Author: Angie Campbell

  • Kaz Grala Turns Adversity into Success

    Kaz Grala Turns Adversity into Success

    CONCORD, N.C. — The road to NASCAR is not for the faint of heart. It takes a rare combination of talent, perseverance and ingenuity with a little luck thrown in. Just ask Kaz Grala.

    On May 15, he announced on Twitter that he had lost his full-time ride in the Xfinity Series, a result of JGL Racing’s decision to shut down their operations. Grala said, in part, “Well, unfortunately, I’m out of a ride but hopefully the old saying holds true, when one door closes, another opens.”

    And open it did. Quickly enough that 11 days later, Grala was back on the track at Charlotte Motor Speedway with Fury Race Cars earning a top 10 in their Xfinity Series debut. It was the second top 10 finish of his rookie season.

    He described it as “a dream come true.”

    But it was a dream realized through the determination of a father who knew that his son’s journey was just beginning. To that end, Darius Grala immediately sent a text to crew chief, Shane Wilson, and began formulating a plan to put together the No. 61 team.

    They gathered together most of Grala’s former crew members from his No. 24 JGL Racing team and worked out a deal to run four races with Fury Race Cars, a company co-owned by Darius Grala, Tony Eury Jr. and Jeff Fultz.

    The result was better than anticipated.

    With no backup car and no owner points, Grala admitted to being somewhat careful during practice and qualifying, but when it came time to race, he threw caution out the window.

    “Make the race, that was No. 1,” he said when asked about his goals for Saturday. “That was our first little check mark there for the day. We were really worried when it was raining because we wouldn’t have made it in on owner points.

    “In practice, yes, our mock run, yes,” Grala continued, “even qualifying, had to be a little bit careful.

    “In the race? Absolutely not.”

    True to his word, Grala said, “I was aggressive as much as I could be, really going for it ‘cause I knew these guys deserved a good run. I didn’t want to be the reason they didn’t get it. I was driving my guts out there. I think I asked for six different water bottles during that race. I was literally leaving nothing on the table. That’s the way you gotta race in the Xfinity Series. Everybody’s too freaking good to not go all out every single lap. I’m really proud of everybody. I can’t thank everyone enough. This is a dream come true.”

    With three more races in his immediate future, Grala will take everything he learned from this weekend to duplicate that success moving forward.

    “There’s a lot to be excited about from that race,” he said. “I know that I am, and I think I speak for everybody when I say this was a wildly successful debut for us.”

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  • Keselowski wins the Xfinity Series Alsco 300 at Charlotte

    Keselowski wins the Xfinity Series Alsco 300 at Charlotte

    CONCORD, N.C. — Keselowski held off Cole Custer to win Saturday’s Xfinity Series Alsco 300 at Charlotte Motor Speedway to capture his 38th series victory and his fourth at Charlotte. Keselowski won in overtime after the yellow flag came out for debris with two laps remaining.

    “It’s kind of an eventful day from the rain and everything that happened there. Strategies, the car handling and things going on this week with Roger and the Hall of Fame, but so far it’s been a great week and I couldn’t ask for a much better start for Memorial Day Weekend than to bring home a win.” Keselowski said.

    A hot, humid and an hour-long rain delay didn’t stop Brad Keselowski from becoming the first repeat winner in the NASCAR Xfinity Series this season.

    “It was brutally hot out there. The humidity was just killer. I don’t usually get that hot in a race car, but it was smoking out there.” Keselowski said.

    Cole Custer finished second, Christopher Bell third, Ty Dillon fourth and Elliott Sadler finished fifth.

    Custer was disappointed with his runner-up finish, saying, “I wasn’t happy because you want to win, but our Haas Automation Mustang was pretty good all weekend. I think they kind of got lucky on the strategy and how the cautions flew, but I think we probably had the best car. It is what it is. You give up the track position, but it was fun racing. It’s a real edgy race track and fun to move around the VHT and stuff, so it was a fun race for sure.”

    Bell, on fresher tires, thought that he might be able to pass Keselowski on the final restart.

    “I had better tires than him and just didn’t execute. I’m going to be curious to look at the restart there and see if – see what happened and why I couldn’t get going. Bottom line, just didn’t do a good job accelerating there and that’s all she wrote,” Bell said.

