NASCAR CUP SERIES: AUTOTRADER ECHOPARK AUTOMOTIVE 500

September 25, 2022

Tyler Reddick

Press Conference

An Interview with:

THE MODERATOR: We are now joined by winner of tonight's race, Tyler Reddick, driver of the No. 8 Richard Childress Racing Chevrolet.

Tyler, your third win this season, first win at Texas in the Cup Series. How are you feeling?

TYLER REDDICK: Pretty good. It was a chaotic night for us from what felt like the very get-go. We had so many things not go right. I don't even know where to start. We had a lot of things not go our way.

At least two or three times I thought we were going to be crashing into the outside wall in turn one, whether it was because the door foam came off, got my steering wheel, or me and Brad got into each other, got loose into one.

There were a lot of things that didn't seem were going our way. A loose wheel.

But it didn't seem to hold us down. Our car was really strong. We got some breaks along the way, too. I knew we had a strong car. I didn't know how our night was going to finish after all the things that went wrong, so...

Just great we were able to put ourselves in that position, take two tires, have a car strong enough to hold onto the lead like that.

THE MODERATOR: Questions, please.

Q. Talking about the tires, this is race 30 of the year, and we've had three in this entire season where we haven't had tire issues. What is it like as a driver to have that uncertainty, not knowing when the tire is going to go?

TYLER REDDICK: Well, I mean, you have some sort of an idea. At the end of practice, we were one of a few that had some issues with the right front tire. So we knew we had some work to do, there were things we needed to change, go up on some air pressure, that sort of thing.

It wasn't like an unknown. Certainly with the way the practice is set up, you take a chance of not running enough laps, if you're working on your car a lot, to really get a read on if you're too low on air pressure or too aggressive on one thing or another.

In our case we ran enough laps, were able to see that we had been too aggressive on our right front tire. So we made some adjustments going into the race, thankfully.

But, yeah, it is tough to not really know. Sometimes you have a warning. I feel like at Kansas I did, at Charlotte I did. Fontana a little bit. But it's very subtle. You get a little bit looser, the car starts to have a slight vibration. A lot of times the vibrations I had tonight were very, very, very intense.

If it was going to blow, it would have, but it didn't.

Q. How would you describe that for you?

TYLER REDDICK: For me personally?

Q. For you being not in the Playoffs anymore compared to some who are. Blaney said he's concerned. Is it fun?

TYLER REDDICK: I'm concerned because if we blow a tire, we don't have a chance to win the race. That's basically what happened at Kansas. It happened really early. We didn't get any stage points, nothing.

It's something we're always going to be aware of. There's performance and then there's a point where you got to be smart and try and keep it inside a realistic area. Unfortunately for us a few times this year, we've had really fast cars, but we've been just pushing certain things a little bit too far. Unfortunately we've had issues because of it.

Q. (No microphone.)

TYLER REDDICK: Oh, yeah. I mean, I would love fast cars (smiling). Yes, but every time it seems like we did have fast cars, just something would go wrong.

Yeah, I was a little worried coming into today about that. But thankfully we were able to cut those tires apart after practice. And Goodyear is like: Hey, we got a problem here, you need to be aware of this.

We knew we needed, okay, to be a little bit smarter going into the race, make some adjustments.

I love fast cars for sure. Definitely kind of got twisted where it was, Okay, make the car slower, you won't have tire failures. Seriously, every time we've had a car that was off, we're not making the most grip out of the tires, so we're not pushing the limits of what the tire can handle.

Yeah, I definitely want to still have fast cars, but certainly it is a bit crazy. You have that short practice, you're going off of data, trying to get the setup as close as you can. You want to have speed so you're going to push the issue in some areas. It's just hard to know where that line is until unfortunately something goes wrong or not.

Q. Keeping with the theme of the cars, we saw a lot of accidents, unprecedented number of things that happened. Do you think there's still a lot of room to improve on these Gen 7 race cars?

