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NASCAR XFINITY SERIES: FORD ECOBOOST 300November 17, 2018Tyler ReddickHomestead, Florida THE MODERATOR: We are here with the 2018 NASCAR Xfinity Series champion and driver of the No.9 BurgerFi Chevrolet for JR Motorsports, and that is Tyler Reddick. Tyler is also the Sunoco Rookie of the Year with his win tonight. Outstanding night. Three trophies for you. Talk about the biggest one, though, the Xfinity Series championship, please. TYLER REDDICK: It's something I knew was possible all year long. You know, maybe not everybody in the garage believed it, but our team believed it, and that's all we need. All the guys in the shop believed it. Winning in the first race of the year was huge. It was a huge sigh of relief, knowing that no matter may‑‑ what horrible things could happen, we were locked into the playoffs. But at the same time, I think looking back, obviously going into the playoffs, we look back and we just‑‑ well, I wouldn't say we as a team, I was simply just too aggressive and tore a lot of good race cars up, unfortunately. But playoffs came around. We refocused, we honed in on what we had to do. We weren't always‑‑ I've got to say the six practice sessions between the Round of 12 and Round of 8, we weren't ever really that great. We were always kind of struggling with the guys we were competing for the championship, and we were always wondering how we were going to get speed in the race and get the points we needed to advance to the next round, and my team always worked really hard, especially the seven weeks prior after practice to make our car better and to get ourselves in position to score points and survive. Q. You were walking down pit road last week after advancing, and you turned to Daniel Hemric, and you said, "God, Homestead, I really suck there." TYLER REDDICK: I don't remember saying that. I must have been messing with him. Q. Were you messing with the competition, or did you honestly feel you didn't have a good take on this place, because you haven't finished worst than sixth here between trucks and Xfinity? TYLER REDDICK: I love this place quite simply. I don't mean to put the other tracks down by that. It's just a place that fits me very, very well. There's certain tracks that fit drivers very well, and for me, ever since I raced my first start here in the Truck Series, it was just a place that was a lot of fun. My aggression was often rewarded with me slapping the truck in the fence and not winning races, but as time went by and I got smarter, it seemed like I figured out how to hit the fence and not lose as much time. These Xfinity cars, especially with this body this year, you can hit the fence quite a bit and for the most part keep it rolling. I knew that going in, and we did what we had to do. I hit the wall a lot. I thought I gave it away a number of times, especially when the 20 got by me, but I guess I didn't hit it hard enough. They built a good race car over there, so we were able to power back by him and hold on for the win. Q. A lot of the other guys, the other Championship 4 competitors in doing the postmortem after the race said, I wish we had practiced more running up against the wall. Did you get a lot of practice doing that? Did you do that in the test? And also, some of the spotters seemed to observe that after you brushed the wall for the first time that your car actually got faster. Was that an accurate perception? TYLER REDDICK: I wouldn't say the car got faster, the driver just knew what not to do again. Every time I was hitting the wall it was, all right, well, I can't do that, I need to work on this or that, and just kept adjusting every time I'd make a mistake, whether I'd hit the wall or just not run a good lap. Constantly adjusting, trying to find more speed. As the race was going on, my risk versus reward, if you will, would swing more to the risk side, and I would just try and get closer and closer, and it seemed to just reward me with a better handling car and we'd go faster. We tested here in August, and I think I ran 300 laps against the fence and only hit it six times, and four of those times I only hit it in the first day, and we never really even had to fix that the first time I hit it before lunch. But just really, really comfortable. I actually had a lot better feel of this place I felt like in August when we tested here running up high than I did yesterday in the practice when it was a lot cooler and even most of this race today. For some reason when the sun set, I just kind of found my rhythm. Actually kind of funny, I had a tear‑off on my visor all day, and as soon as I pulled the tear‑off off that thing and it was a little bit brighter once the sun went down, it seemed like a switch flipped and we were running a lot faster. Maybe it was that. I don't know. Q. Tyler, you said that this racetrack rewards your aggression, and you and I know that a lot of that goes back to your days on the dirt in late models and even before that in Outlaw Karts. Did any of that play into your love for this racetrack and how you can just rim ride around this place so well? TYLER REDDICK: Well, you're constantly over on the edge of control, and the track changes so much, you have to move around so much, both the car and the track change a lot throughout a run and throughout a race, and you're constantly moving around and adjust to every single lap to try and get the most out of your car. So that's just something we worked on and something I worked on ever since I've started racing asphalt. I hit the wall a lot here the first couple times I ran here in a truck and a lot of other