Toyota Racing – Tyler Reddick
NASCAR Cup Series Quotes
LAS VEGAS (October 14, 2023) – 23XI Racing driver Tyler Reddick was made available to media before practice for Sunday’s NASCAR Cup Series event at Las Vegas Motor Speedway on Saturday:
TYLER REDDICK, No. 45 Jordan Brand Toyota Camry TRD, 23XI Racing
Is it surreal or have you gotten used to the Jordan Brand logo on your hood?
“I mean it is still really cool. It’s been nice to do the schemes that we have, especially the last month or two. I really enjoyed the one that we ran at the 600 but mixing it up like we have and putting it to work like we have has been really, really cool. This car is really exciting too. I think doing the aid and all of the things around that shoe and everything is really exciting this weekend.”
You have been to the Championship 4 before and neither has 23XI, what makes you think you can do it this season?
“I think when you look at our speed and what we are really good at – our ceiling is there – it’s just a matter of putting it together on the race track, one weekend at a time. If you do everything right, you can get there. I think the way that we’ve been scoring points here in the Playoffs – we’ve been strong in that aspect too. We have paths – we have two ways we can get there. I would like to get there the first way, so we can really focus on Phoenix, but I feel like we have options, so obviously, to win races, you have to run up front all day, if you do that, you are going to score points, so I think they kind of go hand in hand with one another. As we look at Vegas, Homestead and even Martinsville, all are good tracks. I would say the first two are good for me, and Martinsville is really good for the team and Toyota. I really upped my game when we went there in the Spring. I feel good about the tracks we have up ahead, and then Phoenix – at the end of that race, we were battling (Kyle) Larson and (William) Bryon there. I feel like we were really strong at these last remaining tracks.”
Toyota has four of the eight drivers in the Round of 8. What does that mean for Toyota and the drivers?
“I can imagine it means a lot to everyone at Toyota and TRD. They work really, really hard to give their drivers and teams all the resources that they can. They’ve been very beneficial to me as a driver and certainly, the team this year. I’m new to it – my first year with Toyota. I’ve just been extremely pleased about what they bring to the table, and how they operate. It has been a lot of fun. Personally, that would be really cool if the four Toyotas that are left can execute in this round of 8 and we can lock that thing out. That would be great. Obviously, I can’t do anything about the other three, but if we do our job and if Denny (Hamlin), Martin (Truex) and Christopher (Bell) execute as well – I think that is something that is very possible. I think it is going to take some wins, but we have the speed to go out there and win.”
How have you grown as a driver this season joining Toyota and TRD?
“I still race as hard as I always have, but it has been nice to have the cars as good as they are that I can think twice about taking the really risky choice or making the risky decision on the restart or battling for position. It has been nice to have that – knowing that if we can’t get it this lap, maybe in five laps or on the next restart or at the end of the race. It gives me options as a driver. I feel like for a long time in the Cup Series, I had to race really, really hard – even if it was on lap five. I still have that drive to do that, but it is nice to know that we have a car that is capable of overcoming track position loss at times. We did it a lot this year – in the Spring here actually, with the issues we had in warmups and not getting to practice and qualifying, getting boxed in on pit road all day. We’d lose about 10 spot every time on pit road, so that was a tough day here in the Spring, but going through those motions earlier this year, going through the motions of this race knowing that if that happens, I had to do it every single time we had a caution here in the Spring, so it makes me feel good that if something doesn’t go good at some point during the race, I know what to do to get back to the front too.”
Have you checked any of the setup for Formula 1 and will you come back for the race next month?
“I thought about it, but I’m sure as everyone knows it is going to be expensive. Maybe, if everything goes good this year, it maybe will be my present to myself. We will see. I didn’t get to see it like you did – walking through the main stretch area. I saw that photo you posted. When we landed, we drove right by it and the amount of construction is insane. You think how quick we had to be in and out of Chicago, and how much they’ve already dug in and changed the appearance of the Strip for this event is pretty wild to see. They are going to get some new roads out of it – that’s pretty cool. But the traffic – I should have known when we landed it was going to be a little crazier. I’ve heard about it from some friends who grew up here and still live here. I’m excited for the event. It has been crazy to see how the Strip has changed already.”
