Toyota Racing – Tyler Reddick
NASCAR Cup Series Quotes
HAMPTON, Ga. (September 7, 2024) – 23XI Racing driver Tyler Reddick was made available to the media on Saturday prior to practice for the NASCAR Cup Series race at Atlanta Motor Speedway.
TYLER REDDICK, No. 45 Jordan Brand Toyota Camry XSE, 23XI Racing
With how daunting the first round is, how helpful are those Playoff points are that you earned for winning the regular season championship?
“Well our approach doesn’t change for the Playoffs or for the opening round for the Playoffs, but certainly having those Playoff points helps in case it does get a little bit out of hand with these first three races. There is just a lot of uncertainty. I feel like that this is a track that races like a superspeedway – handling comes into play and people, drivers do have issues in the car and spin and crashes happen. If you look at Watkins Glen, just with what the tire could do there, there is uncertainty there, but when I go through these first three, I feel good about the speed that we had. Granted here in the Spring, we wrecked here on lap two and we didn’t learn from that previous race, but we’ve been solid here and just seeing how fast the Toyotas were in Bristol – even though again, we were in an early wreck – I feel good about that one as well. We should have speed here at the first three, so we will just keep the approach that we’ve been having all summer long – just trying to score as many points as possible and stay in the top-five all day, and if we do that, we also, as a bonus, will have a shot at winning a race at the end of the day.”
How much more prepared are you for your second Playoffs with 23XI Racing?
“I think our biggest thing is more so going into the Playoffs last year is just being more consistent. Last season, coming out of Charlotte, we were like 30 points out of the lead, and we gained a lot of ground and kind of had a really good early Spring into Summer push, we just had a lot of bad races over the course of the summer. I feel like we did we did a good job correcting that for the first and second round of the Playoffs, ultimately in the round of 8, we kind of lost a little speed and had some of our worst races of the year. I think that is the biggest thing – just work on being consistent. We’ve done a good job with that over the summer stretch. I don’t see any reason why that would change for us. I just feel like the more and more we get into this season, the more comfortable we get with how we’ve been running. The confidence is on our side I think.”
How are you feeling?
“Better, thankfully. It took until I think – Thursday was the really first normal day. It took a lot longer than I thought it would to run its course, but thankfully good to go and ready for this one.”
Is it frustrating as a driver with how much uncertainty is there in the first round?
“No, it is in our control. Maybe a wreck that happens in front of you is out of your control, but how you end up in that position is. Obviously, we know that qualifying is not our strength – we know that we will probably be starting back there in the mess a bit, but it is in our hands to get in front of it or get out of there, so it is very much in our control I feel like. We got to do the Watkins Glen tire test, so naturally we feel pretty good about the laps we got to have there. It is probably one of my worst road courses, of the ones we go to. The speed of the Toyotas in Bristol in the Spring helps with that. Our car was really torn up – we were damaged early on in that race, and I still felt like we if our car would have been 100 percent we would have been really strong. I’m feeling good about it.”
How have you seen the growth of 23XI?
“It is just little steps, just working on the process that we have, our preparation – fine tuning it every single step of the way. There is not one big thing, right? Just a lot of good people working together on the road and back at Airspeed to help achieve those goals. It has been really cool to just see that continued path – we really haven’t hit a spot where we leveled off and sat there for a while. It seems like we continue to gradually climb and improve and as the year goes on. I’m really excited about that, but it is what we need to contend with some of the top teams and drivers that have been around for a long time. We will keep after it.”
How did being able to run last season with 23XI help you set up the foundation to have the on-track success you have had?
“It definitely played a huge factor in it. I have all the faith in the world that the cars would have been as fast but seeing that we just have great people and smart people at Joe Gibbs Racing as well that play a big role in where our cars are at on the race track too. They would have had the speed and potential, with or without me, but certainly, some of the things that me and Billy (Scott, crew chief) have been able to work on, some of the things we got to work on a year on back at the COTA tire test to just make the road course program better. Those things were really beneficial, certainly, just for the team chemistry side of it. That extra year has really helped us hit our stride this year.”
What did you have to go through with Billy Scott to build that relationship and chemistry?
“We just had to go through races. The more time we’ve had together – we’ve got to experience the highs and the lows – and understand how to navigate them as a team. I think that just experience can be invaluable as a team, the more we know each other the more instinctively we know what’s going to happen next without really having to talk about it or letting it play out. I think that experience for both of us has really helped us a lot. We brought in Nick Payne (spotter), who is kind of new to the sport – was doing Xfinity and Trucks, no full time Cup gig, and starting fresh with him. Just having the consistency across the board with the team really helps.”
How important is it to stay even in the car and not let the emotions get the best of you?
“Very important. If emotions get the best of you, it’s easy to make some poor decisions right? That more times than not just make your day worse. Just have to keep a level head and think what the next restart, the next lap – what the future scenario is. You try to respond more than react, but it is tough when you are strapped in the car, it is hot, not having a good day, it is easy to get frustrated and certain times, it is probably good to let it out, but it is definitely easy to do – and it is something that I’ve had to learn – to figure out how to digest the bad and the good and move on from it, and approach the next scenario with as level head as possible.”
Did you ever imagine growing up racing Kyle Larson that you would be amongst the top drivers in NASCAR?
“I mean Kyle (Larson) – definitely when he left the outlaw kart stuff and started running midgets and sprint cars – it was very automatic. I could tell watching from a far that he was going to go wherever he wanted to go. On my end, I didn’t know if it was going to work out. It kind of looked like the door was coming to a close, and then I got a break – started working with (Ken) Schrader, won a race. I definitely saw Kyle getting here, but I didn’t, at times, think it was going to work out for myself, but thankful it did. It is really cool that two kids that grew up racing at Cycleland Speedway in go karts, all those years ago, are doing that on the Cup side now. “
About Toyota
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