NASCAR CUP SERIES
COKE ZERO SUGAR 400
DAYTONA INTERNATIONAL SPEEDWAY
TEAM CHEVY PRESS CONF. TRANSCRIPT
AUGUST 25, 2021
TYLER REDDICK, NO. 8 CHEDDAR’S SCRATCH KITCHEN CAMARO ZL1 1LE, Press Conference Transcript:
LAST WEEK, DISAPPOINTING FINISH ASIDE, YOU ARE IN YOUR SECOND YEAR AND HAVE 26-LAPS LED. YOU ALSO HAVE A CAREER-HIGH IN TOP-10’S AND NOW YOU’RE IN THE POSITION TO POSSIBLY CLINCH A PLAYOFF BERTH IN YOUR SOPHMORE SEASON. WHAT WERE YOUR GOALS AT THE START OF THIS YEAR AND WHERE YOU’RE AT RIGHT NOW, DO THEY MATCH WITH WHAT YOU HOPED TO ACHIEVE AT THE START OF THE YEAR?
“I would say for the last 20 weeks or so, things have been going really well. The first six, seven races of our year got off to a really unfortunate start. They really put us behind the ball; really hurt our qualifying metric, if you will, in getting better starts. So, we had to really climb that pole and we were able to do that from about Bristol on. That was about the time that things started to turn around for us. Since that time, yeah it’s been really great to see it turn around and get better. But nonetheless, we’re in a spot now where we didn’t quite have enough points without a win to lock ourselves in come Daytona. We’re in a tough spot, but the consistency has been there to do well in the Playoffs if we do a good job this weekend, survive Daytona and make it into the Playoffs.”
“We’ve just got one more hurdle and, unfortunately, it’s a big one. One with a lot of uncertainty; not just with who’s going to be running at the end, but how much different the car is going to drive with the different horsepower and so many drivers below the cutline that are all out of options and desperate going into Daytona to do whatever it takes to win and lock themselves in, as well.”
YOU REFERENCED A LITTLE BIT THE CHANGES FOR THIS WEEKEND. HOW MUCH MIGHT THAT IMPACT THINGS?
“It’s entirely unknown. I can’t really say what it’s going to drive like. I think we’ve seen, in years past with previous generation cars, the draft being not as chaotic or unpredictable. But where we were, runs would kind of appear out of nowhere and once they would develop, they were very large runs and you could take them really far; farther than when I ran Xfinity or the Truck Series. The draft at times was not the same. There’s really nothing to go off of, I’d say. You can maybe look to the past some. But how the drivers approach these plate races, how much better the field is in its entirety has gotten in racing on superspeedways and how spotters communicate, have evolved so much that leaning back on previous races, previous experiences or digging into the files of some old races from the mid-2000’s – I don’t know that it would really be of a benefit. Those that can really learn fast in this race, whether that’s by playing it safe or being extremely aggressive. The drivers that do a lot of racing and put themselves in a lot of different situations at the beginning of the race will have a pretty good idea of what they can do and what to stay away from. Without practice, you don’t find that out until the race and there’s a lot on the line for myself and all the drivers from 17th in the points standings all the way back. A lot is going to go on the first 15-20 laps for a lot of us drivers; the whole field really.”
IN YOUR CAREER, HOW DID YOU ACCESS THE POTENTIAL OF WRECKING AT THE END OF A RACE WHEN EVERYONE IS GOING AFTER IT AND BEING COMFORTABLE WITH MAKING MOVES?
“When I’ve won at Daytona, it’s been the first race of the year and you’re just getting started. The year I won Daytona in the Truck Series, that was before stage racing for the Trucks. That was before the Playoff format, if you will, too. So, every race really mattered. But the first race of the year, you don’t really know how your year is going to shakeup, so you’re just out there racing hard.”
“The same thing at Daytona when I won with JR Motorsports. It was the first race of the year. We had kind of had a crazy day to start the thing off. Our car wasn’t even really running. So, for me in those situations, there wasn’t really anything holding back. But in the Cup Series, it’s just totally different. You have a lot of really good drivers out there that have been through the ranks and have won in other series; and have the laps and experience, know what to do and what to stay away from, and know what moves to not fall for.”
