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Post-Race Quote: On the pit road incident:

“Yeah, we just left some lugs off and had to come back in and tighten them up. I don’t want to be too hard on those guys, they’ve been working really hard. The pit stop before that one, I believe it was the first time all year that we had gained spots on.

We’re making progress, but we just made a mistake, and you know, it’s just part of it. We had to come from the back there and feel like we did pretty good there for a few laps; and then I ended up trying to make three wide in the middle work, ended up using our tires up, and guys were holding us up. I just used too much of my stuff early and was banking on a caution that never came out. Unfortunate, it’s just that at this level of racing, it’s tough to make a mistake like that and come back. But I feel like we were definitely a top-three truck, but yeah it just wasn’t meant to be tonight.”

Post-Race Quote: “Yeah, I’m proud of this GMS Racing Champion Power Equipment No. 23 all year long, and man, they put in the effort tonight too. We just had a terrible performance, and there’s no way around it. We struggled with the handling yesterday, and I felt like we were going to make some big swings and was optimistic about today, but just never really had it. We weren’t really good on a short run, we weren’t really good on a long run. The best we could have happen would just be something to happen to where we could take advantage of the strategy.

Just not a great performance for us, but I’m not letting it take away from the rest of our season at this point. These guys have worked harder than anybody out here; there’s been so much effort put in this truck. We’ve made some good calls, we’ve made some bad calls, but we’ve done it as a team. The playoffs start in a couple of weeks at IRP, we won there last year and there’s no reason why we can’t do it again.”

Post-Race Quote: “I’m proud of the effort that every one of my crew guys put into our Champion Power Equipment Chevy today. Overall, given the situation we were in, a fifth place run is pretty good. We restarted 21st at the beginning of the final stage, and obviously track position is so tough here at Pocono with the package we have. I’m proud of the execution that we had there at the end. The last few couple of restarts worked in our favor, but overall we had a pretty solid truck there at the end, too. I’m a little disappointed in how we fired off, after yesterday I thought we were going to fire off at the beginning of the race a little better than we did. But Jeff made some good calls and the best we were all weekend was on that last stint. So yeah, I’m proud of the execution we made but we’ve still got some things to clean up on before Indy and before we start the playoffs.”

Post-Race Quote: “It was a little bit of a frustrating day for us at Mid-Ohio. I felt like we had a pretty good Sunseeker Resorts Chevrolet, and could have been a top-five truck till we got to about 10 laps to go in the last stage there. It seemed like we kept burning the rear tires off and losing a bit of lateral grip, but stayed pretty good everywhere else. We didn’t cut the tire down all the way with that contact midway through the race, but it pushed the fender in and we had to pit under green and lost all of our track position. Drove back up to the top-10 and thought we would walk away with a good finish, but the chaos that ensues on these restarts didn’t work out in our favor this time. 

It’s frustrating because I definitely feel like we had a better truck than what the results will show, got zero stage points and ended up 11th. I do think that Jeff and the guys did a good job on our truck still; we still have a bit of a ways to go to be a contender on the road courses but I feel like we made progress from where we were last year.”

Post-Race Quote: Grant, you get the win and you get an extra $50,000; that’s gotta be awesome!

“I forgot about that Regan! It’s just so hard to win these races, and if it’s about money, we would have quit a long time ago. But thank you to CRAFTSMAN for that, thank you so much to Champion Power Equipment, Maury Gallagher, Mike Beam, Ron Booth, Jeff Hensley, those guys behind that pit wall right there. Big Jim has been with me forever. Thank you to everybody for keepin’ on believing in us. It’s been a rocky year, but these last five races I feel like we’ve come to our own. We’ve had speed; I was a little disappointed yesterday – I felt like I nailed my lap and we were 10th. I looked at the lap tracker and I felt like we were 10th and that we weren’t a contending truck. But Jeff Hensley made the right calls.

I mean overall, it was just a great day and the stars aligned. I don’t know if we were just on the limit right there on the end, but I think Ty just did what I did last year to Zane. I think Tic Tac (Chris Lawson, Crew Chief No. 38) made the winning call there, and I just got loose underneath of them. It’s just so hard to make those moves here but I’m just so proud of these guys. I’m proud of Champion Power Equipment. It’s just as good a time as any to announce that we are expecting another baby, so Michelle, I’ll be home tonight to see her. Life is good!”

Post-Race Quote: “[That was] a solid finish for sure for our Champion Power Equipment Chevrolet. We were pretty good in practice; the first stage we fired off good but then about 10 laps in I just lost all my drivability. We still had pace, but I couldn’t move around. I’d get bottled up by someone slower in front of me and then I would get passed by about three or four of them. We lost our track position a little bit, did some other stuff, struggled a little bit on pit road, but man those guys rallied and we had a good pit stop the last time. Tyler Monn and I were able to choose a good lane choice for once and the last restart worked out for us. I feel like we were a top-three truck there at the end. There were parts of the race where we were a 25th place truck and there were parts of the race where we were pretty solid. I’m pretty happy with everybody’s fight and with Jeff’s calls on the pit box, so anyways, we’ll go home with a P5 and smile.”

Eli Vastbinder is 0 for 2, missing round 3 due to re-aggravating a pre-existing left buttock injury Saturday night when he was bucked off in round 2.  Eli is currently 28^th in the PBR UTB world finals standings with 233.50 points.