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NASCAR CAMPING WORLD TRUCK SERIES: NEXTERA ENERGY RESOURCES 250

February 16, 2018

Justin Haley

Dayton Beach, Florida

THE MODERATOR: We will roll into tonight's post‑race media availability for the 19th annual NextEra Energy Resources 250 in the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series, and we're joined right now by our runner‑up in tonight's race, driver of the No.24 Fraternal Order of the Eagles Chevrolet for GMS Racing, and that's Justin Haley. Justin, the first two stages tonight seemed rather calm. That third stage was wild from start to finish. Please walk through the final laps of that race from your perspective.
JUSTIN HALEY: Yeah, the final last laps were pretty crazy. We didn't get to qualify where we wanted, and we got shuffled back there. Didn't have the stage 1 we wanted, but made some good pit stops, got up there towards the front, in the mix there towards stage 2. Then the last lap, I was in the lead there on that caution, and we were going to go back green, and I didn't know who to pick to push me, and Lagasse obviously gave me a good push on the outside to the lead, so stuck to my gut on that one.
We ran pretty good there with David trying to block the runs, and then finally got shuffled back a little bit in the last lap. The energy wasn't really there on the high side. There was only nine or ten of us, and we were communicating with Joe Nemechek because he was obviously a Chevy. You know, I was going to back up to him on the backstretch there to try to get a win, but if you pull out there on the backstretch and Joe doesn't go with you, you end up 15th. The outside actually happened to have a good run, and the opportunity wasn't there. Southern Legacy tried to go up and block it, and I side drafted him, took the opportunity of that, and I thought maybe we were going to have Johnny there towards the end, but really thankful to have the Fraternal Order of Eagles on board, everyone at GMS. I'm glad Johnny won with GMS and we could take home the win.

Q. You're one of the young guns in the series; when you come to a race like Daytona, it's the biggest race of the season for y'all, what goes through your mind in this race, especially when you got close to the end where you're getting a chance to win?
JUSTIN HALEY: Yeah, you definitely are thinking about winning, but you can't let it get to your head. All week everyone has been asking me if I'm nervous running at Daytona or not, but I think the best thing to do is put away the nerves because I just feel like focusing on the task at hand is the best way to win a race. So you've just got to push out all the nerves, and obviously‑‑ you know, that was fun racing right there. I don't know what it looked like from y'all's perspective, but it was pretty intense for us. We were three wide, which trucks don't do a lot. Overall a pretty good night.

Q. Last year you weren't able to compete because of an age restriction. How important was it to have a strong night to propel you toward the championship run?
JUSTIN HALEY: Yeah, you obviously want to start off at Daytona on a good foot because it just gets the attitude of the whole team and the atmosphere around you started in the right direction, and obviously with Johnny getting a win, that helps GMS as a whole. Some of my other teammates didn't have quite the good run, but obviously being able to run the full season this year, I feel like there's no reason we shouldn't be in the Final Four at the end of the year. I guess we've just got to go to Atlanta next week and try to win that one. Our mile‑and‑a‑half stuff has been really good, and we tested Charlotte. The Ilmor motors obviously were really good, the NT1s, so lots of positive from the night to take away.
THE MODERATOR: Justin, congratulations on your finish tonight. Good luck next week in Atlanta.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

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