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NASCAR CAMPING WORLD TRUCK SERIES: FORD ECOBOOST 200

November 16, 2018

Homestead, Florida

THE MODERATOR: We're going to go ahead and start our post‑race media availabilities for the 23rd annual Ford EcoBoost 200, NASCAR Camping World Truck Series. We're joined by Justin Haley, driver of the No.24 Fraternal Order of Eagles Chevrolet for GMS Racing. Justin, talk to us a little bit about your race.
JUSTIN HALEY: Yeah, we had a good run at it there at the start of the race. I thought we were going to be one to contend for. We had really good fire‑off speed all night, and seemed like four or five laps into the run, we would plow tight and then get loose, and about 13, 14 laps into the run we'd get okay again. We just fought balance all night, but still a pretty good day.
THE MODERATOR: We're joined by two more of our Championship 4 contenders; first, driver of the No.21 ISM Connect Chevrolet for GMS Racing, Johnny Sauter, and driver of the No.18 Safelite Auto Glass Toyota, Kyle Busch Motorsports, Noah Gragson. Johnny, talk to us a little bit about your race, please.
JOHNNY SAUTER: Yeah, well, it was awful. Just no grip, and yeah, we laid an egg tonight. I don't know why, just sideways, and then huge adjustments on the pit stops, and I was like, yeah, whatever, didn't really feel it. You know, it's crazy. You've got some races where you do a couple pounds of air pressure and a little bit of a track bar adjustment and it's night and day, and tonight you make huge adjustments, and it's ho‑hum.
Proud of everybody at GMS; great season, and coming down the stretch here, we didn't get it done.
Congratulations to the 16 truck. They did a hell of a job tonight, winning the championship and winning the last race, that's pretty cool. We just didn't have it.
THE MODERATOR: Noah, talk to us a little bit about your evening.
NOAH GRAGSON: Just struggled overall to make, I guess, productive adjustments on pit road. Kind of like Johnny said, it was just hard to really get a pinpoint on the balance. I felt like little things would‑‑ the things that you wouldn't think would make a difference made a big difference, and things you'd think would make a big difference didn't make a difference. Just overall, just really happy to, I guess, soak this all in. Obviously we wanted to be on top of the stage, but yeah, congrats to the 16. It's been a hell of a week. It's been a lot of fun, and just learn and move on.

Q. Johnny, you've been through these situations many times. Not saying you're the oldest guy up there or anything like that, but for the younger guys, what advice do you have for them going through not winning this championship tonight, and what about you and how will you deal with it?
JOHNNY SAUTER: Well, these guys ain't old enough to drink, but I can go home and have a 12‑pack of Bud Light, maybe some Old Style.
But yeah, I mean, obviously it's tough, but these guys are young. They're resilient. They'll get over it, and they'll live to race another day. You know, it's a little different for me. Tonight just sucked. I mean, when you suck that bad, you just‑‑ it's whatever. You just go home and go, what the hell happened. That's the way I look at it.
And I'll ask myself that for three months, you know. But these guys, I mean, they're young. They've got long careers ahead of them. Yeah, I mean, that's all I can tell them. Racing is a lot of ups and downs, peaks and valleys, and there's more valleys than there are peaks it seems like. If you're going to race and you're going to stick around a long time, be prepared to be kicked around because that's the way it feels sometimes, and if you can deal with that, you'll have‑‑ you'll learn to appreciate the good days.

Q. I've got two questions. The first is for Justin and Johnny. Knowing the position that both of you guys were in in that final stage, were you guys surprised at how far off you ended today compared to where you guys looked to be for most of the start of the day through practice and qualifying?
JUSTIN HALEY: I'm glad you included us in a group. We were terrible as a group. That's always good.
But I don't know, we just missed it. Me and Johnny had pretty similar setups, same front end package, same rear end package, went to the Chevy sim together, did everything together this week‑‑ we're not married or anything‑‑ but I don't know, we just struggled. I can't tell you why. The truck drove okay, we just lacked a shit‑ton of speed. I think Johnny will probably tell you the same.
JOHNNY SAUTER: Yeah, I've been racing long enough to know when you get that really good feeling about the way things are going, and I just never had it today. Even this morning when we made our mock run and we were top of the board, it just didn't seem gripped up. So tonight's race was a bit of a shock to us. I didn't think we would be that awful, but we were. Like he said, we just missed it, and such is life, you know. Nobody died. We're all good. Part of it.