TYLER REDDICK: I mean, there's things that will continue to change as we learn more about this car. It's just in the year or months that we've ran in this season from start to now, we learned so much about this car that we didn't necessarily know was going to be a factor. It's gone directions I think some of us didn't really predict.

I think we'll continue to make improvements and everyone will do everything they can to try and help the reliability and the durability of the tires.

Certainly as the teams learn more about this car, we're going to be finding ways to push this car through the corners harder than some of the wheel force cars will be able to do in the corners.

Just as the teams continue to go down that path of maximizing this car further and further, we just keep making more grip, and the tires have more and more stress because of it. It's just kind of a product of that rapid ramp-up in learning about this car that's kind of happened this year.

Q. How satisfying is this victory considering how frantic this was? On a lighter note, how excited are you to finally get some Cheddar's chicken tenders for your fans out there?

TYLER REDDICK: Anytime we can get that done, it's a big deal. Going to a Cheddar's on Monday night, it's going to be popping for sure. There's going to be a lot of free chicken tenders. Hopefully everyone is chowing down.

To get it done on ovals, it is important. I didn't know where it was going to come, but here was kind of a surprise. I didn't know what our result was going to be today. Again, we had a really strong car, things weren't going our way.

We were able to bounce back at the right times and strategy kind of fell the way that it did. Again, our car was strong, so we were able to mix it up. It turned out we had the right strategy and were able to get at the front when it mattered, get to the lead and hold on from there.

Q. What was your feeling coming across the start/finish line heading out of turn four? Massive relief? Frantic race. Almost the kiss of bad luck if you were leading the thing. What were you feeling taking the checkered flag?

TYLER REDDICK: It was a huge sense of relief, for sure. Yeah, just the last 10 laps, I would say, I'm looking behind me. Joey would kind of pop off a good lap. I would have to push a little bit harder.

It's in a nice spot where you have a car that that's good, you can drive it at 80%, not overstep your marks, overstep the line, because that kind of made me feel better about, Okay, I've got this vibration, but I can run the car 80% through three and four, not lose much ground to Joey.

To finally cross the line, know that we finished the race, that vibration wasn't really anything at all, as it seemed, was a huge sense of relief for us.

Like I said, it seems like every time we've been fast, we've had something go wrong, had a failure, a tire go down. After a while it's definitely frustrating. I was definitely concerned, but we made it.

Q. When I see how hard this team fights for you, all you've accomplished this year, any regrets about your decision to move away from this team?

TYLER REDDICK: No. My decision to stay or go, at the end of the day... No regrets. Unfortunately the decision that was made, my choice to move on had nothing really to do with my team. It was just circumstances with myself and RCR.

I love my team. I've never been as close as I am as I have been with this group as anyone else. It's a type of bond. The friendship that we have will outlive our tenure together as a driver and as a team.

Already joking around about years down the road when I'm running somewhere else, we'll probably still be doing the same things we're doing now, spending time together hanging out, doing that sort of thing. That's just who we are.

Yeah, we're making the most of this, for sure. It is unfortunate that things do have to come to an end. As it turned out, it's coming to a close a little bit sooner than we all initially thought when I made my announcement. But it's the direction that RCR needs to take for their long-term goals. I understand that.

They're a great team. They're going to have a lot of fun. They're getting a really good driver. They're getting a really, really good driver after me. They're going to continue to have that success and have that strong drive behind the driver's seat.

I didn't know if we were going to stay together our whole lives or how it was going to go. But if for whatever reason, as it's turned out, that I would be going the other way, I wanted nothing more than for them to have, like, the next best driver that there is in the field.

For them to get Kyle Busch, for me, if I'm going one way, and I can't be with them any longer, if I could go through the list and pick a driver, that's the guy. For my team and those guys I care about a lot, I'm really glad they're going to have him.

Q. Harvick, Elliott, Truex were among the drivers to crash out of the lead. Tires have been a concern. You said you were also focused on racing Logano. In the last green-flag run, how much were you thinking, Please don't go flat?

