All three of Joe Gibbs Racing’s Toyota GR Supras had solid finishes at Las Vegas Motor Speedway on Saturday afternoon with Ty Gibbs leading the pack with a fourth-place finish, followed by Trevor Bayne (seventh) and Brandon Jones (ninth). With two races remaining in the Round of 8, Gibbs is currently third on the Playoff grid, 25 points above the cutoff, while Jones is seventh – 27 points below the final Championship 4 berth.
Toyota Racing Post-Race Recap
NASCAR Xfinity Series
Las Vegas Motor Speedway
Race 30 of 33 – 302 miles, 201 laps
TOYOTA FINISHING POSITIONS
1st, Josh Berry*
2nd, Noah Gragson*
3rd, Justin Allgaier*
4th, TY GIBBS
5th, Justin Allgaier*
7th, TREVOR BAYNE
9th, BRANDON JONES
16th, JOHN HUNTER NEMECHEK
27th, JEFFREY EARNHARDT
32nd, MATT JASKOL
36th, JJ YELEY
*non-Toyota driver
TOYOTA QUOTES
TY GIBBS, No. 54 Monster Energy Toyota GR Supra, Joe Gibbs Racing
Finishing Position: 4th
Can you talk about some of the challenges you had to overcome in today’s race?
“I feel like we had a very fast Monster Energy Toyota GR Supra. Thank you to Norm at Interstate Batteries and everybody on my 54 crew. I feel like we were really fast, just didn’t get there at the end. We were a little tight there at the end and that hurt us. First stage, we fired off really good and the second stage, we were decent. We sucked on restarts and that was where people capitalized today with track position and dirty air was very big. I feel like that was the spot we were not as good at as we needed to be to contend for the win, but I feel like we were capable of it, just needed to be in better lines on restarts. I don’t feel like it was because I spun the tires, but there were still people getting runs. We were three-wide at one point, but people were getting runs on the top, so it was possible to move forward.”
What is your outlook going into the next couple of weeks?
“Just race hard and go get a win. Wins take care of this whole situation. If we win, it doesn’t matter when we get to Martinsville, and we can go out there and run last. I’d rather win though.”
TREVOR BAYNE, No. 18 Devotion Nutrition Toyota GR Supra, Joe Gibbs Racing
Finishing Position: 7th
How are you feeling after having a bit of a moment after you got out of the race car?
“I’m okay. We were talking and after I got done talking, I started to feel out of breath and I’m like, ‘Parker (Kligerman, NBC), you’re getting too close here.’ When I got out of the car, my left ear was ringing, and I knocked one of the crush panels out so I don’t know if I got gassed. All I can say is I guess I was trying as hard as I could there.”
How would you sum up your race today?
“I think it’s been as eventful now as it could ever possibly be. I spun out, got a pit road penalty and drove back to fifth. What I was saying right there when I started feeling light-headed is that when I got to fifth, I felt like I moved the top up better than anybody. You have that grey strip at the top and once the 9 (Noah Gragson) got behind me, he moved up to where I was running it in and my car just got tight as I was taking rubber. The only way I could get it to turn, ironically after spinning out from being loose was to find grey race track and at the end, it just got too rubbered up and I got too tight. In the end, a fifth place finish is good, but my opportunities are winding down here and I’ve got one left at Homestead and I feel like we’ll be good there, but I want to win one of these things so bad. You can’t run the 18 car with Jason Ratcliff (crew chief) and not win, but I feel like we’ve got the speed and Jason’s doing a great job. We just have to get off pit road. That’s been our Achilles heel all year. Probably cost us four races. The guys have good stops when they’re good. We just have some mistakes we have to clean up and today it was somebody falling over the wall. What do you do? You just have to come back and race hard. Thankful to Devotion for giving me this opportunity this year and I’ll try not to ever pass out again.”
BRANDON JONES, No. 19 Menards/NIBCO Toyota GR Supra, Joe Gibbs Racing
Finishing Position: 9th
You led five laps today, so we know that the No. 19 car could run up front. Why didn’t you finish up there?
“At times we had speed that was as fast as speed as Xfinity internet, but it wasn’t consistent to complete out the day. Yesterday, in practice, there was so many different conditions. I felt like we weren’t that great going into qualifying – we didn’t think we had a great balance after our qualifying lap. It was a much different day with much different weather conditions and sun beating on the track. We took off really well those first two stages, and probably would have run fifth-to-sixth today given the balance and how hard it was to make passes. A lot of guys were making that top work, but I think the guys that could drive through the bump in turn one or could drive the fence ended up being pretty good today. I’ve watched this race so many times go to the top, but it always goes to the bottom for the win, and I think today was maybe a little bit of the opposite. The 8 (Josh Berry) and the 9 (Noah Gragson) cars were really good at getting up against the wall and making good lap time. I know Jeremy (Clements) didn’t mean to take the air off of us, but ultimately, that is what kind of killed our day. We were probably going to finish inside the top-five. I like Jeremy a lot and I will go have a talk with him and we move forward. We’ve got another good mile-and-a-half and a short track coming up for us.”
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