Toyota GAZOO Racing – Tyler Reddick
NASCAR Cup Series Quotes
DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. (February 12, 2025) – 23XI Racing driver Tyler Reddick was made available to the media on Wednesday prior to the Daytona 500.
TYLER REDDICK, No. 45 Nasty Beast Toyota Camry XSE, 23XI Racing
Does your win at Talladega last year make it fun to come to superspeedway races?
“I think we’ve done a better job of understanding what the keys are to running well and having that shot to win the race. It’s only happened one and a half times I guess if you count the Duel here. We know what we need to do, but to have all of these things fall into place in one race and not have any mistakes – it’s a difficult thing to do. Certainly, it feels more fun from that aspect like we know what we need to do. It’s still just a hard thing to do over the course of 500 miles to have that perfect day if you will where everything goes to plan so you can have the track position at the end.”
Do you have anything different circled going into this year compared to the past after running for the Cup championship last year?
“It’s not crazy different. I think the things that we needed to improve last year were the right things to focus on. I don’t feel like our keys to being good this year have really changed too much. It feels like we’ve gotta keep just working on the same things that we prioritized a lot and improved last year. We’ve got to just keep going further in those same areas.”
How big of a year was last year for you to have in just your fifth year in the Cup Series?
“It was a good year. We did a lot of things right in the summer. We had to overcome a lot of incidents, a lot of blockades if you will that could’ve kept us from advancing and could’ve kept us from getting to Phoenix with a chance to compete. We did a good job of overcoming that each step of the way and it was a pretty rocky road that we had to take in the Playoffs. To be able to overcome that was good especially when you look at how everything just kind of fell our way in the regular season. When things finally didn’t go our way, we didn’t fold up, we welcomed the pressure. It was a really good year for me as a driver. We won a number of races, we let some get away for sure. The wins were great, but I think the days outside of the wins were more of what made that season be as great as it was. Just the consistency we showed over long periods of the season.”
How do changes on your pit crew change your mindset as a driver?
“I don’t know if it changes my mindset to be honest. What I need to do getting into the box and out of the box to tie all that together remains the same. Certainly, as we get the in-race reps if you will, I think some of each individual’s tendencies might be a little bit different of what they’re wanting to see me do with my car coming into the box might be a little different. With time, that will just tell. As of now, how I get into the box and out of the box, car placement and all that sort of stuff I don’t really feel like has changed. I’m excited to see how the new members do. The entire group seems like they’re gelling well, so we’ll see how the performance is.”
What do you see in Riley Herbst coming into his first year in the Cup Series?
“I can remember racing against him (Riley Herbst) when I was on the tail end of my Xfinity career. It just seemed like really this past year in particular the light switch went off, things started to click for him. His crew chief Davin (Restivo), I worked with him back in my Xfinity days. He was my engineer on the 42 with Chip Ganassi Racing. I knew that he got a good one there so to see their relationship growing and getting to the point where they were winning races and performing really, really well it seemed like things were starting good for him. It seems like him and Davin’s relationship is in a really good place. I never worked with Riley as a teammate. We had a relationship through Monster Energy as Monster Energy athletes. Getting to work with him in-house this year has been cool and getting to understand his approach and his involvement. I felt like I was at the shop a lot, but I think Riley’s got me beat there. He’s definitely around and clued into what’s going on.”
Do you feel more confident coming into this race with more Toyota’s running in the Daytona 500?
“Yeah, certainly. All the manufacturers work with their own. Just the more numbers we have is going to help that. It’s just going to allow us to hopefully do what we want to do more so rather than just respond to what’s happening around us. So, we’ll see how that all plays out. Obviously, it would be great if all the Toyota’s can make the race, but there’s a lot that’s going to happen tonight and tomorrow night.”
What are the things you can control at a superspeedway race?
“I think if you have a plan and a strategy, you just stick to it. Obviously, we’ll try to pick the one that has the highest probability of working out and we’ll just try to stick to our game plan throughout the race and hopefully it’s a good game plan and gets us to the front.”
How much emphasis has been on starting the season out strong in points?
“I think every year I’ve ran Cup we’ve gotten past race two or three and been in the high 20s or low 30s in points. A lot of that has been because I can’t seemingly finish a race here on the lead lap in the (Daytona) 500. And, now that we have Atlanta, I think Atlanta last year we wrecked on lap 2 there too. We just have a tendency to not get out of the first few races with a lot of points and it kind of gets us behind. It’s only three races, but when you get down 160 to 100 points in the first couple races to some of the guys, you’re going to be competing against all year long it can take eight or nine races to close that margin back up. I think a small little objective of ours is going to be to have a good start to the year. That would be great to not start in a hole. That way it’s not such a looming task and we don’t have to spend so much time over the summer trying to close that gap back up.”
What makes your crew chief Billy Scott so successful?
“There’s a lot of things. I think for our relationship, it’s how he structures things. He’s an organized individual. He does a good job of balancing the work and his home life as well. I think all around he’s a good individual. It takes someone like that to be a leader and set a good example for the rest of the individuals on our team. Those are ones that come to mind. And just as we spend more time together, he understands what I say even if he can’t picture perfect, crystal clear understand the words. That just comes with time. All around, he puts in the effort, he works really hard, and I think that along with all of the other reasons is why he’s very successful.”
What is the challenge of moving on from a year like last year where you ran for the championship?
“I think I handled that well last year. For us, we didn’t have the clean start to the weekend that we wanted, but I felt like we pretty much got everything we could out of our car by the race end and we still just didn’t quite have enough. That means we’ve got to bring a better all-around car that just runs longer into the run as good as the Penske cars do. I feel like all in all, we walked away from it and didn’t get the result we wanted, but we felt like we did everything we could with our day. Obviously, we have some things that we know we can improve, we know we have to get better. On the Xfinity side, right, I had to switch teams and figure it all out again, so I wouldn’t say it was a whole lot different than what that was like. We’ll just take advantage of the race we have in the spring, see if we can learn some stuff at the test and hopefully, we have a good sense of direction on what we need to improve when we return at the end of the year.”
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