NASCAR CUP SERIES
TOYOTA/SAVE MART 350
SONOMA RACEWAY
TEAM CHEVY PRESS CONF. TRANSCRIPT
JUNE 3, 2021
TYLER REDDICK, NO. 8 CHILDRESS VINEYARDS CAMARO ZL1 1LE, Teleconference Highlights:
HEADING TO YOUR HOME STATE OF CALIFORNIA, TELL US ABOUT THE OPPORTUNITY TO GO BACK OUT WEST
“It’s been a while since I’ve been really close to home. Every time I go back out there it’s crazy how much Northern California seems to change from how I remember it when I was younger. Something gets moved or changed. The area just changes. Just in the seven years I’ve been living in the Charlotte area, it’s crazy how much the area has changed here. So, I can only imagine what has changed since the last time I was there. But I’m excited to get back out there. I was looking at the weather. It’s going to be like 100 degrees, which sounds really bad if you live in North Carolina but for some reason it feels like 85 degrees here in Charlotte in the Summer. I’m looking forward getting back out there and seeing the West Coast again.”
WITH NO RACE AT SONOMA LAST YEAR, JUST HOW DIFFERENT DO YOU THINK THIS RACE IS GOING TO BE? WHAT RACES HAVE YOU BEEN WATCHING TO PREDICT HOW THINGS WILL GO?
“It’s really hard to go back and put a lot of faith in past races because the tire continues to change quite a lot from the last time they raced there. They weren’t running the layout that they are right now. There are some things to take away from it. The falloff is probably going to be more, obviously, with less downforce. But it’s still a road course in Sonoma, so it’s one that you can kind of prep for without having to go through a lot of race footage. It’s still a road course and the fact that it lays up to make passes and how you want to make lap times and the most visual markers and everything you can kind of gather through manufacturers’ simulator or iRacing. So, I’m just trying to prep and be better with just road racing in general, and Sonoma just happens to be the one that we’ve been focusing on the last couple of weeks. COTA was one we focused on, as well.”
SINCE YOU ARE BORDERLINE ON POINTS, DO YOU HAVE TO USE STRATEGY TO GET STAGE POINTS AND THEN POTENTIALLY WORK YOUR WAY THROUGH, OR WILL IT JUST DEPEND ON HOW YOUR CAR IS?
“Yeah, there are a lot of factors that play into that. If we are as good as we are hoping we are, it gives me some hope that we can go into Sonoma and yeah, I’ve never seen it, right? It seems like we’ve been hitting it pretty good on the road courses here lately. There’s a good chance we can roll in there and be pretty quick. It’s just going to depend on how the race plays out. If we feel like we have a shot at winning, I know we’re not going to get caught-up on those Stage points. But yeah, there are so many factors that go into all that. We’re just going to have to see what happens. I’m excited and we’re going to go for it when we get to Sonoma.”
LOOKING AHEAD TO THE ALL-STAR RACE, YOU’LL BE IN THE OPEN. TALK ABOUT THE CONCEPT OF RACING SHORT BURSTS TO MAKE YOUR WAY IN. YOU ONLY HAVE TO WIN A STAGE IN THE OPEN TO MAKE THE ALL-STAR ITSELF. AND WHAT’S IT GOING TO BE LIKE TO HAVE THAT RACE AT TEXAS INSTEAD OF CHARLOTTE?
“It is kind of funny to think that the aero package we have at superspeedways is basically what we’re going to have at Texas. I hope we don’t have that chaotic of a race. The track is a little bit shorter. Turns 1 and 2 are definitely a lot more challenging. Even in a Cup car with a little bit more power, I really don’t know how it’s going to go. Yeah, it’s not a points-paying race, so I’ve tried to not really think about it too much right now, because of COTA, the 600, and Sonoma. Obviously, it’s right around the corner. We don’t have that much horsepower. I know that preparation-wise and how our race is going to go. It’s going to really be dictated by did we bring the right body build, do we have the right aero balance to race with that little bit less horsepower in an open field, if you will. So, it’s kind of a guessing game and I leave that to my guys to do the best job to bring a car that we hope is going to be good on a 1.5-mile. Obviously, the Coke 600 and the last couple of 1.5-miles, we’ve had good speed. But what’s that going to mean with less horsepower. What does that mean for us? We’ll see when we get there.”
FOR THE FANS THAT DON’T KNOW WHAT THIS IS LIKE, CAN YOU TALK ABOUT SETTING UP A PASS AND THE FEEL OF RACING A TRACK LIKE SONOMA?
