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NASCAR XFINITY SERIES: POWERSHARES QQQ 300

February 17, 2018

Kaz Grala

Dayton Beach, Florida

THE MODERATOR: We are joined now by Kaz Grala, driver of the No. 24 NETTTS Ford for JGL Racing. Fourth place finisher, you've won at this racetrack in the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series. Walk us through this Xfinity Series event that went five overtimes and featured all that excitement.
KAZ GRALA: Was it only five, because I thought it felt like a dozen. I've got to say the win last year in the truck was obviously really cool and a lot of fun, but this might be the most satisfying race I've ever been a part of before because I'm not going to lie, we didn't have the speed we were hoping for. We only qualified 29th. But we were able to play our strategy well in the race. My crew chief Shane Wilson, the spotter, Chris Lambert did an amazing job getting us up in position, and this plate racing, there's a little luck involved for sure, but I really think you can strategically position your car to be safe, and we were able to be on the right end of that today and be in contention at the end.
That was a lot of fun. I can't thank the team owner James Whitener of JGL enough for giving me the opportunity to drive this car, and of course Roush Fenway Racing and Ford Performance for supporting it for me. It's going to be a fun 33 races this year.

Q. What's your level of frustration with restart after restart after restart after restart? Were you beginning to think we're just not going to end this thing?
KAZ GRALA: I was beginning to think I might run out of fuel, but I can't say that it was frustrating because if you had told me going into my first Xfinity race I'd be in contention in the top 5, I'd have thought you were crazy. Running up there in the hunt for the win was unbelievably fun, and I think my adrenaline was at an all‑time high. If they threw another three restarts at me, I was going to be ready for them, whatever it took.

Q. How close were you‑‑
KAZ GRALA: To the win? Oh, on fuel? I know we were tight, but I think everyone was pushing it. We were kind of hoping at the end that maybe we'd save enough where like the 500 last year, maybe a couple guys would run out, but I don't think anybody did. Daniel did, I think, under caution a couple attempts short. But still, coming away with fourth, yeah, you'd love to win, but this is a win to me. This is really, really cool.

Q. Kaz, speak if you will about getting through that one great big wreck. That put you where you needed to be.
KAZ GRALA: I really wish I had an onboard camera for that because that's probably the coolest view anyone has had from a NASCAR vehicle before. I mean, there were‑‑ last year was pretty cool in the truck on the last lap, but this topped it for sure. We had to be five, six wide down the backstretch, smoke everywhere, cars spinning, and we couldn't have made it through by more than an inch on all four sides of the car. That was a wild one, but that was really our make or break moment where we were able to position the car to make it through that without a scratch on it, and that allowed us to really fight in contention there. I think we got up to 8th or 10th and we worked our way up even further into the top 5 and grabbed fourth at the finish.
It was a lot of fun. It was wild, but it was fun.

Q. I spoke to you yesterday about obviously a new team for you, a new manufacturer. So much change within the team. Obviously there's a lot of attrition out there, got pretty crazy, but what does a result like this do to boost not only your momentum but the team's momentum going into Atlanta?
KAZ GRALA: Well, this is huge for us. It's huge for morale, of course. It's huge for points, as well. You can come out of Daytona in a pretty bleak position in points, so it's great to be able to be in this position rather than on the other end of it. Going into the season, of course JGL is a fairly new organization. It's not necessarily a Cup affiliate‑‑ we're affiliated with Roush Fenway, but we're competing against real other Cup teams, so I consider us to be a bit of an underdog, so going into the season if you had said are you going to get a top 5, I would say, we're going to try, but I definitely wouldn't have told you that it's a definite.
So to be in contention to get that top 5 and to come away with it, I think this is really going to set the tone for our whole season. It's huge for us as an organization.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

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