NASCAR Camping World Truck Series: Ford EcoBoost 200

Topics:  Ford EcoBoost 300

Ty Dillon
November 16, 2012

HOMESTEAD, FLORIDA

KERRY THARP:  Joining us now is our 2012 Sunoco Rookie of the Year in the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series.  He drives the No.3 Bass Pro Shops Tracker Boats Chevrolet for Richard Childress Racing, and that's Ty Dillon.  I know you're disappointed in how things played out this evening for you, but you look back over the body of work of the season, being the Rookie of the Year in NASCAR, congratulations.
TY DILLON:  Thank you.  Yeah, we had a wonderful season.  I couldn't really ask for much more besides a championship in our rookie year.  I'm real proud of what my team was able to accomplish, and everything they put into it until the last seconds of the race there.  It's unfortunate.  You know, we had to‑‑ we were in a no‑win situation, we just had to go out there and win the race and make something happen, and that's what I was trying to do.  I knew my guys had my back, and then I just tried to make something happen there at the end, and we got to second and the points were looking good and weren't really worried about that, just trying to win the race.  Kyle is a great driver, and I know he probably didn't do that on purpose, but I never knew, never heard anything, it was clear, clear, and then all of a sudden inside.
Definitely didn't think I crowded him, but just I hate it for my guys.  They worked really hard for me all year, and I believed in them, and just I fell a little short.  But it gives us something to strive for next year.  We started out the year and we kind of built our trophy case and wanted to win a race and sat on a couple poles and wanted the championship and the Rookie of the Year and we accomplished half of those, or most of them.  We just missed that championship by a little bit.
But I'm all right with everything that played out, it's just we were going for it and almost had it.  We were trying to hit the home run in the bottom of the ninth and almost did it.  It bounced off the wall.  But that's all right, we'll be back next year and we'll be fighting harder than ever, and we'll be hoisting that trophy next year.

Q.  Do you feel like in a circumstance like that, that somebody who's not racing for the championship should perhaps give you a little bit more slack there?
TY DILLON:  Well, you would want to.  You would want that to happen.  But a racer is a racer, you're going to try and win the race.  But there's sometimes where you've kind of got to think to the future and little bit and say if it's really worth it at this point.  We were running for I guess second or third, maybe had an opportunity to win the race, but I was going to fight as hard as I could, maybe he could have passed me either way.  I'm not blaming him for what happened, it's just a racing move.  I hate it happened the way it did.  It probably could have been avoided from patience from probably both sides.  But it sucks that it had to end our year that way.
I fell back to fourth in points, I guess, in the year, and our team doesn't deserve that.  We ran much better all year than fourth in points.  That's just the disappointing thing to not really finish at speed.  But like I said, I'm proud of my guys, they never stopped working until the last second.
KERRY THARP:  Ty, thanks a lot for coming in here.
TY DILLON:  Thanks, everybody.  We'll see you next year.