    Ty Dillon came back from a penalty to score a fourth-place finish.

    “We had an uncontrolled tire penalty in Stage 3 and had to start in the rear, but our car was so fast that we were back in the top 10 in just a few laps. It was risky, but we decided to play with pit strategy at the end so that we would have fresher tires than the rest of the field to finish out the race. We were so fast but came up three spots short in the end. I can’t thank these RCR guys enough for building such a fast race car. I always like getting in these cars, and I’m looking forward to being back with them in Kentucky.”

    Sadler finished fifth and continues to hold the series points lead by 38 over Christopher Bell.

    After winning Stage 1 and 2 and leading 93 laps, Kyle Busch was poised to capture his 92nd Xfinity Series victory. But his hopes were dashed on the Lap 161 restart.  Busch, who was mired in traffic after a series of cautions and differing pit strategies, spun and slid into Chase Briscoe. He would, however, rally to an eighth-place finish.

    The Xfinity Series heads to Pocono Raceway Saturday, June 2, for the 12th race of the season.

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    Unofficial Race Results
    Alsco 300 at Charlotte Motor Speedway
    May 26, 2018
    Pos Driver
    1 Brad Keselowski
    2 Cole Custer
    3 Christopher Bell
    4 Ty Dillon
    5 Elliott Sadler
    6 Ryan Truex
    7 Daniel Hemric
    8 Kyle Busch
    9 Matt Tifft
    10 Kaz Grala
    11 Chase Briscoe
    12 Michael Annett
    13 Ryan Sieg
    14 Garrett Smithley
    15 Brandon Jones
    16 Austin Cindric
    17 Joey Gase
    18 Joe Nemechek
    19 Ray Black Jr.
    20 David Starr
    21 Spencer Boyd
    22 Ty Majeski
    23 Tyler Reddick
    24 Tommy Joe Martins
    25 Josh Bilicki
    26 Ross Chastain
    27 Brandon Hightower
    28 Vinnie Miller
    29 Ryan Reed
    30 Timmy Hill
    31 Jamie McMurray
    32 Justin Allgaier
    33 Dylan Lupton
    34 Alex Labbe
    35 Jeremy Clements
    36 J.J. Yeley
    37 Chase Elliott
    38 Josh Williams
    39 Jeff Green
    40 B.J. McLeod

  • Kyle Busch captures the Coca-Cola 600 pole

    Kyle Busch captures the Coca-Cola 600 pole

    Kyle Busch won the Busch Pole Award for Sunday’s Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte Motor Speedway with a qualifying lap of 191.836 mph.

    This was his third pole of the season and the 30th of his career. It’s the first step for Busch as he attempts to capture his fourth win of the season at Charlotte, the only track on the Cup Series schedule where he has not won a points-paying race. He has the second-best driver rating (104.9) at the 1.5-mile track with 11 top fives and 16 top 10s.

    The Joe Gibbs Racing driver has come close to victory lane placing second in the Coca-Cola 600 last year. He spoke about the significance of winning NASCAR’s longest race.

    “It’s important to me, but I’m not sure it’s important in the grand scheme of things,” Busch said. “It’s certainly important to me, and I would love to get that knocked out of the way and to be finished with it until another new track comes up on the circuit.

    “Certainly, it’s been a trying time here over the course of my career and to have it come to fruition in a points race, (but) the last I checked, I have a trophy at home that says, ‘Winner at Charlotte Motor Speedway,’ so I’ll take that to my grave with me if I do never get a points win here. That will be my saving grace, I guess.”

    Joey Logano qualified second, Denny Hamlin third and Erik Jones was fourth, followed by Brad Keselowski in fifth.

    “The Coke 600, to me, is a crown jewel event. I think of the Daytona 500, Brickyard 400, Coca-Cola 600 are three of the biggest races we have all year. As a Coca-Cola driver, I’d like to be spraying this stuff all over Victory Lane. That would be really nice,” Logano said.