places you've had to run a top at. A lot of trial‑and‑error and a lot of right sides, I finally found somewhat of a happy medium and kind of had an understanding of what I need to do up there and what I need in my car to make it go really fast. You know, we had a good car, but it can be challenging sometimes. We caught to the 00 and the 42 there at the end of the first run in stage 3 and kind of leveled off. Once we got back in front of them and were able to get back ahead of the 20, the car was driving really good there, and the track kind of was changing to‑‑ it was changing in a way that it was helping my car, too. Everything kind of fell in the right spot at the right time for us tonight. Q. A lot of people downplayed your chances coming into this, and yet here you sit at the champion's table. Is this a California kid living the dream and proving everybody wrong tonight? TYLER REDDICK: It's not about proving people wrong, it's just about believing in what our team knew, what all of us on our team knew was capable and what we were possible of. Even in the lowest of lows, we still knew if we just made it to Homestead we'd have a really good shot here. It's never about proving anybody wrong. We just wanted to go out there and do the best we could. We did that this week. Well, even before this week, but especially this week, we did everything we could, and I knew coming into this race if we win, if we run fourth, I'm okay with whatever the outcome is because I know that myself, Dave and everybody on our team put the best effort we had to believe, and if it was going to be good enough to win a championship, great; if not, we were going to leave here tonight knowing that we did everything we could to win a championship, but it was good enough. Q. You just won the championship, and you already have your plans sewed up for next year, but do you think at any point during the off‑season you're going to think about, maybe I'm going to get to run a few Cup races? TYLER REDDICK: Well, I'm still just trying to celebrate what just happened. There's fortunately plenty of time in the off‑season for any kind of stuff like that. But we'll just see what the future holds. Winning a championship always can help in that regard, opportunities at the next level. But for now we'll just soak it in, not only the victory of winning tonight but winning the championship with everyone a part of this team. We'll have plenty of time to think about the future after that. Q. You had about four or five top‑6 finishes up until about four weeks ago, then four consecutive top‑6 finishes here. Are you surprised? Where did that come from? TYLER REDDICK: Believe it or not, it's been there all year. Our speed has been there at times, but we've wrecked really early in the race. We've put ourselves behind early on in races. But we have had races where we're not great and other teams have had those, too. I did a really good job in the regular season of taking what would have been a top‑5 day and absolutely ruining it very early on. Q. And if you had had finishes like you had the last four weeks, do you think that would have impacted your decision at all to go to RCR? TYLER REDDICK: It's hard to say. You know, there's a lot of‑‑ there's potential. They're a Cup team, and hopefully one day in the future, might be able to make a start there. We'll see. But it's just one of those things. It's more or less business than anything. But I've enjoyed my time at JR Motorsports a lot. It's been a blast. It's been a rough road at times, and I know I've given a lot of people that are on my team more gray hairs than they've ever had, but I told them if we can just get to Homestead that it would be worth every ounce of stress, and they believed that. We all believed that, and it's got us here sitting tonight. Q. I guess I had the impression that maybe just the chemistry wasn't really great amongst you guys, and that was kind of the reason you‑‑ TYLER REDDICK: No, I mean, unless Dave‑‑ Dave has been lying to me about this all year, me and Dave get along great. Me and my whole team get along great. We love working with each other. We love messing with each other at the racetrack. Every group‑‑ I've been very fortunate ever since I've come to this sport of having great groups of people to work with, Doug Randolph at BKR, Mike Shiplett, at times people think he's dry but he's got a sense of humor, he's a lot of fun to work with at Chip Ganassi Racing. But me and Dave have had a lot of fun this year, whether it's been at the racetrack or away from it. It's been a lot of fun getting to know him, working with him, and obviously that friendship is going to carry on. I've already been giving him trouble about next year and telling him how much grief I'm going to give him. It's just part of it. The chemistry was there. We just‑‑ it was more or less the driver needed to put his head on straight, and we did that in the playoffs, and here we are sitting here a champion. Q. You just walked through some of the stuff of your career. Are you on the right trajectory for what you thought your career would be at this point in your life? We've seen you in different rides and doing‑‑ how happy are you with how it's progressed? Obviously with the championship tonight, that's great, but at this level, where do you want to be next? TYLER REDDICK: Well, you know, next year it's already out in the open what we're going to do. I'm excited to see what that holds. Obviously we're going to have the same goal. But what took place tonight, but it's going to be about being more consistent and me growing and being a better driver. Next year is just another‑‑ will be another good opportunity to work on that and become a better person and a better driver all around. I'm excited to see what the future holds. I didn't really know how it was going to go. When I made my first start in the K&N Series for Ken Schrader, I just thought it was going to be a one‑off race and we'd see how it would go and that would be that. But by some odd chance, the top seemed to work okay at Rockingham in the K&N car, and I ended up winning the race, and it's sprung all this stuff into action, going to BKR, and that's brought me here. I didn't know what the path was going to be like, and I'm just thankful to be sitting here a champion, above all else. Q. And I don't know if Dale parties like he used to, but he used to be pretty good at it. What's the celebration going to be like for you? TYLER REDDICK: I don't know, we'll see. We're just going to have a great time, just let it soak in. It's going to take a couple days, I think, for‑‑ Dave told me, hey, man, it took me a week for it to soak in. So I'm sure as time goes by and you're sitting and home and the season has come to a close and you're looking at that trophy every morning when you get up or go to bed, it'll start to soak in. It's a nice feeling. Q. I assume you were updated on the fact that your lead was growing over the closing laps. When did you first think, man, I've got this thing? TYLER REDDICK: I never said it because I‑‑ Q. I didn't ask if you said it, I'm asking when did you first think‑‑ TYLER REDDICK: Think it? The first time I thought it was literally when I was crossing the line taking the white flag because I know how races can be. Just when you think you've got it done is right when you don't, and then you put yourself in a bad spot. I was driving like I didn't think I had it won, either. I was hitting the wall even when we had a good lead. But definitely the last five laps I was just trying to be smart, not make mistakes, but when we finally took the white flag, I was like, well, the next flag ends this, so we were going to win the race. It was surreal. It was stressful from the moment we took the lead on that last run to the race end. Just waiting for a caution or something to happen, and that entire run I had that on my mind. I hit the wall really hard right after Christopher passed me. I was just waiting for a tire to come apart or something, but composite body has been good to me, and I've been really bad to it. I've tore it up a lot on a few cars. But we're champions because of it. Q. You left home when you were 12 years old. When you think about that‑‑ a lot of kids go racing at 12. You left home. You left everything behind and came east. What have you learned over that time, and just as a follow‑up, what were you thinking when you took that picture? TYLER REDDICK: You know, I don't really remember a lot about that picture, but it's funny, my grandmother is in the background just terrified. She's like, who is‑‑ that can't be my grandson. Well, I used to have long hair. I still to this day have an interesting taste in clothes, whatever else it may be, but that's just who I am. You know, I wish I could still have the long hair, but it was‑‑ I had it long enough when I was dirt racing. It was a good time. Most people don't get to race as much as I did growing up, and it all paid off. It's got us sitting here. Just really thankful for every opportunity to hit the racetrack. It's all paid off, and it's put us in this spot here tonight. Q. Did running dirt kind of lead you to‑‑ because Larson runs the top everywhere. Is that just kind of a style that you came with from running dirt as long as you did? TYLER REDDICK: Yeah, I wouldn't have ever thought that‑‑ I didn't think coming into NASCAR it was something I was going to be good at because I didn't like hitting the wall. Even in dirt racing because most of the time I'd have to fix it so I didn't like repairing the car. But it seemed to work fairly well. Just I don't know what it is about it, but I took to it pretty well. But I'm sure there's something there because me and Kyle grew up racing each other out in California, so I would say that something about the Outlaw Karts I ran and some of the open‑wheel stuff in some way just translates somehow into a feel for the cushion‑‑ well, on dirt you have a feel for a cushion, and if you jump it, most times in an open‑wheel car, it's big, or in a late model you either rip your nose off or your side. Just that feel for the edge of either grip or wrecking. Granted, we're going a lot faster in these cars, but it seemed to have translated over. Q. And finally, you said, I picked a real good time to get my life together and just in time to win another race. Were you just speaking in generalization? TYLER REDDICK: Yeah, you know, we've run really, really good at times, but throw a race away when I would speed on pit road, being too aggressive or‑‑ when we're running fifth and could probably run fourth, I'm trying to be a hero and get more than I got, and then make a mistake and then fall back or wreck or hit the wall. Just when the playoffs came around, we knew that pretty much everything we were doing in the regular season was going to take us out right away with how cutthroat the playoffs are and just no room for mistakes. It's probably a good thing that we looked at that, and as much as it stinks that the regular season didn't go great, it's probably a good thing we went through all those hardships because it set us up to have a good playoffs and be a lot smarter when it came around. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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