By: Ashley McCubbin

Sometimes when you stick a microphone in front of a driver’s face – especially when they’re mad, you have no clue what they may say and a couple of times you’ll hear something that surprises you or gives you a bit of a perspective.

Throughout the NASCAR Xfinity Series season, there were quite a few of these moments. So it seems only fitting we take a glance back through the year at what was said.

#26: Kaz Grala, Sam Hunt Racing, Toyota Racing Development Toyota Supra

“I love Sam. It’s cool how involved he is. There’s not too many owners in our sport in really any of the series that are as young as he is. He’s only a few years older than I am – he’s not even 30 yet. It’s cool as the driver to be able to kind of connect with your owner in a more of a friend way, than an authority figure, parent level – heck some of the owners are grandparent-age level. It’s been to cool working with Sam and seeing what he’s been able to build there so young, so quickly, and how involved he is. I walked into the shop yesterday and he was putting decals on the windshields with our last name on it, so he’s right out there in the shop doing things. Luckily, they leave the more skilled tasks to the more skilled people, but they throw  Sam some busy work to help out around there for sure. It’s a good time at SHR. Sam creates a great fun work environment. Everybody enjoys working themselves so I’m loving working there.” – Kaz Grala on team owner Sam Hunt

“Honestly, the biggest thing at this point is just equipment. It’s the biggest thing we lack, right? It’s being with a small team. I’ve just been incredibly grateful to have the opportunities I’ve had and be a full-time driver and I think my group in particular, my team gives me a car that’s more competitive than most would be able to with the resources they have and I’d like to think with my Cup Series experience I can go out there and over deliver. So we just continue to outperform and it makes me wonder what we could do with better equipment and we’re battling teams that have three, four times the budget that we do, which is very satisfying. But like I said, it makes you wonder what you can do in that situation. So for me, it’s just keeping a good head on my shoulders, staying focused, being thankful for the opportunity that I do have, just trying to turn heads by outperforming each week and racing against the big teams with a lot less.” – Anthony Alfredo

#36: Josh Williams, DGM Racing, Alloy / Seacrest Studios Chevrolet Camaro

“Everybody’s dream is to drive for a big team, right? To have the best of everything. These days, now a lot of people pay to play, right? Not kind of in that situation yet so running for the smaller teams is great. You have to hustle, you have to work a lot harder and try to put yourself in a good position to capitalize on good runs and try to better your equipment and knowledge and set-ups. It’s fun. I love driving for smaller teams. It’s super exciting when you do have a good run. In years past with Mario (Gosselin) we’ve run in the top-10 a bunch and it’s like, “Hey, this is cool. We’re not supposed to do this, right? In the NASCAR world, the smaller teams aren’t supposed to do that.” So to be able to accomplish those goals is really, really cool and hopefully we can have some more cool moments like that this year.” – Josh Williams

“I’m in the shop pretty much every day and to work in here with the guys and see our hard work really progress, and turn into something, it’s cool to see. It’s like building a house from the ground up. You start at the ground floor and then you have a finish product, and our finished product is having good runs. I think it’s been really cool. The whole team works really hard. There’s only a handful of us in here working on these things, so it’s been really cool to be a part of that progression and be a part of that from the ground up.” – Bayley Currey