TYLER REDDICK: I'm not going to lie, probably about 50% of my brain was thinking about that; the other 50% was just on running clean laps.

Again, it's just because we've had a lot of those issues this year. Fontana, we were leading in the Lenovo car, of all things, and blew a tire. Unfortunately got ran over by William and our day ended.

Charlotte, another really strong car. We were running second behind Ross. Had a failure. We were able to rebound from Charlotte. There's just been a lot of races this year that's been that way.

Because of that, yeah, it's in the back of my mind. Again, everyone knows it coming into this. You got to push some limits. Unfortunately with this new tire, with this new car, it's a little bit more sensitive to it. You just have to be on top of it a little bit better, pay attention to the tires after practice, be ready to make some adjustments going into the race so you don't have those issues.

Q. The Byron-Hamlin incident, you were only a few cars behind. What did you see?

TYLER REDDICK: I'm not going to lie, I don't really know what happened. I just know that I think it was Truex had the flat, then I see Denny going through the grass. I don't really know what happened.

I mean, if you do and you want to fill me in, that would be good. I could see they were going at each other, but I don't know if William intentionally did it or not. I don't know those details.

Q. Byron said Hamlin forced him up, he hit the wall, then he went to hit him under caution, said he hit him too hard. From a competitor's point of view, there's video that shows the contact happened after the caution lights were illuminated, Hamlin did not get his position back. Is that a concern? What type of question would you have as a competitor if you were put in that situation? Obviously Hamlin and Gabehart felt like they should have been put back in there because they had no control maintaining speed.

TYLER REDDICK: Yeah, well, the one time I've hit someone under caution I got parked. William didn't get parked. So it is different.

I don't know. I really don't know. Yeah, it was under caution, he got ran over, what can you really do? It's one of those deals where I feel bad for Denny and the team.

Rule is the rule. He didn't maintain speed. There's arguments all over the board, you know? I don't know if we could really allow guys to run over other guys under caution, be able to maintain their spot.

In William's situation, whether he ran him over on accident or on purpose, there should be some sort of penalty for him on that side because he's completely screwed someone's race up, whether it was on purpose or not. I feel like there should be something done there.

I'm sure they'll make some sort of a decision. I'm sure there will be something they'll address this week, updates, on NASCAR's side. I'll be curious to see what that is. We can't really have this where you dump someone under caution, they go to the back and you don't. That could potentially be an interesting situation in the future.

Q. You've referenced the issues about the tire throughout this year. It's the new car, everybody is learning. What are the things -- certain things can be changed, but maybe some things can't be. What are the lessons or things that the sport, the teams needs to do in moving forward to try to limit it? Is there anything that can be done moving forward? Or it's racing and it's all about pushing the line?

TYLER REDDICK: I don't really know all the details on this, to be honest with you. But I do feel like that Goodyear will be able to correct this. I just think to a degree, potentially, as these cars have gotten faster and we're getting more speed out of them, maybe, hypothetically speaking, we're putting the cars through more load and more stress on the tire than they ever really thought we would be.

I don't know. I know Goodyear will fix it. That's what they do. It's going to be a process. I know they're going to be on top of it. Hey, they don't want to see those failures. We don't want to see them either. They're going to be working on looking through and trying to find out exactly what is going on. We'll all learn from it.

It's a brand-new car. It's the first time in the history of our sport we've gone to an 18-inch wheel and independent rear suspension. All these things are way different, diffuser. All these things, way different. We're all learning together. Unfortunately, just the nature of it, we're having tire failures.

Q. What is the feeling winning one week after elimination?

TYLER REDDICK: I mean, it's still nice. It would be really easy to be thinking about, Oh, God, man, two points. It's done, it's in the past. Nothing we can do to change it. I'm just going to enjoy the win that we have today, tonight, and get ready for Talladega, try to go do the same thing there.

