Mears appeared in Victory Lane to celebrate his first win in the Nextel Cup Series in front of the crowd; the win earned him US$377,425 and is his only career win as of 2020. Mears was delighted with his victory, saying in the post-race press conference, "This is unbelievable. I'm very, very excited about it and, at the same time, very relieved. I was afraid Darien was going to call me in. I'm glad he didn't. The only way we could win was to gamble and that's what we did." Mears said he had "a fourth place car at best". It was the first time since 1991 a person with the surname Mears had won in auto racing. Yeley, who finished second, said, "This is probably the first time in two years of Cup racing I didn't catch the bad break. I've always run into bad luck.", and, "At the end, we were a top-five car at best". Third-place finisher Petty said, "In all honesty, it's just a race. We didn't change the world tonight. It feels good to come back and race with these guys. I guess third place was just the cherry on the sundae." He also said he had a car that was capable of finishing in the top ten and that he would not have been able to run with the top drivers. Petty also praised Mears for his victory and said he felt Mears would have similar success in the future. Hamlin said he felt the top-five finishers were lucky to achieve their finishing positions and that his crew chief Mike Ford said there was "no glory in winning a fuel-mileage race, other than saying you didn't run hard and were saving fuel".