Q. For Noah, you and Brett had a hellacious battle right before that last round of green flag pit stops. What's going through your mind at that point, and when you're trying to chase him back down, was there anything more you could have done?
NOAH GRAGSON: No, that's just pretty much just me driving 100 percent, driving my nuts off pretty much. I mean, it's tough, but I guess it just comes down to experience, making good‑‑ I gave it all I got. I mean, I had my tongue hanging out. I wasn't worn. I wasn't falling out of the seat, but I just burned the front tires off of it. We were loose on the first run and then just made it a little bit too tight for the second run through the center and got snappy on exit. We got my exit really good, just too tight through the center and just burnt the front tires off.
I thought I had a left front going down. I don't know what was the problem. It might have just been all in my head, but it just started getting really, really tight, three, four, five numbers of a balance shift tighter. Just really challenging. Man, it sucks when you see that thing driving away from you.
Do you hear that voice crack? I need some water.
Anyways, sorry. I'm just bummed out, but we've got bigger and better things to move on to and got the off‑season to spend with the family and get to go racing next year, so that's always a plus.

Q. Johnny, Brett has had good runs this year, but they've been a little bit inconsistent. I was curious if you saw this coming at all, the fact that they finished second, third and then back‑to‑back wins in the last four races?
JOHNNY SAUTER: Well, momentum is definitely a factor in this sport, and I can speak from past experience. In '16 we got hot towards the end of the year, especially around the playoff time and won a couple races and came down here and had a good run and won the championship. Momentum is definitely a big factor in this deal. So yeah, I wasn't surprised. I knew today just looking at the lap tracker that they had good speed in their truck, and I felt like that's the guy we were chasing. Me personally, my team and stuff.
Yeah, when you get on a roll, sometimes you feel invincible, and they just‑‑ they had it going on. You know, we just struggled on the stretch. I can sit up here and sugar coat it until the cows come home, but that's not my style. Let's call it what it is; we sucked last week, and we sucked tonight.

Q. Justin, three wins this year overall. What's your biggest takeaway from the year?
JUSTIN HALEY: I don't know what the biggest takeaway is. Obviously we had a good season, and it's more than I expected going into the season. At Daytona I didn't have any Xfinity races lined up, and I got the opportunity to do some Xfinity races and try to put myself in those. Just got to have faith. Some of those times you look at it, and you're kind of in a bad spot, then the next week you go and you run good. I don't know, never give up. I think we put a pretty good team behind us in the 24 camp. I think Kevin Bellicourt really formed a good group of guys behind us, and I think that is what led to most of our success.

Q. Johnny, career highs in wins, top 5s and laps led this year. Is this one kind of tougher to swallow than last year?
JOHNNY SAUTER: You know, last year was a little tougher to swallow because we ran second, third all night to Christopher, so we lost the championship by one spot. Tonight, you start running not very good, and you're kind of like, well, hopefully there's hope on the first pit stop, and then as the night went on, the second pit stop we didn't get any better. The season is nothing to hang your head about, obviously. Six wins and very consistent. We just had some missteps here towards the end of the year. I don't know, tonight's championship run, the season doesn't sting very much because when you're awful, you don't deserve it, right? So what the hell; that's the way it is.

Q. We now haven't had a caution here other than stage breaks in two years. Were you guys surprised that it was that clean a race? Was that part of your strategy going in? Did you expect it to go green as long as it did?
JUSTIN HALEY: I loved it. I could go home quicker. The shorter the race, the better it is for us. I don't know about you guys, but me myself I was hoping for a caution there late because we were so good on fire‑off speed. I think we were one of the best on fire‑off speed.
Yeah, this isn't really one of those mile‑and‑a‑halfs where you expect wrecks. It's just super wide and most of everyone is in control.
NOAH GRAGSON: I was happy racing. I wanted to race some more. As the human side of me, I had a really fun time tonight, and I'm happy that I got to race for a championship, but the driver side, I want more laps. So I liked it.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

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