Say What?!

"I’ve always really liked it, to be honest. From the first time I raced there in 2003, I’ve always enjoyed the track. There was a long period where I didn’t have great numbers there, but I felt like I loved the track and always ran well there and had a lot of crazy things happen there throughout my career. Once I got to Furniture Row (Racing), we started leading a ton of laps there. We also had a couple of heartbreaking finishes there where we should have won the race but didn’t, and I wondered if it was ever going to happen. Then we went on a streak there, so it’s been a great track and it’s a ton of fun. We had a great run going there in the spring and thought we had a shot at winning, then we were down a set of tires and the cautions didn’t go our way. I think we’ve improved our program a ton and have been putting on a show at some of the short tracks and places like Richmond. I hope for myself and my team we can get our Bass Pro Shops Toyota back in victory lane there like we’ve done before." - Martin Truex Jr.

"Richmond falls into that flat-track category and we’ve always been really good at the flat-track stuff. As I’ve gone through the years, Richmond has just been one of those places that’s been really good. I know it’s not Rodney’s (Childers, crew chief) favorite racetrack to go to, but it’s one of my favorites to go to, and I’m glad we finally got to victory lane because we’ve had some good nights and some good cars there, and to be able to pull that off last year was good for everybody. Richmond is just a good short track." - Kevin Harvick
 

"Richmond is probably one of our best tracks.  I feel really good about it.  It’s a track that, for whatever reason, Paul really has his head wrapped around and gives me a really strong race car.  I assume he’s gonna be able to do that again because he’s done that for years, and it’s also a track that fits into my wheelhouse and we can really work together.  It’s a track that’s not a hammer track.  It’s not one of those new asphalt tracks where you can drive so hard every lap without penalty.  You eventually pay a penalty at Richmond, so that makes it kind of fun for me.  You go back to the old school style of racing with a lot of tire fall off and it makes you feel like you have a bunch of horsepower, but you actually can’t put the power down, so all of that type of stuff is pretty fun." - Joey Logano

"In the Next Gen car, Richmond has probably been our worst racetrack and a place we still need to figure out. Our short track program has been getting better, and with what we are learning, we should go there and hopefully have a better race. Where that puts us at the end of the day, I’m not sure. Of the tracks left in the regular season, Richmond is definitely the one we have circled that we need to improve at. If we do that, I think that will give us confidence for the rest of them and have a shot to make the playoffs." - AJ Allmendinger