Category: Race Central

While his teammate Jimmie Johnson has traditionally dominated at the Dover Monster Mile, it was Jeff Gordon scoring his 92nd win, his fifth win at Dover, and his fourth win of the season. Gordon also punched his ticket to the next round in NASCAR’s Chase for the Championship.

“It was a really solid race all day long,” Gordon said. “Our strength was definitely the stronger runs. My car really came to life then and we could start reeling them in. I was pretty happy from the start.”

“We’re a team that is good enough to win and to ultimately be consistent.”

“Yeah, we knew this was going to be a pressure-packed race and a really tough track,” Alan Gustafson, crew chief said. “We knew we had to be on our game and we had to come together as a team.”

“I think all that kind of came to fruition here and we were able to win the race.”

Brad Keselowski, behind the wheel of the No. 2 Wurth Ford, did not need a Monster Mile win as he had already advanced to the next round of the championship Chase with his prior win. He did however finish second, notching another great run for Team Penske.

“Yeah, we’ve had a really good start, so we can’t really complain that much having won a race, and a second and a seventh. But it’s hard to look at that. All I can think about is how I wanted to win all three races.”

“And now it’s time to move forward,” Keselowski continued. “Three more races, a new start. We’ve got to keep our head on straight and push forward these next three like we have these last three.”

“All in all, it’s going to be a real challenge and if you can survive all three of these brackets and go to Homestead and win this thing, you’ve certainly earned it.”

Jimmie Johnson, behind the wheel of the No. 48 Lowe’s/Kobalt Tools Chevrolet, finished third and shared his excitement to be able to advance to the next round.

“These first three races went pretty well,” Johnson said. “I think Chicago was probably the track where we left the most points on the table.”

“Today we kind of ran, finished where we ran, but we had a decent car,” Johnson continued. “Really strong on the long runs but just would lose too much time to make up the deficit that I had there.”

“Good solid day, happy to advance.”

There was no doubt that Joey Logano was going to advance to the next round of the championship Chase, but he still sealed the deal with a fourth place run at the Monster Mile.

“It was a hard-fought day, which is pretty normal for here at Dover,” the driver of the No. 22 Shell/Pennzoil Ford said. “It was a little bit of a tougher week for us. We didn’t have a very fast car off the truck, but Todd Gordon (crew chief) and all those guys did a great job giving me a car that was pretty racy.”

“We got something good out of it and now we’ll start the next round and try to move on to the next one.”

For Kevin Harvick, Kyle Busch, Dale Earnhardt Jr., Matt Kenseth, Ryan Newman, Carl Edwards, Denny Hamlin and Kasey Kahne, who finished 13th, 10th, 17th, 5th, 8th, 11th, 12th and 20th respectively, it was a good day as they all advanced to the next race for the championship.

“It was pretty solid,” Matt Kenseth said after finishing fifth. “We had good pit stops down here. We just lacked a little bit. Just couldn’t quite get it, but overall it was a good day for us.”

“It was just a solid day,” Carl Edwards, driver of the No. 99 Fastenal Ford, said. “The car was actually pretty decent and everybody did a really good job. The pit crew did great and Jimmy did a great job with the car and that’s what we needed. We had a top-10 car and finished 11th, but I think if I would have done a little better job on the restarts we would have been better.”

“Yeah, there were a lot of anxious moments,” Edwards continued. “We were running 21st at one point and that’s tough.” We keep making small gains and getting the opportunity to be put back in the same position as the guys in front of us is a huge opportunity for us.”

“I just want to make the most of it.”

But for AJ Allmendinger, Kurt Busch, Greg Biffle, and Aric Almirola, however, it was the end of the line as they were eliminated from Chase contention.

“This is the way it’s gone all season,” Greg Biffle, driver of the No. 16 3M/Post-It Ford, said after the race. “We’re just searching for speed and struggled all day today. We’ve worked hard trying to fix our problems, but it just hasn’t come together yet.”

“It’s frustrating because part of you wants to just pull it and put it in the garage and the other half is racing as hard as you can to get in the Chase,” Biffle continued. “It’s pretty frustrating. I’ve won races my whole career, but to be struggling like this all year is disappointing at best.”

“It just didn’t work out for us,” Aric Almirola, behind the wheel of the No. 43 Nathan’s Famous Ford Fusion, said. “I hate it. We picked a bad day to run the way we did and we can’t blame anybody but ourselves. My car didn’t have any grip. You can’t go fast without grip.”

“Right now it’s pretty disappointing.”

Kyle Larson was the highest finishing rookie again, finishing sixth in his No. 42 Target Chevrolet.

“Yeah, I’d be really happy about my three races in this round if I was in the Chase,” Larson said. “But yeah, it was a really good finish for us.”

“We were terrible the first two runs. It was all I could do to not crash the case, I was so loose,” Larson continued. “I was really hanging on and Shine (crew chief) and everybody did a really good job to make huge adjustments to get the Target Chevy fast. Once we did, we were a top-10 car immediately and just kept working on it and got better and better.”

“Hopefully we can keep these top-10s rolling.”