NASCAR CUP SERIES
NASHVILLE SUPERSPEEDWAY
TEAM CHEVY DRIVER QUOTES
MAY 31, 2025
Ty Dillon, driver of the No. 10 Kaulig Racing Camaro ZL1, met with the media in advance of the NASCAR Cup Series’ practice and qualifying session at Nashville Superspeedway.
Media Availability Quotes:
Ty, it sounds like you had a really interesting week this past week in Ohio. Could you please tell us about it?
“Yeah, we had a great time up in Cleveland. Maybe most people know, but our owner, Matt Kaulig, is from the Cleveland, Ohio, area and that’s where his businesses are ran out of. It’s kind of a unique situation that our owner’s from there and a lot of what makes Kaulig Racing go is in Ohio. So, I spent the week up there; saw his companies and visited all the folks there. And then I also did media up in Cleveland. We went to the Guardians game and threw out the first pitch. That was fun. We went to LeBron James’ ‘I Promise’ School, which is an amazing experience just seeing what he’s doing there in the town that he grew up in, in Akron.
We also went to Denzel Ward’s football camp, the ‘Make Them Know Your Name’ camp. They do some amazing things. So, we went around Cleveland kind of raising awareness for the Kaulig Companies Championship coming up, which is Matt’s golf tournament that he sponsors for the Champions Tour. Us drivers from Kaulig will be there for that in a couple weeks.
And then also just for the Kaulig Giving Group. Matt does so much giving from his wealth, his personal wealth and his company’s wealth, to so many foundations in Cleveland. And to just go out there and see that was a really fun week for me. It was busy, but it was a great time.”
How would you evaluate your 2025 season so far? What are your expectations for the second-half of the regular season?
“I would evaluate our season — I don’t know about putting a grade on it, but I’d say it’s been pretty good. I think we’ve been fast, and we’ve ran really well at some tracks. We’ve done a bit of a poor job executing finishes. I think we’ve ran up front more than we’ve finished up front. And I think that’s one of the positives is that we have the speed to do it. So, now it’s just executing some finishes. I mean, we ran out of gas two races in a row, which was pretty devastating for us. It was a difference of probably 35, 40 points over two weeks.
And then last week at Charlotte, we were really fast, just like our teammate AJ (Allmendinger), and we struggled getting out of pit road, just kind of getting blocked in in our spot. I think Charlotte’s one of the hardest pit roads. (Kyle) Larson was parked there in front of us, and he had early damage. So, he kept coming down pit road in front of us, and I couldn’t get out of my stall. So, I think we came down 20th on the first stop and came out 30-something. Then the next stop, he came to fix it again. I think we had driven back up to 22nd and then fell back to 30th again. It’s just been one of those years where we just can’t really seem to catch a break to where a race has been clean for us. Some of that’s out of our hands, and some of that stuff that we’ve got to clean up on pit road and mistakes I’ve made myself.
But I feel like for the rest of the season, everything’s right in front of us. We’re fast enough. I think everybody sees the performance gained in Kaulig Racing for AJ and myself. We just have to, for my team, execute some of these races a little bit better.”
Is it helpful to see what AJ (Allmendinger) is able to do, or is it frustrating in the sense that you can’t replicate it because you guys haven’t been able to execute everything in all situations?
“Yeah, I mean, certainly you want to be right there with your teammate. AJ’s (Allmendinger)having a phenomenal year. But both of us have had, you know, there’s been weekends where he’s had bad luck and I’ve had good luck, you know, and he’s had a couple more finishes inside the top-10 than us. But there’s been days where we should have finished in the top-10. You look at Talladega (Superspeedway), you look at some of those days, and we run out of gas or something silly might happen. So I think our season looks very similar if some of our mistakes aren’t there. I’m sure he would like to have some blown engines back, and his season would look even better. But if you just look at it as a whole, we’re both running good. And for me, it’s not really about comparing myself to my teammate. AJ and I work really good together. He’s one of the best teammates I have had. I love the way that he attacks his preparation and the way he drives. He’s a fighter every time he gets out there in the racetrack, just as much as I am.
My view always as teammates is rising tides raise all ships. So AJ doing good is only a good thing for both of us. We work a lot together, both of our teams. We don’t go to the racetrack — I think the only time we’ve been to the racetrack where we don’t have the same thing was at the All-Star Race, and that was just because we were trying some different things out there. So when one team runs good it’s because we all put our effort together. I think we’re running good as a group, and it’s just a matter of which one executes the weekend better. They’ve done a better job than us so far and hopefully we can get our team to that standard.”
How much preparation have you done for Mexico City? And if you’ve done some sim work, what is that track like there?
“Yeah, I’ve been spending about two hours a week for the past nine weeks in a static rig every Tuesday with my crew chief, just working on it. So I feel like I got some good laps. Him and I made it a goal to have more laps than anybody before we get there. Whether that helps or not, I’ve gotten pretty good at the computer version. We’ll see what happens when we get there, the real version (laughs).
So, yeah, I’ve been grinding pretty hard, just putting in a lot of laps. I feel like any time you go to a new racetrack, it’s a new opportunity. It levels the playing field a little bit across the ground that first year. You want to be the one that sees it as an opportunity, not a negative.”
So if you’re doing that and spending all that time in the car and trying to figure out the track, what are you doing for your body in getting adjusted and prepared for the high elevation?
“I’m not doing anything special. For about two years now, every week I do the same thing. As soon as the race is over on Sunday, I work out Monday. I work out every day of the week. I’ve really taken my fitness, physical fitness, very serious over the last two years. I have in the years past, but just kind of doing it different, just trying to build muscle. I feel so much better at this point in the season than I ever have just being stronger and being in the gym every single day. Even though when it’s hard, I still get in the gym. I do a lot of sauna work. I have ice baths. I have a hyperbaric chamber. So I’m doing that kind of stuff weekly to take hydration and nutrition very serious, too.
I feel like I’m at the peak performance with my body that I’ve ever been in a race car. I know Mexico City is going to bring a new challenge with the height and altitude, with the lack of oxygen for us, and it’s going to be hot too. But I feel ready to challenge any of these drivers to a fitness test, so we’ll see what happens in Mexico.”
You were still pretty young when Dale Earnhardt drove for your grandfather. So kind of a two-part question… have you watched the Earnhardt documentary? And then secondly, from a young kid’s perspective, what was that time period like?
“So the last week-and-a-half has been quite busy since the documentary came out. I have not watched it yet. I do plan on it. The last documentary I watched was the one called Dale. That was probably, I don’t know, 15-20 years ago.
Like you said, I was very young at that time, but I just knew Dale (Earnhardt Sr.) from my perspective as a guy that when we were little and we were at the racetrack, he would come and bug my brother and I, whether it was pinching us behind the neck or grabbing us as hard as he could to get our attention. And we didn’t really like that. We were kind of scared of him. But man, we grew up every weekend, and where Dale finished determined our week. We got pizza if Dale won, so that was a celebration in our house.
I was telling somebody a couple of weeks ago, he won so often and they were so amazing as a team. I remember being so spoiled and I’d be like — hey man, I wish you’d win at this track. He hasn’t won at this track in a while, instead of just the fact that he keeps winning over and over and over. It’s like – it’s OK, we’ll be happier if he wins at this track.
Just knowing that kind of perspective after being in sport as a driver myself was crazy. But the impact he had on my grandfather, my family, and everybody at RCR, and what that has become because of him and my grandfather’s relationship, obviously means so much to myself and our family and everybody in sport. He was a giant in our sport and a legend. It’s just awesome that we continue to talk about him, and the documentary continues to bring his name to the light because he has done so much for what the sport is.”
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