Did you get to check out the Sphere last night?
“That was really cool. I got to go hang out with some great friends and see one of my parents’ favorite bands growing up. I remember growing up as a kid busting into a door and finding a bunch of CDs. There was a bunch of U2 CDs in there, so I was really familiar with the band. I listened to them quite a bit when I was younger. I could only really find my parents music and I would pop it into the CD player. To see them perform was pretty wild, for those who haven’t been, I would say you have to go. It is quite the experience. It is hard to put into words. The whole venue is cutting edge – future feeling. Honestly, how they are able to project what they do on the inside, the outside and just the atmosphere and the stage is really wild. It was taxing on the eyes. By the time we were done there, I felt like I had watched 24 hours of television – but it was certainly worth it. I enjoyed it. It was quite the experience.”
Win the championship, and come back out here, right?
“I doubt they are going to roll the red carpet out like that, but I would find a way to make it happen. It is something that Kurt (Busch) has talked about, trying to figure something out to where all of us could go. It is a lot of money. At that point, if I’m looking at it right, you could go out to Europe and go to Silverstone and spend a fraction of the price and probably have a better experience. I feel like it is going to be a wild time. I guess that is a nice treat for myself later this year if things go well.”
Do you feel like Miami is a good opportunity for you to win?
“I think all of the teams this weekend are wanting to win here. Others may feel like their backup plan is Martinsville or Homestead. I certainly feel like our back-up plan even if we have a solid day. It would be nice to win and give yourself some time to focus on Phoenix. For me, I’m excited about Homestead, but when I look at our speed this season, this one excites me more, as odd as that is to say for me. My first time on a mile-and-a-half with Toyota and this team was here. We had an up-and-down day due to circumstances, but still had a lot of speed. With all of that, I’m really excited about this one. I know that Homestead has been one that has been great for me too, but hopefully, things go well enough this weekend that we go into Homestead and we can just worry about having fun, but someone will get in on points, and we have done a good job with that in the Playoffs and this is a good track for me to score a lot of points. We scored a lot of points at Martinsville in the Spring, and I know that Homestead is a type of track for me that we can score a lot of points there too.”
Do you feel like everyone is overlooking you here?
“It doesn’t matter. We are focused on ourselves. Ultimately, that is what we can control. We’ve got to go race against these other seven drivers, but we just do our deal – kind of like we did at the ROVAL. It’s so tempting to go for the race win, but we had to focus on what was best for ourselves and our team and that is what we’ve been doing in the Playoffs. If we keep doing that, I’m excited to see for speed what we have in our car. I’m excited to see that. It will kind of be run to be on track around the same time as the eclipse too. It’s a pretty exciting day, honestly.”
Have you looked closely at your competition in the Round of 8?
“I think it goes back to what you would normally expect, who has been the fastest. I think throughout the year there has been some change on who has been the dominate car. Some guys have gotten better, some have fallen off a little bit. When you are in the race, especially this first race, when you get closer to more like Homestead or Martinsville, that is when you start paying attention to the pace of your competition. If you need to do something different with strategy, you implement it. I think for here, you just go out and run your race, and maximize your own day. If you feel like you have a really strong car, you will look to see who else has a really strong pace and where they have the speed as well. Nothing outside the normal that you would do on a mile-and-a-half for race. We are just going to operate as normal for us. I guess if opportunity presents itself, we will have to make that tough decision, I guess if there is like a caution with five to go in the stage, do you flip it? Do you want to give up the track position or do you take the stage points? I would say that is the only situation where you have to make that decision.”
How do you feel like you stack up in the mile-and-a-halves compared to the competition?
