Toyota Racing – Tyler Reddick
NASCAR Cup Series Quotes
SPEEDWAY, Ind. (August 12, 2023) – 23XI Racing driver Tyler Reddick was made available to media prior to practice for the NASCAR Cup Series event at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway Road Course on Saturday:
TYLER REDDICK, No. 45 SiriusXM Radio Toyota Camry TRD, 23XI Racing
Can you talk about what it means to win here?
“This is just an incredible venue. It has been around for so long. It has so much history. It is pretty crazy to roll up on this place. My son (Beau) pointed out that I’m on the grandstands over here. It’s pretty surreal. I remember so much of it – those memories will always stay with me.”
Are you sad to see the NASCAR/INDYCAR doubleheader weekend potentially go away?
“I hope if it does go from here, that we do find some other place to do it on the schedule going forward. Both series at the same place is a great opportunity for the drivers, crews and the fans to experience both.”
Does the rain make it more exciting?
“I feel like it’s always really exciting from the driver’s point of view. It feels like we’ve been battling a lot of weather that makes plans uncertain for some, but I think cars are on-track and I think the drivers in all of the series have become more acclimated to running on wet or damp conditions with wet tires. We will see how the track continues to dry, but it will probably be pretty dry, pretty soon, but I always really enjoy it. It works really well.”
What would be your thoughts on going back and forth with the road courses and oval?
“I think it’s just seeing how the test goes. I think a lot of folks in NASCAR, and even me, I enjoy being on the oval, but we need it to be a good race. We need to be able to race each other, and we kind of departed – the style of racing we had in here was really difficult to do anything, right? If we really can’t race each other well and pass, I don’t know if we should really run the oval. We will see shortly. If it works out that we can run both, I think a lot of the diehard NASCAR fans would be excited to see the oval. You will never hear me complain about road course racing.”
Can you talk about the changes to the restart zone?
“I think that is pretty fair honestly. You have to save us from ourselves. These cars are really resilient. The noses and tails are really strong. If we restart or start from where we started in the past, the two times that we have done this, it is just so tempting to try to out-brake the other car and then you are eight-wide and there is no room into turn one. I think it is the right move. I felt like at Chicago, it was damp, and it was single file – if you still had a good enough awareness of your braking zone was, you could still pass going into the corner going single file. You will still see plenty of racing on the restarts – just won’t be as chaotic, I guess. I think that is what we need. You see guys in there that are running top-five all day just getting wiped out because someone from 15th decides to jam it in there.”
Can you talk about the pit crew situation?
“It’s a part of the process. The team is young and building, and doing the things that they need to do. It’s just part of it. It can get frustrating at times for sure, as I’m sure that everyone heard, but we are working through it. We keep doing the difficult parts of it. It’s really difficult to win a race if you don’t bring fast race cars, and we’ve been bringing a lot of fast race cars – we will just keep putting ourselves in those positions and hopefully we will grow on pit road and continue to learn from our mistakes. That’s the biggest thing – learn from our mistakes and move forward, then it is all worth it.”
How chaotic do you expect Daytona to be?
“It will be really crazy for sure. There are a lot of good drivers that aren’t locked in that are capable of winning there. From my side of things, I’m safe for the most part, just trying to win as many stages and races between here and there. From Bubba’s (Wallace) point of view, it’s getting stage points and win a race before he gets there – I know he would love to do that too. They are doing their part. They are getting safer and safer from that danger zone. I’ve been in that position a few years ago, which was one of the most stressful three hours of my life – it’s never going to end, it feels like it could come apart at any moment.”
What does it mean to you to be alongside the incredible winner list here at Indianapolis?
“it’s pretty crazy, honestly. I never got to come experience a lot of racing here when I was younger – but I always watched, always paid attention. That Sunday earlier in the year when Monaco is on, Indy is on and then we go race the 600 is probably one of my favorite days of the year to be able to watch so much motorsports. I hope to be able, one day, to be here for it all on that Sunday in the future. I always enjoyed watching it. It feels like the racer’s holiday, but being on the walls in the museum here is pretty crazy. It didn’t seem real in the moment, when it happened last year, but the trophy is real. I hope to be able to do it again.”
How aggressive do you need to be on road courses?
“It all falls on where the pace of our car is. If it pace of our car is really good, I can kind of do our deal. If we need to find a little bit of speed, I just up the aggression until I find the limit and not step over it. Hopefully, we have really good pace here. At COTA, Sonoma and Chicago, we had plenty of pace – it just came down to execution. I’m excited to see once we get on track in a little bit on what track conditions are. It might take me a little bit longer to figure it out. I always felt like this track is pretty straight forward for me. I’ve always really enjoyed it. We will see where we stack up with the field and if we need to push more we will.”
Can you talk about the learnings you had in your post-race debrief after Michigan?
“That’s one of the difficult things about it. At Nashville a few while back, I felt like we had something similar happen, where we are waiting on fuel there. Obviously at Michigan, we were. It’s just something we’ve got to be better at. We just have to be on top of it. I’m not innocent either. I’ve made plenty of mistakes this year. I feel like I’ve cost our team two chances of winning from driver mistakes at Richmond and at Chicago Street Course. We all make mistakes. It’s part of it. We’ve got to learn from it and move on and we can’t repeat the mistakes.”
Do you look at what Shane van Gisbergen did braking wise in Chicago?
“I think it is definitely I’ll try to play around with but it’s not something that I’m good at by any means. I’ve never heel-to-toe braked in my life. I’m really bad at it, but I think there is always going to be certain conditions that will allow that to be an advantage potentially – having that extra little bit of control. In damp conditions here, it might be useful, but the sun is out. It is drying out. At a place like Chicago, where you don’t have a lot of room for error – it’s an extra way to try control your rear tires when you have something go wrong. Certainly, I feel like I was able to brake the way that he was able to brake, right foot brake the way that he was able to, in Chicago, I probably don’t crash into the tire barrier, but I wasn’t going to pick it up in 12 hours.”
Do you have to have a conversation after things are said on the radio that are pushed out socially?
“I think the best thing you can do is let it go, let it out. Worse thing you can do is sit on it and let it fester, right? If you are frustrated, I think there is a time and place. That situation – it is better just to get it out. Move on, debrief about and get ready for a big week ahead in Indy. Obviously, can’t complain every week like that on the radio, and I try not to. Safe it for when it matters. You never want to lose your cool, but certainly, if you are hot about something, it’s best to let it go and move on. If you sit on it for weeks and weeks and weeks, and don’t let it out, it’s not helping the situation for sure.”
About Toyota
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