NASCAR CUP SERIES: BASS PRO SHOPS NIGHT RACE

September 18, 2021

Aric Almirola

Pit Lane

An Interview with:

Q. Aric, so much happens at Bristol anyway, then an oil line goes bad early. Could you believe how it started? Can you believe how it ended?

ARIC ALMIROLA: Yeah, no, it was frustrating. Disappointed to have it end like that just because we had battled so much adversity throughout the night, got into a position where we were running top 10, doing what we were needing to do.

That caution came out at the end where we had 18 laps on our tires. We stayed out. For whatever reason when we fired off on those tires, the car was up on the top of the racetrack skating. Wouldn't turn. Struggling.

Yeah, I don't know. That's not the way we wanted it to end. But we'll keep going and battle it out the rest of the Playoffs and see if we can't finish inside the top 10 in points.

Q. Was it just what it had when it was on lap tires? Before that the car had a lot of speed.

ARIC ALMIROLA: Yeah, our car was best on sticker tires. That one time we refired on cycled tires, I got a good restart, was able to kind of get some clean track. I could manage. Some of the guys on new tires got back by me, I could kind of hold my own the last time with all the new tires lining up behind me. I just got eaten alive. Lost too many spots. The more spots I lost, the worse my car drove further back in traffic.

Yeah, just frustrating. I don't even know how much we missed it by. I know it was a few.

Q. How will you look back on this Playoffs?

ARIC ALMIROLA: Just frustrated. I mean, our season as a whole was not what we wanted. We went to Loudon and pulled out a win, which was awesome. Then just kind of had a renewed sense of energy going into the Playoffs. Thought we were going to do everything we needed to do in this first round to transfer to the next round. Unfortunately didn't pan out.

Can't blame it on tonight. There was plenty of opportunities throughout the first two races where we gave up some points as well. I can find two points in a lot of different places, so...

Just frustrated.