“With that being said, we’ve won races a lot harder because of that and we can all get away with a lot more. But when the moment finally happens when one mistake is made or two drivers don’t understand what the other is doing and you end up in the same place because we race so tight – a lot of chaos unfolds.”
IN REFERENCING THOSE WINS AT DAYTONA – WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO WIN AT DAYTONA? IF YOU WIN THIS WEEKEND, IT WOULD GIVE YOU A TRUCK, XFINITY AND CUP VICTORY AT DAYTONA.
“I haven’t kept up with it the last couple of years, but I don’t think anybody has done that before, last time I checked. I never would have thought I would have won a number of races at Daytona, let alone to get my first Truck Series win there – that was great. My first win with JR Motorsports there was great. The way I got the Xfinity win was pretty crazy in itself.”
“It was something, for a while, I was keeping an eye on. It’s still important to me. But, racing in the Cup Series, you go to Daytona twice a year and the amount you prepare for Daytona and how you prepare for Daytona has always been a little bit different than how you prepare for the intermediates, road courses and short tracks. It’s still really important for me to get done, it’s just a tough goal to totally go after with everything else that’s in the air for our team right now. We’ll go about this race a number of different ways; depending on how it starts and how it’s going for ourselves and for Austin (Dillon). And then, at the very end, once we get past the first two stages – not only do we have to keep an eye on Austin, but we have to keep an eye on pretty much half of the field.”
“It’s going to be an interesting challenge, all the meanwhile. The cars are totally different now, too. There’s a lot on our plate, but we’re ready for the challenge. I was hoping we wouldn’t be in this position going into Daytona. But getting put through an experience like this, if we can overcome this, I think it will have us really prepared for the Playoffs and we’ll be really ready to go. We’ll feel like we conquered the first big mountain and arguably the next one after it won’t be as severe. I could be totally wrong; but this is a lot of pressure on ourselves, RCR in general, and a lot of the field that isn’t locked in.”
IS IT DIFFICULT NOT TO DWELL ON WHAT HAPPENED ON SUNDAY AND THE POINTS YOU GAVE UP?
“It is a little bit, for sure. It would be very easy to immediately go right to that place and really be negative; be down and really be caught up in the mistake and the points lost. But that was something when our year started off, we had bad race after bad race – really let the downward spiral in the beginning of the year really get to us. It was nice to be able to go to the dirt race at Bristol; go in there and forget about how the year has gone. We thought we were going to do heat races and all that good stuff to set our starting position, which we didn’t. But we were able to get through that race and push to the front all day. From that point on, we kind of just forgot how the year had been up to that point. Based on how Indy went, we gave up points there; getting caught up in a wreck late. Yeah, we’ve given up a good number of points the last two weeks at the very end of these races. It would be easy to be ripping our hair out and freaking out. But the things that we’ve done up until these last few weeks and historically have been doing for months now, have all been very good.”
“So, yeah, these little things do happen and mistakes are still made. This was one of those mistakes that I made, for sure. But the good thing is we’re still plus 25-points. We’re going to Daytona, which I’ve always really enjoyed to race. I have an incredible spotter. I’ve always loved going to superspeedways with my spotter, Derek Kneeland. It would be nice to be sitting plus 50-points. But we’re not negative 25-points. We’re not totally out of it. It’s still very doable to at least cover the 25-points. It’s certainly just going to be a little more interesting than it would have been if we weren’t caught up in a crash at the end.”
DO YOU GET REALLY NERVOUS? IS THIS A TIME WHERE YOU CAN’T SLEEP OR ARE YOU A GUY TO REMAIN CALM AND IN THE MOMENT?
“I would say, this moment, definitely. But I look at other moments in the past that you could argue were pretty pressure-filled; but for me, honestly, I’m not losing a lot of sleep. When you have the most important moments of your year or of your life coming up, the last thing you should do is not be sleeping and be worrying yourself to death. The reason I’m not in that place and I don’t believe the rest of our team is in that place is because of all the things we’ve done right up until this point. Yeah, for sure, the last two weekends weren’t great for us and they make things a little more challenging. But everything up until this point has been great and we’ve been doing really, really well. The work that I’ve been putting in and my team has been putting in – this is one of those big moments in our year. We’ve been preparing and working really hard to be able to kick ass in moments like these. That’s going to be our goal going into this – just do what we’ve always been doing. This isn’t the time to freak out, panic and do something different or try to do more or whatever it might be. The things that we’ve been doing right all year long is why we’re here and it’s no time to change anything. What we’ve been doing gives us confidence for the pressure-packed Daytona race that we’re going to have on Saturday.”
GOING INTO THIS WEEKEND, HOW AGGRESSIVE DO YOU FEEL YOU NEED TO BE?
“It’s all going to depend how things are going for my teammate Austin (Dillon), honestly. We’re going to be starting around each other, for sure. It’s going to be interesting to see how aggressive he will be in trying to charge to the front at the beginning of the race. It’s going to be a constant moving target throughout the event on Saturday. We’ve got 25-points to lean on. Now, do we only want to get in by one-point over Austin? I don’t think so. But again, we just have to maintain what we have. We have 24-points to throw away if we really wanted to; but we don’t want to. It’s going to constantly move. It’s going to depend how Stage One goes for him and myself. And then, we’ll have to think about it a little bit. We have a plan in place for what’s going to happen on Saturday with him. But nonetheless, they could score zero stage points and we’ll still have to be thinking about him and all the others behind him in the points standings in that final stage as the finish creeps closer and closer. There are going to be so many drivers that have nothing to lose and everything to gain by winning that race and it’s going to make for a very chaotic finish to the regular season. As the laps wind down, drivers will get tired of being third in line on top or the bottom; it’s going to get wild at some point in the race. So, we’re going to have to try to stay ahead of it or be aware of it and keep our eyes out for it, as well. We can’t fight for the win if we’re crashed out before we get to the white flag. A lot is going to be on our plate to keep track of.”
AT WHAT POINT DOES THE TEAMMATE THING GO OUT THE WINDOW?
“It’s a difficult thing, right. We’ve worked together so much throughout this entire year to make our cars better at a lot of these racetracks; setup wise, working on our driving techniques. There’s a lot of things we’ve been working on. But when we go into Daytona, unfortunately, I can’t really help Austin (Dillon) and he can’t really help me without hurting the other’s chances of making the Playoffs. That’s just the unfortunate situation that we are presented with. Yeah, we’re going to be pretty similar on build in our racecars. Our cars, I would imagine, will work pretty good together. But yeah it’s a difficult thing. As much as we would love to work together, be upfront and control the race; it’s just not really an option for us. I can’t push him to the win and still make the Playoffs. And he can’t push me to the win and still make the Playoffs. It’s just an unfortunate spot for us to be in right now. It’s just a tough spot to be in for the whole RCR organization at the moment.”
GIVEN BOTH YOUR AND AUSTIN (DILLON)’S POSITION IN THE STANDINGS, HAS THERE BEEN A TEAM MEETING OR HAVE YOU GUYS TALKED TO EACH OTHER ABOUT HOW TO APPROACH THIS RACE AND WORKING TOGETHER?
“I mean we can’t, honestly. I’m in; he’s out. There’s a 25-point gap. Anything I do to help him, hurts me. Anything he does to help me, hurts him. So, we really can’t work together at all, unfortunately. At the end of the day, I still want an RCR car to be in the Playoffs over anybody else, obviously. And he feels the exact same way about that. But for him to do everything for his team to get into the Playoffs, he can’t be helping the 8 and I can’t be helping the 3. It’s kind of a weird spot. But, for sure, I know where he stands because I’m the same way. We want an RCR car to be in the Playoffs this year. It’s just a difficult place to be in because we’re obviously not going to go out there and screw each other over because neither one of us will make the Playoffs potentially if someone new wins. It’s just a very complex situation. That’s just kind of the way it’ll have to be Saturday night.”
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