TOYOTA RACING – Taylor Gray
NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series Quotes
TALLADEGA, Ala. (April 24, 2026) – Joe Gibbs Racing driver Taylor Gray was made available to the media on Friday prior to the NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series race from Talladega Superspeedway.
TAYLOR GRAY, No. 54 Operation 300 Toyota GR Supra, Joe Gibbs Racing
Can you talk about how neat it is to be a part of Dash 4 Cash this weekend?
“It’s cool that they continue to do this program, and O’Reilly kind of stepped up and took it over. So definitely a cool program for the drivers and the teams to bring more money in, and have the opportunity to do that.”
Do you enjoy this kind of racing?
“Yeah, it’s definitely a different type of racing, right, than what we’re typically do throughout the normal week. I think it depends on how your day goes, right? You can either leave this place loving speedway racing or you can leave it, hating it. I think that kind of depends on the day you’re having, and kind of how much luck you decided to have this weekend, in a way (laughter). But no, I mean, it’s fun. There’s things that you can do as a driver to put yourself in better position, but at the end of the day, you’re really at other people’s risk and kind of can do only so much. We kind of go about this week of – control what you can control, and that’s really all you can do. It’s one of those things where you just have to go in here with little expectations and try to lead and hopefully have a good day.”
Toyota hasn’t won here since 2014. Does that make it more important for you?
“I don’t know if I necessarily think of it that way. Obviously, it’d be awesome to win here and get TOYOTA RACING back in Victory Lane, but I don’t know if I think of it as necessarily in that aspect of we haven’t won here as a manufacturer in a long time in the O’Reilly series. So, I don’t know that I’d necessarily think of it that way. It’s just tough, right? There’s not as much of us anymore as there is Chevys. So it just, it makes it hard. I said a few years ago when I raced here in trucks – ‘it feels like I’m racing in a used car lot of Chevys.’ (laughter) It’s just hard. Obviously, numbers matter here, having friends matters here and we don’t have a ton of them. So again, kind of luck has to go your way and your day has to go right, and so at the end of the day, it’d be awesome to take a Toyota back in Victory Lane here. In this series, but I don’t know. All I’m really focused on is winning as many races as I can, no matter where they are at.”
The Joe Gibbs Racing O’Reilly program has had so much success. Do you put pressure on yourself to live up to those standards?
“Going into it last year knew that obviously there’s a lot of opportunity here as an organization and really good people that are at the shop working every day and making our race cars better. So, we struggled a little bit at the beginning of the year and are starting to find our stride, which is nice, this year, and having a lot of speed bringing to the racetrack. One of those things where I know that I need to go and win races and contend for wins and run up front. So, yeah, definitely a lot of opportunity.”
Does your pre-race routine change with the potential for weather?
“I wouldn’t say so. I’m going to go in tomorrow with a mindset of that we’re going to race, right? If we don’t, then so be it. We’re going to go get a good night’s rest tomorrow night if we don’t and race Sunday morning. So, I wouldn’t say it really changes anything for me, more so just takes away my Sunday at home (laughter). So, no, not a big change there for me.”
About Toyota
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