“I’ve never seen it (laughs). I don’t know. I’ve ran it plenty on Zoom and iRacing and whatnot with friends. I don’t even know what airport we fly into out there. But if you drop me off and they said go to the race track, without a GPS I’d be in trouble. I wouldn’t know where I’m going. I don’t really know. It’s still a road course, thought, like the technique and how you set-up to pass somebody, you don’t complete a pass in one corner. The 1.5-mile racing is kind of getting that way now with the less horsepower in these cars, right now, on the 1.5-miles. So, it’s kind of a chess match. You poke your nose in there a little bit. Maybe you get the guy thinking oh, is he going to drive in here and wreck me? Well, he didn’t. Now the guy misses the apex and now maybe you have an opportunity to pass him down the next straightaway. It’s kind of a chess match. A lot of these road courses are with the elevation gain and loss. That just amplifies the amount of give and take and it’s just all about carrying momentum. You’ve got to have a trade-off somewhere if you’re trying to gain an advantage and gain momentum in another part of the race track. The passes take a while to set up and I’m excited for how fun it’s going to be. It will be definitely challenging for me and the other drivers, obviously, as well. They haven’t run this aero package at Sonoma on this layout.”
WHAT DO YOU NOT KNOW THAT YOU ARE MOST INTERESTED IN FINDING OUT?
“It’s just the understanding of what the tire falloff feels like and what options I’m going to have in front of me to kind of manage that better. The 1.5-mile race tracks, the short tracks, the ovals, even COTA, you kind of understand okay, this is kind of how I can manage my tire falloff better. But I haven’t had a lot of experience with it or good experiences with it. My understanding now it a lot different than what it was a couple of years ago.
“Those in our sport that have run there for many years like Kevin Harvick, Kurt Busch, Denny Hamlin, Martin Truex; yeah, the tires change, but they understand how the characteristics of the track are. And they probably have an understanding of okay yeah, I’ve got to give up this lap after lap after lap to be able to sustain well over a long run. Where a guys like me, where I’m coming in, I think I’m going to have to wing that because yeah, I can look at lap times and understand the pace falloff from years previous; but again, it’s a different layout and downforce package, so it would be really hard to do that. So, I’m going to have to wing it at the beginning of the race and hopefully my level of winging it is good enough to be able to improve it throughout the course of the race and getting better by the end.”
FROM YOUR PERSPECTIVE, WHAT NEEDS TO BE DONE TO ELEVATE FROM THE SEVENTH TO 10th PLACE FINISHING RANGE TO ENTERING THE TOP-5?
‘There are a couple of areas. Probably the biggest one has been here in the last two or three weeks is I’ve got to continue to get better on pit road. Charlotte was a very challenging one for us. With the nature of that race and the lack of comfort that I had running really close to the maximum speed limit allowed, like Kyle Larson could all night, I was very off in that regard, but I was absolutely terrified of having a speeding penalty and completely derail what could be a very manageable and realistic top-10 day, even with those little crumbs left on the table. We have to find ways to get better at all the little details. And then just avoiding the little mistakes along the way. The last month or so there’s been one restart a race, I’d day where I’d choose the wrong lane, anticipating where the car ahead of me is going to go, and it puts us back two or three spots. It’s just little details, especially in the Cup series. You can’t just be really fast on the race track to win races. All these big teams are really calculated to know how much to push at any point in the race. But for me, it is nice to see how much better we’ve been able to get in about a year’s time. We still have a lot of room to go.”
ON THE MOMENTUM YOU ARE CARRYING RIGHT NOW, HOW WOULD YOU RATE THAT PERFORMANCE? IF YOU TAKE OUT DARLINGTON AND RICHMOND YOU WOULD HAVE SEVEN STRAIGHT TOP-10’S.
“It’s crazy to hear potentially that number of top-10 straight considering how the year started. It’s even crazier to hear that the two where we don’t break through and get those great runs are two of my better tracks that we go to throughout the year. We’ve been better about managing our expectations there. Going to Sonoma, I think it’s important to manage our expectations as well. I’m very excited about Sonoma. But I’ve got to again remember I’ve never seen this track. I have not logged a single lap around this place once in my life. I can’t help but be confident because we’ve been able to improve a lot at the road courses. We didn’t have a good run at the Daytona Road Course race, but at the Clash we were really quick. My expectations are high but still there’s a lot of uncertainty going into it.”
Team Chevy high-resolution racing photos are available for editorial use.
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