Information By: TOYOTA RACING – RICHMOND, VA – 23XI Racing driver Tyler Reddick was made available to the media on Saturday prior to practice for the NASCAR Cup Series race at Richmond Raceway.
TYLER REDDICK, No. 45 Mobil 1 Toyota Camry XSE, 23XI Racing
Did you have a fun two-week break, especially with your wedding?
“Yeah, it was a lot of fun. Thankfully just with the way our break worked out this season I was able to have our wedding. All of the pre- and post-part of it, I don’t know, it just kind of flew by. It was just a really, really fun time.”
Can you focus now on winning the championship now that the wedding is done?
“Well, if Alexa (Reddick, wife) was here she would tell you that I pretty much already was doing that. I wasn’t really a great help in the process. I think – there was not many times – but there was times that I was able to help her on this or that decision. Largely, she took care of the whole thing. Her and the rest of the girls did a really good job on it. That’s the tough thing with doing it in the middle of the year is trying to focus on racing and then trying to be ready for a very important day in your life as well. So, yeah, I wouldn’t say I’m glad it’s over. I wish the night would’ve never ended. It was a great night. You always hear it, but it does truly fly by.”
Any good Beau stories from the wedding?
“Well, honestly nothing really – he didn’t mess anything up. He did a really, really good job. It was a really cool moment. I walk up, he walks up and waits for Alexa, kisses exchanged. He was really, really excited for us to get married. And, as soon as we were finally married, he literally a day and a half later was like, ‘Dad, I want brothers and sisters. I want brothers and sisters now.’ I’m like, oh okay. Wow, you jump from one thing to the next. He wanted us to get married and now he wants us to have some more kids.”
What did you learn at the test at Watkins Glen?
“I appreciate them putting our safety first. It’s just somewhat of the nature of what that track is like. And, with the previous generation car you could only afford to be that aggressive maybe a third of the race. I feel like the bus stop there has always been really hard on equipment. And we figured out over time with the Next Gen car that it’s just really, really durable. You can just bounce it off walls, bounce it off curbs. The car is very robust. I’m glad they took that effort to help our head and our brain. Certainly, it’s crazy how much faster it is. That part is pretty wild. But I think the nature of the bus stop remains intact. I think what has me equally as excited for the race as well is just the tires that Goodyear brought to the test. We worked on and I’m really excited to see what that race is like when we go back. I think we have the opportunity to have more fall off than we’ve had in years I think before they repaved it when they had a lot of fall off. Excited for that and hopefully it works out.”
Do you wear the mouthpiece that they were able to pull the data from?
“Yeah, I try to.”
How do you feel about NASCAR being able to make changes based on your mouthpiece tracking?
“It is a big help. Sometimes, I believe in practice they’ve got the thing basically running the whole time so it’s tracking everything. In the races, it tracks information too. With what we had in the sensor data that they collect from a crash, only triggers if it senses a crash so there’s a lot of other moments that may and can occur at some of these race tracks. So, it’s great that they’re collecting this data. The more data they have, the more they can kind of identify trends. And one of the trends that they picked up on across all of the drivers wearing the sensor is that we’re taking big shots – two or three in a matter of seconds – through the bus stop and you multiply that with the length of a race, and it can be pretty high stress on the body.”
Did you use the two-week break to re-focus you for Richmond?
“I’ve honestly been completely unplugged from racing the last couple of weeks. I’ve got a lot of faith in the team at 23XI. I was able to pretty much not think about racing for two weeks. For us, I wasn’t really necessarily worried about it. We were coming back to a track where when things are right and we’re not having issues with the car we run top five. I’m just really thankful for that kind of team that really helps me to kind of step away from it and not feel like we’re going to be behind when we get back to the race track.”
What is the experience going to be like having Juan Pablo Montoya as a teammate?
“I got to run into him (Juan Pablo Montoya) actually. He was on his way out of Airspeed when I saw him. I never had the opportunity to meet him before. He’s just an incredible personality. The way that he thinks about things is kind of from a different generation of drivers. And, so it’s been really cool to share just a couple of things with him but I’m looking forward to that experience when we get to the Glen. Hearing his input from their test and the things he’s picking up on in the car already. He’s just going to offer a unique vantage point. A very experienced vantage point on where our cars are at on road courses. I’m really looking forward to having experience like that and being a teammate with a driver as accomplished as him.”
Why have you struggled a bit to get the results at Richmond Raceway?
“I think for me, when I ran here in the Xfinity Series, I couldn’t have been more lost. Over the years, I’ve been fortunate to be surrounded by good people. When I was at RCR, I really feel like Randall Burnett and those guys and my engineers and my teammate, Austin (Dillon), provided good insight and gave me an idea of where to start. Not necessarily the finishes show it, but I think our performance, the average running position and just outright speed got better and better. And it took another huge jump when I came to 23XI. Denny (Hamlin) has been a huge help. Bubba (Wallace) has a good understanding of this place and Billy Scott. My whole team just does a really good job of painting the picture for me of what I need to do with my race car and what’s important to go fast and what’s important to take care of the tires. So, I just have great people around me that’s really allowed that learning curve to be quick. The craziest part is I feel like the worst I’ve been in a couple years was the spring here, but it was my first top 10. We’ve definitely got the speed, but we’ve let the finishes get away from us at Richmond so hopefully we can continue the positive trend we’ve had like we’ve had the last couple of months and find a way to get good finishes. I feel like last fall when we were here a year ago, we were really, really fast. Bubba and myself, so I’m looking forward to having that speed again.”
How important is perfecting the short track package for the Playoffs?
“I think we were really, really happy with what we had at Iowa, and I think we’re a little too reactive to the tire issues that we saw and we just didn’t have the right mindset for the Iowa race. But I was really excited when this year got going at Phoenix. Myself — ultimately, Christopher Bell won the race, but we were fast and we were upfront – all of the Toyotas were. I feel like the amount of speed that we’ve been able to take to these short tracks and still be lacking little things like the balance not being right and having other issues with the car and still getting the finishes that we are and having the speed that we do, makes me remain hopeful that when we do get it right that we’ll be right where we belong.”
What do you want to do differently for the Playoffs this year?
“I think one thing that worked against us at times were just making big mistakes. We didn’t have a whole lot of playoff points going into it last year compared to the guys we were competing against for the Championship Four. So, I think it’s just minimizing the bad days, and I think we’ve done a really good job of that over this stretch. If you go down the list, I think Pocono, we had a caution every time we didn’t need it. Same thing happened at Indy. We had the loose wheel and still came back to finish second. I think we’ve done a really good job, even here at Richmond earlier this year we weren’t that great and came back for a top 10. We’ve just done a really good job of fighting through these things and getting the finishes, and I think that will be really important in the Playoffs. The thing that’s been on our side is the speed. It’s been allowing us to close the points gap. So, we’ve got a lot of positives going for us right now.”
What have you been doing to prepare for Michigan?
“Well, there’s a few tracks I’m looking for redemption when we go back to and that’s one. Last year for us, we hit pit road for the final time, and we lost a wheel and so that was a tough one. I feel like we pretty much won the race. The last stop was done, there wasn’t any more cautions. That one was brutal one to let slip away. I think the whole team has learned from it. Tough lessons but none the less if you learn from it, there’s still a positive to be taken away from it. Yeah, I think all of us on this team are very hungry to get back to Michigan. We definitely ran a really good race there last year and did what we needed to do to get to the front and fight for the lead. We’re hoping for the same thing when we go back. This new Camry everywhere we’ve gone this year has been better and so that just makes me that much more excited for it.”