
3rd William Byron (Chevrolet)
4th Martin Truex Jr. (Toyota)
5th Kyle Larson (Chevrolet)

Ron Fleshman

RIS NASCAR Editor.  Has been with RIS since the middle 90's. Writes on each of the three main series of NASCAR.

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Volume 2022, Issue 4, Posted 9:17 PM, 04.03.2022