    Kevin Harvick didn’t make a qualifying attempt after his car failed technical inspection three times and as a result, he will start at the back of the field on Sunday. His car chief Robert Smith was ejected from the track and Harvick will lose 30 minutes of practice time in the final practice on Saturday.

    “There were some things in the garage that basically the template side of it wasn’t getting used and straight edges weren’t getting used and we were just purely going off the OSS, and that was fine until it somewhat starts getting out of hand. They changed some things around last week and some personnel around and positions around and started checking things differently.

    “Everybody is gonna push things as much as they can and I think everybody knows that the 4 team is out to push things as much as they can and win races, so it’s disappointing to start in the back. It’s disappointing not to have Cheddar (Smith, car chief) here, but we’ll get through it as a race team and we’ll have a good car on Sunday. “We’ll just have to serve our penalty and move on,” said crew chief Rodney Childers.

    The Coca-Cola 600 will be broadcast at 6 p.m. Sunday on FOX, PRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio.

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    Starting Lineup
    Coca-Cola 600, Charlotte Motor Speedway
    Sunday, May 27th | 6:00 PM ET
    1. Kyle Busch
    2. Joey Logano
    3. Denny Hamlin
    4. Erik Jones
    5. Brad Keselowski
    6. Ryan Newman
    7. Jamie McMurray
    8. Ryan Blaney
    9. Aric Almirola
    10. Daniel Suarez
    11. Kyle Larson
    12. Austin Dillon
    13. Ricky Stenhouse Jr.
    14. Paul Menard
    15. Martin Truex Jr.
    16. Kurt Busch
    17. Matt Kenseth
    18. Chris Buescher
    19. David Ragan
    20. Ty Dillon
    21. William Byron
    22. Chase Elliott
    23. Jimmie Johnson
    24. Darrell Wallace Jr.
    25. Ross Chastain
    26. Kasey Kahne
    27. Alex Bowman
    28. Clint Bowyer
    29. Michael McDowell
    30. AJ Allmendinger
    31. Matt DiBenedetto
    32. Parker Kligerman
    33. Corey LaJoie
    34. Gray Gaulding
    35. Landon Cassill
    36. Timmy Hill
    37. Jeffrey Earnhardt
    38. BJ McLeod
    39. Kevin Harvick
    40. JJ Yeley

  • Harvick Claims Busch Pole at Kansas Speedway

    Harvick Claims Busch Pole at Kansas Speedway

    Kevin Harvick continued his dominance on the track Friday claiming the Busch Pole Award for the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series KC Masterpiece 400 at Kansas Speedway.

    He led qualifying in his No. 4 Stewart-Haas Racing Ford with a 188.811 mph lap to secure his second pole of the season and his 23rd career Cup Series pole. It will be the fourth time Harvick has led the field to green at the 1.5-mile Kansas track.

    “This has been a really good race track for us through the years and I think obviously when you look at qualifying day it’s also been just one of those places that kind of fits what we do,” Harvick said. “So it’s been an entertaining day. We’ve had a lot of things of things to work through today, but I think today is one of those days when you look at the team and you’re like, ‘Man, those guys are really good at what they do.’ Nobody panics and really shows the experience and just patience that all those guys have that they’ve gained and learned and I think you look at the experience of the team and it seems to keep getting better, so that’s fun to be a part of.”

    Harvick has four wins this year and continues to hone his competitive edge each week. When asked if he was going to give anyone else a chance this weekend, he quickly replied, “I hope not. I have no plans to.”

    Ryan Blaney will join Harvick on the front road, qualifying with a 187.826 mph lap in his Team Penske Ford.

    “I thought our car today was pretty decent and I thought we found a little bit of speed for qualifying, which was nice. This has been a good track for us over the past handful of years and hopefully we can just find a little bit more to end up in Victory Lane,” Blaney said.

    Kyle Busch (187.552 mph), Aric Almirola (187.428 mph) and Brad Keselowski (186.748 mph) will round out the top five starting positions.

    Six competitors will start from the rear of the field after they failed to make it through inspection in time. Those drivers include Clint Bowyer, Kasey Kahne, Matt Kenseth, Michael McDowell, Matt DiBenedetto and Timmy Hill.