I'd love to be racing for a championship, I really would, but we can't. We can do everything we can to go out and win these races from here and Phoenix.

Q. What were you saying about the door foam, the steering wheel?

TYLER REDDICK: It was a warm day. But, yeah, for whatever reason, it kind of come unglued. Next thing I know I'm driving into turn one, and the door foam fell over. And I'm trying to turn my hands to turn the steering wheel, and the door foam was in my hands and in my wheel. I couldn't really turn the steering wheel. I went flying up the racetrack.

I was kind of fighting a loose handling condition. I could somewhat turn the wheel. As soon as something had fallen over into my hands, I couldn't be as smooth as I needed to be. I was worried I was going to spin out trying to steer though it falling over.

It fell over. I grabbed it, tried to throw it over to the right side of the car. Got stuck right in front of my face going down the front straightaway, which was not good.

But I got over the right side eventually, and then under that lightning delay, we were able to get it back out from the right side of the car and fix it, really just tape everywhere and got it really taped to the left side of the car. It didn't come loose again.

Q. You mentioned about Talladega. What is the mindset, when you're out of the Playoffs, you got Talladega the next week, the Roval the week after? There's going to be some guys looking for some points. As a Chevy driver, are you going to be trying to help them out, especially at Talladega, or are you going out there and focusing on yourself, get a couple more wins?

TYLER REDDICK: I'm going to be selfish, honestly. I mean, I want to win for this team. I mean, I would love to be up at the front and hang out all day at the front of the field racing.

The trend, unfortunately, recently with the superspeedways is a lot of crashes. Whoever is left in the end can pick up the scraps and win.

It's something that's going to be on all of our minds this week as we prepare. What are we going to do? Are we going to be up front racing all day, maybe get crashed, be out? We're pretty much just focused on winning races.

We got a feel for what our car is going to do, then make a decision: Do we run up front all day or hang around and wait for the big crashes at the end?

Q. You look like the smartest guy in the garage right now.

TYLER REDDICK: Why do I?

Q. You have a contract signed, and then your team is on fire. You're basically padding your stats with wins. You got to feel good about yourself and the decisions you made. What is left for this next year, and this year, before you move on? How does that play into things? Have y'all decided what you're going do?

TYLER REDDICK: I mean, I like winning. I plan on showing up to every track, trying to win the race. Nothing is going to change. We're going to try to do the same thing every week. It will be a new challenge with different people. That will be fine. I look forward to it.

Q. (No microphone.)

TYLER REDDICK: It will be a new challenge. Got to accept it and embrace it, it will be fun.

Q. Yesterday the story was what should happen at Texas Motor Speedway. You have a win here. What do you think should happen to Texas Motor Speedway? Tear it down, Atlanta 2.0?

TYLER REDDICK: I look at the mile-and-a-half tracks that we have. We have Charlotte, Kansas. Homestead is its own animal a different shape. Atlanta is a superspeedway now. I think I've kind of hit them all.

Q. Vegas.

TYLER REDDICK: Oh, we got Vegas.

For me, at one time we had Chicago, Kentucky, a lot of different mile-and-a-half tracks. For me, I mean, I enjoy racing here now. The Texas that I came into in the Truck Series, it was wore out, you could move all over it, had the tunnel bumps. I really enjoyed that all track. Some of the greatest drivers in our sport could absolutely dominate here.

Me, I would love to see it return to that. If we couldn't do that, maybe turn it into a true oval or something like Homestead. Not like Homestead, but make it like the old Atlanta, something like that.

For whatever reason, having tracks where one and two or one end of the track is really flat, the other end has a lot of banking, it kind of takes away variables. We have to lift a lot in one and two, and it's very technical; but we get over to three and four, and we're almost wide open. We'll never, ever be running up by the fence in three and four.

Making the two corners very close together, that's what I would want to see, return to its past or be something a little bit more old school.

THE MODERATOR: Thanks for joining us. Congratulations.

TYLER REDDICK: Thank you.