Q. William Byron, you were coming there at the end. How many more laps did you need?
WILLIAM BYRON: Yeah, we were pretty even. He was on two tires. I think I had a little bit fresher tires. Was able to work the bottom through lap traffic okay. Feel like I was making marginal gains through one and two. My tires were getting hot down there and I would start sliding the rears around a little bit on entry.
Really good effort by our team. We struggled on Friday. Had a really good qualifying effort. Bad restart in the middle of the race that was terrible. Didn’t get the tires cleaned off. It was really weird tonight with a repave. Seems like the tires would take a lap or two to go. Once we figured that out, we had a better restart.
Proud of this team. We need to put together some consistent runs. This is a good start. Would love to be winning tonight, but Ryan and those guys were really good. Congrats to them.
Q. A lot of unknowns coming in. You talked about some weirdness. How many challenges were there out there? Were you being careful with the tires?
WILLIAM BYRON: No, I mean, you just kind of run it for all its got. You try to stay conscious of it. We never had tire issues all weekend. Just the restarts with scuffed tires or new tires, you’re sliding around for a lap. Pretty hairy on the restarts just trying to get grip in the car.
Feel like we maximized our day. Just going from here, try to have a good race at New Hampshire.
Q. Best finish for since Martinsville.
WILLIAM BYRON: We’ve been working hard. We’ve had speed most of the weeks, besides Gateway wasn’t our best. Last week could have been up front, contending for a win. This is a really good start to put the whole race together, even through some adversity. Proud of that.
FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports
