NASCAR CUP SERIES
LAS VEGAS MOTOR SPEEDWAY
SOUTH POINT 400
TEAM CHEVY PRESS CONF. TRANSCRIPT
OCTOBER 15, 2022
TYLER REDDICK RECORDS THIRD POLE OF 2022 AT LAS VEGAS MOTOR SPEEDWAY
Four Camaro ZL1’s to Start in Top-10
· Tyler Reddick clocked-in a lap of 29.252 seconds, at 184.603 mph, to capture the pole position for tomorrow’s South Point 400 at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.
· This marks Reddick’s fourth career pole in 107 NASCAR Cup Series starts.
· Reddick’s pole gives Chevrolet its ninth NASCAR Cup Series pole win of 2022; and 732nd all-time in NASCAR Cup Series history.
TYLER REDDICK, NO. 8 ALSCO CAMARO ZL1 – Pole Winner Press Conference Transcript
TALK ABOUT STARTING UP FRONT FOR TOMORROW’S RACE.
“It’s awesome. I didn’t really know what was going to be in the cards for us after how practice went. We didn’t really fire off great. We had to make some pretty big adjustments on our car. Normally with this car, it’s been pretty challenging to go from a 20th-place car to where we ended qualifying at.
Just a great effort from our team. We worked really, really hard today. That’s just what we’re about. We just keep fighting.”
EARLIER YOU SAID YOU WERE PRETTY EXCITED JUST THINKING ABOUT PRACTICE, THINKING ABOUT QUALIFYING. YOU SAID YOU WERE HAPPY ABOUT THE NEWS FOR NEXT YEAR, BUT WEREN’T REALLY SHOWING IT. WHAT’S THE EMOTION RIGHT NOW, KNOWING THAT YOU’RE STARTING ON THE FRONT ROW FOR TOMORROW’S RACE?
“For the race tomorrow, it’s a big deal for us.
I’m really excited about next year, but there’s still a number of races left this year that I’m going to continue to remain focused on and do everything I can for my team to run well and do well.
Certainly, it is nice to know – like, ‘hey, this is what the future is going to hold’. I’m going to get to go over there earlier than I planned and just start working on those things that myself and a lot of the ownership over there talked about wanting to do and why we wanted to get together. We just get a year earlier start on that and that is very exciting for me. I’m excited about the opportunity, but I understand and know – I’m excited in a weird way for all of the things that we’re going to have in front of us. In a weird way, it’s always been really fun for me to put a lot of work into something like I have at RCR and see how much has come out of it. So, I’m really excited to do that again and do that at 23XI.”
WITH THE DISTRACTIONS OF YOUR SITUATION NOW SETTLED, IS IT EASIER TO NOW FOCUS ON THESE FINAL RACES?
“It wasn’t a distraction at all, honestly.”
YOU SHARED A LITTLE EARLIER ABOUT CHANGING THE SETUP FROM A 20TH-PLACE CAR TO NOW SITTING ON THE POLE. I DON’T KNOW IF YOU BELIEVE THIS OR NOT, BUT THERE ARE CERTAIN THINGS GOING ON IN THE SKY THAT ARE PREVENTING THE SUN FROM POSSIBLY COMING OUT THE NEXT FEW HOURS. IF THAT ENDS UP COMING, WHAT KIND OF ADJUSTMENTS DO YOU HAVE TO MAKE AGAIN?
“I don’t even know what you’re talking about. Are you talking about rain.. that word?
Well, we don’t do anything until tomorrow, so that’s fine. I hate it for these guys. They might be stuck here a little bit later. But when it rains, it pours, it seems like. The only thing that’s going to stink about that is that I was really excited about going back to South Point and hanging out at the pool; and if it rains, that’s going to ruin that. I guess that will effect my strategy for the rest of the day (laughs).”
SAME TIRE AS TEXAS AND KANSAS. CERTAINLY WE SAW ISSUES AT TEXAS AND A LOT OF THE DISCUSSION SEEMED TO BE ABOUT AIR PRESSURES. THE LEARNINGS FROM THOSE EXPERIENCES, HOW DOES THAT CARRYOVER OR WHAT KIND OF AN IMPACT COULD TIRES PLAY IN THAT SENSE TOMORROW?
“It just depends on what happens. If we’re talking about the thing that nobody wants to talk about in the sky, like if the track cools off a bunch and people aren’t right on top of it on the air pressures.. I think that’s what made Texas so crazy when the track cooled off a lot. As it was cooling off, the speeds picked up, the load in the tire picked up, especially in (turns) three and four and I think that’s where people saw issues. I think those are the situations that could come into play. But certainly as people get more desperate to try and make their cars better on the long run, all that sort of stuff – I think the air pressure can play a role into that. I think.. I’m not a crew chief though.
And then there are other factors, just like what you bring as a setup in your car to the racetrack. Some of us unfortunately, just depending on what we bring – if we guess wrong, we’re in a bad spot and we’re being really hard on the construction of the tire.”
EARLIER IN HERE, CHASE ELLIOTT WAS SAYING ‘HEY, WHEN THINGS GO WRONG, LET IT GO’ AND YOU JUST HAVE TO MOVE ONTO THE NEXT RACE. WHEN YOU HAVE SUCCESS, WHETHER IT’S SOMETHING LIKE TODAY OR WINNING A RACE HERE IN THE PLAYOFFS AFTER YOU’VE BEEN ELIMINATED – IT’S A GREAT ACCOMPLISHMENT, BUT IS THERE A LITTLE BIT OF A PAIN BECAUSE OF WHAT COULD HAVE BEEN? AS AN ATHLETE, HOW DO YOU NOT LET THAT CONSUME YOU?
“At this moment, I don’t. But certainly if depending on how things go – say we win another race now that we’re in the Round of 8 and go out there and outrun all of the Championship 4 at Phoenix – I guess then, that’s when you can be like ‘dang, those two points’. But up until then, there are so many different ways that things could play out, so at this moment, no. If it does go that way, it stinks, but it shows that we were right there and we just needed one or two things to go a little bit differently. At the end of the year, if it ends that way, that will sting. But in a way, it’s a good problem to have because it means that we were right now.”
WE’VE HEARD FROM SOME DRIVERS THAT THE WIDER TIRE MIGHT BE HELPING TO RUBBER UP THE OTHER LANES A LITTLE BETTER THIS YEAR ON SOME OF THE OTHER INTERMEDIATE TRACKS. HAVE YOU NOTICED THAT?
“I don’t know if it has anything to do with the tire width. I think in our case here, with this car when it comes to laying tire rubber, it just seems like it’s air temperature and track surface temperature dependent. We’ve been able to go to Martinsville like we did in the summer a couple months ago and lay all sorts of rubber with the same tire that wouldn’t lay any rubber when we raced there in the spring. Today, just how it played out for whatever reason – (turns) one and two in the shade were laying a lot more rubber than three and four in the sun. So, I think in some weird ways, it’s temperature dependent, more so than the 1.5-mile tracks. I feel like of the tracks that we go to, the 1.5-mile tracks probably test the tires the most laterally.. not even really accelerating. So it could be a few of those things, but I think it’s mostly track temperature.”
YOU EARNED YOUR FIRST CUP SERIES WIN AT ROAD AMERICA AND YOU’VE SINCE THEN ADDED ANOTHER TWO WINS THIS SEASON. WHAT’S DIFFERENT THIS YEAR THAN YOUR LAST YEAR AT CUP, AND WHAT KIND OF MOMENTUM DOES THAT BRING TO YOU FOR NEXT SEASON?
“We’ve just had a little bit more speed at more tracks this year. And then in those situations, like Road America and Indy, the races played out pretty naturally and we were able to navigate our way to win. Look at Texas, it was a little bit more chaotic for us.
In the years past, the first year we had a race or two capable of that. Just as the race played out, we didn’t run a complete race without any mistakes and that was the difference. As we’ve moved to this Next Gen car, a lot of those same details remain where you have to really execute all aspects of the race. We’ve just had a little bit faster cars. We’ve been able to mix it up a little bit more in certain situations and get our way up there. I think, consistency-wise, it’s been one of my worst years. But if we were running at the end of the race, we’re in the top-10. If not, we’re in the garage five-laps down because something went wrong.”
ONLY ONE TIME HAS THE RACE BEEN WON BY THE POLE SITTER AT LAS VEGAS MOTOR SPEEDWAY. DO YOU FEEL ANY CONVINCING REASON ON WHY THAT MIGHT BE DIFFERENT THIS YEAR FOR YOU, AND WHY DO YOU THINK THAT IS?
“I don’t know. I think the track changes a lot from practice, to qualifying and then to the race. The lane choice you have and the decisions you make when the track is pretty green when we start practice is a lot different than it is in the race.
And then there’s just a lot of really smart teams and drivers out here that have raced here many, many times and know what adjustments to make to hit the certain aspects of this car. For us, when we’ve started on the pole or we’ve started towards the front at these 1.5-mile tracks, we’ve had a lot of speed. We’ve just, unfortunately, had some things not go our way. But we were really safe on a lot of that stuff today, so I feel pretty good about it.. kind of like how we were at Texas. We’ll just see how it plays out. Hopefully we’ll change that tomorrow and it will be two and not one.”
Team Chevy high-resolution racing photos are available for editorial use.
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