“I feel like we are really solid on mile-and-a-halves. We could kind of see it here in Vegas. Bubba (Wallace) was happy with the handling of his car. I felt like we needed to get a little bit better, and by the time we got to the World 600, as I like to call it, we were extremely good. (Ryan) Blaney was pretty solid, but I felt like I just needed to get around him. As funny as it may sound, I really wasn’t in a hurry to get around him, because I knew that we were quite a bit better. At some point during the race, we got damage. Our floor was destroyed on the car, and we lost a lot of downforce. That’s why we ended up finishing fifth-sixth, but when things were right, and we do our homework and the car has been dialed in setup wise when we’ve been on these tracks, I felt that way about Texas, Kansas, we were pretty good. Denny (Hamlin) was a little better there for sure. When we’ve had it dialed in at these mile-and-a-halves, it’s been really, really solid. Looking at the competition, in this moment coming to the weekend, we are not when you are approaching a weekend – you are just focused on your car and your team. I would say when practice is all said and done, if you are looking at, who is better where – I would say you are looking at it a little bit when you think about tomorrow’s race. You are not completely trying to hone in on teams or drivers at this point.”
You are the only driver to lead laps at all of the mile-and-a-halves this season. What about that style of track is good for you?
“I feel like from day one for me in NASCAR racing. I don’t know if it’s because you don’t use brakes a whole lot being the dirt racer that I was. You don’t really use brakes – short tracks and road courses were certainly not my thing that naturally suited my driving style, but mile-and-a-halves were great for me from day one. That helps a lot. Last year, I had good speed on these tracks and good contend, and that has just continued this year with this team. When we go to these tracks, I’m always excited. You have lots of lanes to choose from. You can run the bottom, you can run the middle, you can run the top, you can split the seams. When you get up into the top-five, it is kind of a guessing game – a chess match, if you will, just trying to predict where the car ahead of you is going to go and racing in clean air so you can keep your momentum up. It is really fun to come to these tracks especially this one in particular. If the top gets rolling – you can make speed in the middle or the bottom, you have to be versatile. That is something our team does really well. We did well in Charlotte, Kansas and other tracks that we can move around and still have a lot of speed.”
Do you feel any expectations based on race odds?
“I’m only aware of it if I’m going through social media and I see it pop up. Outside of that, I wouldn’t say it affects the mindset of us as drivers. I guess it is a confidence booster if you are the favorite going into the weekend for you and your team. Typically, if we go somewhere and it seems like we are up there on the odds, I guess. We’ve been doing a lot of things right, but it is just a matter of putting it all together. We feel like we’ve been doing a good job with it this year. We will see how this race goes.”
What has changed with your team and limiting your mistakes?
“When you look back at the summer, we had won and we were locked in, but we were wanting to chase those regular season points and get some Playoff points for that, but I guess in the middle of the summer you have the sense – I feel like we had a sense of urgency to correct those issues – but we knew we had time before the Playoffs started, before Darlington, to resolve those issues and it seems like as the clock was running out, every time we would have a critical mistake, it would hurt more. It just seemed like when the Playoffs came, everyone was ready and locked in and we have been doing a good job ever since. Right as we got into the heat of this thing, we pulled it together. It would have been good to correct it earlier, but when the Playoffs came around, we locked in. Those first two races were really strong for us, and even though Texas and Talladega didn’t go great, I feel like those were days that things could have gone a lot worse, and we did a good job of managing the issues we had. It feels like it was definitely tough to have those races slip away in the Summer, but we learned from all of those mistakes along the way, and I feel like we are operating right where we need to right now.”
About Toyota
Toyota (NYSE:TM), creator of the Prius hybrid and the Mirai fuel cell vehicle, is committed to building vehicles for the way people live through our Toyota and Lexus brands, and directly employs more than 63,000 people in North America (more than 49,000 in the U.S.).
Over the past 65 years, Toyota has assembled nearly 45 million cars and trucks in North America at the company’s 13 manufacturing plants. By 2025, the company’s 14th plant in North Carolina will begin to manufacture automotive batteries for electrified vehicles.
Through our more than 1,800 North American dealerships (nearly 1,500 in the U.S.), Toyota sold more than 2.4 million cars and trucks (more than 2.1 million in the U.S.) in 2022, of which, nearly one quarter were electrified vehicles (full battery, hybrid, plug-in hybrid and fuel cell).