    Also of note, Kyle Larson had issues in the second round of qualifying, spinning off Turn 4. He failed to post a time in the round and is slated to start the race in 22nd. However, if the team chooses to change tires, Larson will start from the rear of the field.

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  • Kyle Larson Captures Pole at Dover’s Monster Mile

    Kyle Larson Captures Pole at Dover’s Monster Mile

    Kyle Larson scored his first Busch Pole Award of the season at Dover International Speedway with a 158.103 mph lap and will lead the field to the green flag in Sunday’s AAA 400. It is his fifth Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series career pole.

    He spoke about the adjustments the team made after the first two rounds of qualifying to fine tune his No. 42 Chip Ganassi Racing Chevrolet.

    “The first round caught me off guard. I was really loose getting in, but they made great adjustments on the DC Solar Chevy throughout the next two rounds,” he said. “The second round we were probably a little too tight, but they kind of found the happy medium there for the final round. So, I’m happy about that.”

    Larson has four top fives and six top 10s with an average finish of 7.875 at the Monster Mile with a runner up finish in this race last year. After capturing the pole, he heads into the weekend with confidence.

    “We’ve always qualified good here,” he added. “I had yet to get a pole. I’ve raced well here but have yet to get a win. Maybe we’ll get both out of the way this weekend.”

    Kevin Harvick will join Larson on the front row after a qualifying lap of 157.494 mph.

    “We’re feeling good about qualifying well,” Harvick said. “That’s not been something that we’ve done 100-percent great here. We’ve qualified OK. It definitely goes a long way in helping get your day started.

    “This is definitely a race track that can take a while to work your way up the field, so you don’t want to dig yourself a hole early on. They made the car better all three rounds. We ran our fastest lap at the end. I lost a lot of time in (Turns) 1 and 2. I got myself hung a little higher and longer than I needed to finish the corner. Still a good lap for us and I’m looking forward to race runs.”

    Martin Truex Jr. will start in third after a lap of 157.432 mph.

    “Yeah, Turn 4 we just got a little too tight both second and third round,” he said. “Thought maybe second round I could just drive the car a little different. If it hit it right, we’d be really good and I had an awesome lap going until I got there that last round. I thought I had a shot at it and just got tight off 4 again, so missed it a little bit there, but overall it was another good solid day for us on a Friday, looking forward to getting ready to race tomorrow.”

    Kyle Busch and Ricky Stenhouse Jr. will round out the top five starting positions.

    Of note, Jimmie Johnson, an 11-time winner at Dover, is hoping to find victory lane for the first time this season. One more checkered flag would put him in a three-way tie with Bobby Allison and Darrell Waltrip on the all-time list, with 84 wins. However, he will have his work cut out for him as Johnson did not make it through to the third round of qualifying and will start 19th.

    Tune into the AAA 400 Drive for Autism Sunday at 2 p.m. on FS1 with radio coverage by MRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio.

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  • Kyle Busch Captures Third Consecutive Win of the Season

    Kyle Busch Captures Third Consecutive Win of the Season

    Kyle Busch scored his third straight victory of the year winning the Toyota Owners 400 in overtime at Richmond Raceway Saturday night. He dominated the field in the closing 30 laps of the race to capture his 46th career Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series win.

    It was his fifth triumph at the .75-mile short track and may have been his most challenging win at Richmond. Busch started in 32nd place but was able to maneuver his way to a sixth-place finish in both Stage 1 and Stage 2. It wasn’t until the closing laps of the third stage, however, that Busch began to make his presence known. He led three times (Lap 273, Laps 371-390, and Laps 392-402) for 32 laps) on his drive to Victory Lane.

    He spoke about his winning streak and the possibility of four in a row as the series travels to Talladega Superspeedway next week and the unpredictability of restrictor plate racing.

    “It’s definitely cool we’ve won three in a row,” Busch said. “We did it a couple years ago, and now I don’t know if you can shoot for four in a row. It’s hard to go to Talladega with that much of a winning streak and think that you can go to Victory Lane, but we’re going to go there anyway and give it a shot.

    “We’ll see what we can do … I think it’s easier to win the Power Ball than to win at Talladega.”

