Story By: SAM MAHONEY / TOYOTA RACING – SONOMA, CA – Tyler Reddick (eighth) and Christopher Bell (ninth) led Toyota with top-10 finishes in the Toyota/Save Mart 350 at Sonoma Raceway on Sunday.
Reddick was dominant early, as he led 35 of the 110 laps, but fell back after on-track contact. He bounced back to finish eighth, with Bell in ninth as he recovered from a mid-race spin.
Martin Truex Jr. battled for the win late, but ran out of gas in the final corners. He was scored 27th in the final finishing order.
Toyota Post-Race Recap
NASCAR Cup Series (NCS)
Sonoma Raceway
Race 16 of 36 – 218.9 miles, 110 laps
TOYOTA FINISHING POSITIONS
1st, Kyle Larson*
2nd, Michael McDowell*
3rd, Chris Buescher*
4th, Chase Elliott*
5th, Ross Chastain*
8th, TYLER REDDICK
9th, CHRISTOPHER BELL
19th, ERIK JONES
20th, BUBBA WALLACE
27th, MARTIN TRUEX JR.
29th, JOHN HUNTER NEMECHEK
37th, TY GIBBS
38th, DENNY HAMLIN
*non-Toyota driver
TOYOTA QUOTES
TYLER REDDICK, No. 45 Monster Energy Toyota Camry XSE, 23XI Racing
Finishing Position: 8th
How much did the early damage affect your finish today?
“I don’t know. Visually on the body, it doesn’t look like it much. The wheel was off a little bit – just stupid. I was on cold tires, and it was going to be really hard to hold him off anyway. I kind of just fell for it. I don’t know. I guess we will know once we go back to the shop – just weren’t as good. I didn’t have a great restart – that also played a big factor. Even when we kind of got some clean air after, we got the second set of tires on it – it didn’t seem as good. We will go back and look at it, and try to understand what got away from us, but at least we got a Playoff point out of it with the Monster Energy Toyota Camry. The 5 (Kyle Larson) was on a similar strategy to us – and he won the race, and we finished eighth. We were doing the right things; we just didn’t have the restart we needed.”
MARTIN TRUEX JR., No. 19 Bass Pro Shops Toyota Camry XSE, Joe Gibbs Racing
Finishing Position: 27th
Can you talk about your eventful race today?
“It was a tough day. Got spun out early and had to work hard to get some track position back. James (Small, crew chief) did a good job on our strategy. Our car was pretty good out front. Thought we were going to have a shot to win there and just couldn’t quite get by the 17 (Chris Buescher) quick enough. I finally cleared him; I made a mistake and the 5 (Kyle Larson) was right there to pounce and then obviously ran out of gas so it didn’t matter. I’m not sure why we didn’t try to save a little at the end. I was clearly not going to catch the 5 or pass him. It’s a shame that we went around the last corner and went from second to wherever we finished. It sucks, but it was a tough day, and we had a good car. We battled and did a good job. We were going to have a good day, but just one corner short.”
TY GIBBS, No. 54 He Gets Us Toyota Camry XSE, Joe Gibbs Racing
Finishing Position: 37th
What happened?
“Yeah, I hit the (turn 11) inside wall with our He Gets Us Camry. I was finding grip down there and was making up time, and then got too close and clipped the wall and hurt the right front.”
Was your car good before that?
“I don’t really know. We needed to make some adjustments to be a little bit tighter, I think, in the sweeping sections – but I just made a mistake and took us out of this day.”
DENNY HAMLIN, No. 11 FedEx Toyota Camry XSE, Joe Gibbs Racing
Finishing Position: 38th
Was there any indication that you had an issue?
“No. Nothing. It’s just the gearing is a little weird for the track. It’s a lot of high-end RPM stuff, but the same as everyone else and I’m just not really sure. They’ll look at it and figure it out, but certainly not ideal.”