By Staff Report | Thursday, November 5, 2020

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“You’re on mute.” In what wound up being the most 2020 of NASCAR Media Days, the Championship 4 field held press conferences remotely through Zoom before Sunday’s Cup Series season finale (3 p.m. ET, NBC, MRN, SiriusXM). With the title contest and the season hurtling toward its conclusion at Phoenix Raceway, here’s a collection of top quotes from Thursday’s virtual media sessions.

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Chase Elliott, on how he celebrated his clutch Martinsville Speedway victory that clinched a Championship 4 berth: “To be real honest, I came home and went to bed, just to be real clear on that. I would have loved to come home, had a few beers, whatever, hung out. Just kind of the way it worked out. We had meetings Monday morning, obviously a big week of prep going into this last event. Really just kind of after the race tried to enjoy the moment, embrace it, recognize that situations and moments like that don’t happen every day. Really enjoy that. At the same time just get ready and think about Monday and what we’re going to talk about in our meetings looking ahead to Phoenix.”

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Denny Hamlin, on taking a page from the NHL for a postseason superstition: “You know, I’m one of those Stanley Cup guys where I don’t like to touch the trophy before you actually win it, so I’ve never actually touched a NASCAR Cup Series championship trophy. I want to be able to touch it.”

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Brad Keselowski, on the opportunity to recreate his 2012 championship celebration with an oversized beer glass: “My wife has told me that she will prepare the glass as long as I promise to drink responsibly. There’s a little backstory to it. Those people that know me know that I like to leave things as they were, meaning that we located the glass from 2012. It still had beer in it a little bit on the bottom. Needless to say that was not a pleasant sight, but it was authentic, so my wife is cleaning it as we speak, she’s going to wrap it up, put it in a nice bubble-wrapped box, and hopefully we’ll be getting it out Sunday night.”

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Joey Logano, on his confidence heading into the Phoenix finale: “I think the experience is there, the speed is there. I think the mentality of the way we race is there. I truly believe that we’re the favorites to win this thing. Like I said, that’s important to me to feel that way. I feel like I have real things to back that up, which is good.”

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Chase Elliott, on how he has leaned on his father, Bill, for insight on best prep for a championship race: “For me, the big thing from talking to dad that I feel like he’s kind of mentioned is just enjoy these moments because these aren’t things you can take for granted. You don’t know when your last race win is. You don’t what tomorrow brings. Nothing’s guaranteed, right? I think just enjoying these moments, trying to embrace them, especially after a race like Sunday, you wish you could just slow down time and enjoy that moment and make it last a little longer, but you can’t. You just have to enjoy ’em as much as you can, put emphasis on that. I feel like that’s where I’m at right now.”

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Denny Hamlin, on the label of “best driver without a Cup Series championship,” a distinction he shares with NASCAR Hall of Famer Mark Martin: “I’ve said for a year now that I never would consider any comparison to Mark Martin an insult. I’ll take those comparisons all day because the guy is a badass race-car driver that nobody wanted to face week in and week out, nobody. Not Dale Earnhardt, nobody wanted to face Mark Martin. I think that championships ‑‑ I get it, it’s very, very important. It’s where I’m at the sport’s highest level, most people gauge your success level or how good you are off of championships, but I also know that my competitors will probably say that I’m one of the toughest competitors and toughest guys to beat and that’s all I really care about is having the respect of them and knowing that week in and week out I can go and compete for race wins, and knowing that over the last two years, ain’t nobody won any more. I like where I’m at.”

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Brad Keselowski, on how he’s aiming for a championship not just for himself but for his team: “You know, the way the playoff format is designed, it’s meant to not give any free passes, even though there are teams that have performed really well for the majority of the season. With that said, our team is motivated. They’re hungry. I’m looking at a group of people, and I think I’m the only one that’s ever won a Cup championship on the entire team lineup. Three of my guys that go over the wall come from my truck team, and I’m super excited for them. I’ve been with them and helped them from kind of Day 1 when they had never pitted a race car before and now here they are competing for a Cup championship. That just gives me butterflies deep down inside.”

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Joey Logano, on his victory at Phoenix back in March and how his No. 22 team aims to draw on that experience: “We can make some tweaks here and there to the setup probably, some things that we feel very confident in will be better, but we’re not going to step way outside the box. It’s just kind of what we got. Even though it feels like a year and a half ago when we were out there, that’s really what we have to go back on, is our notes from that race.”

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