    Chase Elliott finished second, after taking advantage of the late-race cautions to gradually work his way to the front of the field for the final restart in overtime but he was unable to overtake Busch.

    “Yeah, just very fortunate circumstances there at the end for us, with the way the restarts went,” Elliott said. “Having a short run there at the end was definitely in our favor. So it was nice to be on the good end of things for the first time in a while.

    “Looking forward, we have to be realistic about how we ran tonight. I think the result shouldn’t weigh into how hard we worked this week because we have some work to do. I think that we have to keep that in mind.”

    Denny Hamlin took third place followed by a disappointed Joey Logano who finished fourth after winning Stage 1 and 2,

    “You know, we had a really good Shell Pennzoil Ford early in the race and got a couple stage wins early which was great. We maxed out those points which is awesome. We just lost the handle on the car and fell back to sixth or so. We had a bad pit stop and lost a bunch of spots and then had a really good pit stop and got them all right back and were able to come home with a top-five. I wish I could re-run that. I feel like we can do better if we tried again. I am sure the whole field would say that. I am proud of the speed we showed at Richmond. Just want to be a little better.”

    Kevin Harvick rounds out the top five finishers in the Toyota Owner’s 400.

    Busch retains the points lead after Richmond followed by Logano (-56), Clint Bowyer (-86), Harvick (-91) and Brad Keselowski in fifth (-112).

    Next week the action continues when the Monster Energy Cup Series heads to Talladega Superspeedway for the Geico 500.

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    [pdf-embedder url=”http://www.speedwaymedia.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/Richmond-Raceway-MENCS-Unofficial-Race-Results-Toyota-Owners-400-4-21-18.pdf” title=”Richmond Raceway MENCS Unofficial Race Results Toyota Owners 400 4-21-18″]

     

  • Johnson captures first top-10 of the season in his chase for eight

    Johnson captures first top-10 of the season in his chase for eight

    Jimmie Johnson scored his first top-10 of the season Sunday evening, finishing ninth in the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series race at Auto Club Speedway. It was not the finish he wanted but it was a step in the right direction and proof that his desire and determination have not wavered in the chase for an eighth championship.

    “Each week, we’ve been getting a little bit better,” Johnson said. “We’re definitely not happy with where we are right now but to see the improvements, we’ve been seeing it internally and to make the cars drive better and better and get more competitive. A strong day for the Lowe’s for Pros Chevy, definitely not where we want to be but we’re getting closer every week.”

    The top-10 could not have come at a better time. On March 14 Hendrick Motorsports announced that Lowes would discontinue their sponsorship of Jimmie Johnson’s No. 48 Chevrolet after the 2018 season. Lowes has been the only primary sponsor of the team since 2001.

    As the news hit, questions about Johnson’s future with NASCAR began to circulate. Was this a foreshadowing of the end of the seven-time champion’s career?

    The doubts are somewhat understandable when you consider his season to date.

    Johnson got off to a shaky start after he was caught up in a multi-car accident on Lap 59 of the season-opening Daytona 500, ending his day early and resulting in a 38th place finish. Although the progress this year has been slow, the No. 48 team has been steadily improving. Johnson placed 27th the following week at Atlanta, followed by a 12th place at Las Vegas and a finish of 14th at Phoenix.

    At first glance, the gains made may seem insignificant but when it comes to NASCAR’s dynamic duo of Johnson and Chad Knaus, never, under any circumstances, count them out. Since his first full-time season in 2002, Johnson has captured a minimum of two wins every single year of his Cup Series career.

    The question remains. Is he nearing the end of his career? Johnson quickly responded with an unequivocal no.

    “I have more to accomplish in this sport,” he said. “I feel the best I’ve ever felt physically. I’m motivated. I’m focused on winning races and chasing more championships. Someone (a new sponsor) will be a big part of writing that story with us. I’m not going anywhere.”

     

  • Menard Off to Promising Start with Wood Brothers Racing

    Menard Off to Promising Start with Wood Brothers Racing

    Paul Menard brought his No. 21 Ford Fusion home in ninth place Sunday at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, earning his second top-10 of the year.

