NASCAR CUP SERIES: CRACKER BARREL 400

May 31, 2026

Chris Gayle

Heather Gibbs

Press Conference

An Interview with:

THE MODERATOR: We're going to go ahead and start our interviews. We've been joined by winning race crew chief Chris Gayle. Chris, thank you for joining us. A little bit of a unique start to this race. You had a rain delay. You guys obviously started on the pole, had the penalty early, and made your way back through the field and really the final laps for the team was really interesting to kind of see play out.

Just tell us a little bit from your perspective what that looked like from the pit box.

CHRIS GAYLE: Yeah, not a smooth day at all, like you alluded to. Didn't expect the restart violation at the start of the race there. Then at that point we're not sure how that's going to play out because this place is so tricky with when do the cautions fall and how many people stack, taking tires and not taking tires.

You don't really know when you're going to get that caution that's the coin flip that you can turn your way to get track position. That was the hard thing for us all day. For us it was probably that caution just at the end of stage 2 when we knew we were going to flip. I think four or five of us took right side tires there. We were the fourth of the guys that took right side tires, and that next restart, Denny was able to get to the lead of those guys.

So that we knew everybody would pit at the end of the stage, we would inherit the lead. So I think there were two restarts that were key for us, that one before and obviously the end one.

Then over the last restart there, I don't know that any of us actually thought we were going to win the race there. Everybody that's watched Denny knows restarts aren't typically his strong suit. If he has the lead, he's probably better at holding guys off. We were thinking let's just get out of here with a third-place finish and move on.

Then they started racing really hard, and he had the inside. We're like, okay, let's definitely not take all three JGR cars out. Let's let somebody else win at this point. Neither of those happened, and we were able to get away with the end. It was a good day and surprising end for us.

THE MODERATOR: We've been joined by Heather Gibbs, who is representing the owner side of things. Heather, for you, like Chris just said, those final laps, with three JGR cars in position to win, all three of them could have obviously taken home that checkered flag. What was your vantage point from that, and how did you stay calm in those final laps?

HEATHER GIBBS: Hat's off to everybody at the shop because I think coming to the track with such fast race cars, it's incredible to see them up there throughout the entire race.

Yeah, it's kind of like your kids in a family vacation in the backseat. You're swatting at each other watching them. Really, really proud of all of them. They stayed clean. No one has marching orders where they're like back off, let that one win. They're allowed -- we want them to race for the win. That's what they do, and it makes us proud. So we couldn't be happier.

Q. Going back to that strategy you mentioned, I am curious with the kind of herky-jerky fashion of that final stage with all the different cautions, all the restarts, did that mess with your plans at all?

CHRIS GAYLE: I think we were going into stage 3. We were sitting there where we knew, we had 25 laps on our left sides and had to run three. So call it 28 laps on the left sides and very fresh rights. We did that and didn't get quite enough fuel. When you take two tires, you can only get so much fuel in it.

The key there was we needed cautions or to run long enough to where we could take four, not necessarily have to wait on needing more fuel than other guys.

Where we were worried for a second was all those cautions. We almost took the last one. Was it like 218, we would have been on pit road, that's probably five, six laps short of making it on fuel. Had we gotten another subsequent caution like the next one, we would have had to pit. Then the five guys or six guys that just pit the previous would have stayed out, and we all would have lost track position.

We knew, once we got to that one, we needed it to go green. That was the only way it was going to play out for us. And then we weren't quite as good as the 20 or 19 really all day. So I think we were going to wind up third no matter what without a late race restart.

Q. From the ownership perspective, when Denny was in here the other day, he specifically talked about how much this track means to him and how badly he wanted to win the guitar. After a couple third-place finishes and some other frustrating, what is it like to see him actually get to hold that thing up in Victory Lane?

HEATHER GIBBS: At the start of the race, we were a little concerned as Chris had to be with the restart violation. But really proud of him. It just tells you he's the most seasoned veteran in this sport, and he's the best driver out there right now by far. We couldn't be more proud of him.

I think today when we were kind of looking at some of the history and having Kyle Busch win it in 2009, just really wanted to say for Samantha and Brexton and Lennix, I know it's been a week. Just because it's been a week for everybody else, you go back to the track and time goes on, I want to say firsthand it doesn't stop. We still feel it. I wanted them to know we are covering them in prayers and thinking about them.

So a lot of good memories that Joe Gibbs Racing is able to celebrate at Nashville, which is incredible. Again, back to our team, just so proud of them.

Q. Heather, for you, three of the Gibbs cars are top seven in points after tonight unofficially and Chase is up to 14th. As we get into the second half of the regular season, how do you view, especially where that 19 team is and having a night like tonight where they're able to finish where they ran where they weren't able to last week?

HEATHER GIBBS: It's just kind of been crazy circumstances. They come every week with speed. I think they've been caught up. They've had mechanical. I don't think we've ever had any doubt for that team. They do such a good job preparing.

It's just like tonight was crazy with different strategies and you're up and then you're in the middle of the pack and you're in the back. I think with Chase, he's a great driver. We couldn't be happier having him with our team. I think they'll be fine. They're going to keep building momentum and strategy.

They'll end up practicing next week probably in the second group and be able to qualify well, and that's how you can get stage points, and they'll strategize well with that.