    It’s a new beginning of sorts for Menard as he joined Wood Brothers Racing this season after seven years with Richard Childress Racing. In only three starts with the new team, he has hit the ground running, finishing sixth in the season-opening Daytona 500 and capturing 11 stage points along the way. Although a 17th place at Atlanta was not the result they wanted, owner Len Wood characterized it as due more to circumstance than performance.

    “The car was set up for hotter weather, and we were off a little on handling mid-race, but it got better as the race went on,” Wood said. “And the pit crew did a good job. They never had a bad stop and were better every time.”

    With Sunday’s ninth-place finish, Menard is encouraged by how quickly the team is coming together.

    “It’s a bit early but the Fords are fast coming out of the gate this year,” he said. “I think we’ll be good in Phoenix next week as well. I feel really good with where our program is at right now.”

    Menard also received two additional stage points after finishing 10th in Stages 1 and 2 and is currently ninth in the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series points standings.

    “Earning stage points is big,” he acknowledged, “and you need to take advantage when you can. We did that today. It wasn’t much but it all counts.”

    He is also encouraged by how effectively they were able to make adjustments and the quality of their pit stops at Las Vegas with crew chief Greg Erwin leading the way.

    “Just a solid day for the Motorcraft Ford Fusion,” Menard said, “a great weekend for us. We unloaded fast on Friday and fell behind a bit on Saturday. We all got together last night and talked about what we needed to do and it worked out for us. A solid car all day.

    “They (the pit crew) made great stops all day which helped me keep track position. We made some good adjustments and Greg (Erwin) called a great race. A good two weeks for the crew guys.”

    The Cup Series heads to ISM Raceway (formerly Phoenix Raceway) next week where Menard has three top 10 finishes in 22 starts.

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  • Wallace Overcome With Emotion after Runner-up Finish at Daytona

    Wallace Overcome With Emotion after Runner-up Finish at Daytona

    While most of the Daytona 500 headlines will focus on Austin Dillon’s win in the iconic No. 3, runner-up Darrell Wallace Jr. quietly captured the hearts of NASCAR fans everywhere as his emotions overwhelmed him after the race.

    He’s been under a spotlight since it was announced on October 25 that he had signed to drive in the Monster Energy Cup Series for NASCAR’s undisputed King, Richard Petty. Add in the pressure of representing the African American community in the sport and you get a hint of what the 24-year-old has been dealing with as he prepared for his first Daytona 500.

    But don’t think for a minute that he has any regrets. It’s what Wallace has been working toward since he began racing and he’s determined to make the most of the opportunity. His drive to succeed is evident to anyone who has followed his career. His comments are often unfiltered, a welcome respite from the more polished veterans of the sport who have become masters of the public relations game.

    What you see is what you get, pure unfiltered emotion that reaches out and grabs your attention.

    Wallace sat down to speak to the media after Sunday’s race when he was interrupted by his mother, Desiree Wallace, who came in to congratulate him. He stood up and as they hugged, she said, “We’ve waited so long baby.” As they continued their embrace, Wallace laughed and said, “You act like we just won the race,” to which she replied, “We did, we did!”

    As he said down to answer questions, he fought through tears to gain his composure.

    “It’s a sensitive subject, but I’m just so emotional over where my family has been the last two years, and I don’t talk about it, but it’s just so hard,” Wallace said,  “and so having them here to support me is … pull it together, bud, pull it together. You just finished second. It’s awesome.

    “I just try so hard to be successful at everything I do, and my family pushes me each and every day, and they might not even know it, but I just want to make them proud.”

    It today was any indication; Wallace is on the right track.

    He started the Daytona 500 in seventh place and was able to remain in the top 10 as the race came to a close. Wallace avoided the Turn 1 chaos that brought out the caution on the next to last scheduled lap of completion and passed Denny Hamlin in the closing moments to finish second.

    Wallace made no apologies for his emotions, saying, “No matter what the circumstances are when you have family here and you run good and it’s been a while since you’ve been somewhat competitive, it pulls on the heartstrings. I’m competitive. I love to win. I hate to finish second.  Obviously, that shows for everybody. But I’m human. No matter if I race cars for a living and enjoy doing it, at the end of the day we all get emotional about something, so I’m just the same as you guys.”

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