NASCAR CUP SERIES: STRAIGHT TALK WIRELESS 400

October 27, 2024

Dave Rogers

Billy Scott

Press Conference

An Interview with:

THE MODERATOR: We are now joined by Billy Scott, crew chief for the No. 45 team, and Dave Rogers, competition director.

Congratulations on making the Championship 4. Take us through those emotions and final laps there.

BILLY SCOTT: Incredible. I don't know if it's still sunk in yet. To put him out there on the little bit of tire disadvantage in the first place, have him drive from fourth back up to the win was amazing.

I think it will sink in in the next day or so. We're ready for it, though.

DAVE ROGERS: Yeah, just super proud of this 23XI team. Super proud of Billy over here. What a call there. Everything on the line. He just makes this great, gutsy call.

He asked me what I thought. I said, My God, it is to do this. He said, We're going to do a little something different. He wrote it out. It turned out to be the right call. So congrats to him, the engineering staff that supports him and everyone at Airspeed.

This is such an exciting moment. To have such a big win to get to Phoenix, it's icing on the cake. It's really exciting.

THE MODERATOR: We'll go ahead and open it up to questions.

Q. Billy, given how quickly the cars had fallen back earlier in the race on four-lap older tires, what kind of strength of will did it take for him to run up front and run the final lap the way he did?

BILLY SCOTT: It's incredible. That's just how much determination he had and how quickly he can figure out what he needs to do, where to find clean air, how to get through traffic.

At the time when we settled in there in fourth, thought at least we made something out of the day and we still have a fighting shot at Martinsville. He did not give up. Watch him going through there, nothing short of amazing.

Q. Billy, when you called Tyler into pit road, you see him tumble down the running order, was there a line of delineation when you thought it was going to be okay versus not okay to be able to leave him out if a caution did come out like it did?

BILLY SCOTT: Yeah, I think we probably would have been committed either way if we got a later yellow, unless it was really late. We knew we were going to have a huge tire advantage on those that were still on the track running long.

Coming out on the 20 somewhere, our tools suggested we would finish between 12th and 15th. Certainly not what we were looking for, but we were going to try to make the most of it, make something out of it.

When the yellow came out that quick, it was a no-brainer to stay out there, give it a shot, put it in his hands.

Q. Did you think he'd be able to hold everybody off the way he did, have a little bit left in the tank?

BILLY SCOTT: It's funny. Dave and I were talking about that real-time when that all happened. Yeah, I think we can do it. It's like, I don't really know what to think. We had not seen the situation.

Guys that stayed out earlier with four to six laps of green laps, we had about one and a half before the yellow came out there, so we knew we had a better shot at it than them.

Honestly, we figured a lot of it was going to come down to the first turn on the restart and being able to get clear and hold them off, would have felt a lot more confident.

Never in my wildest dreams did I imagine we would get split into turn one, fall back to fourth, and in the matter of a few laps drive back past those three.

Q. Both Tyler and Blaney said that they couldn't believe that Tyler was able to stick the landing, so to speak, going to the outside like he did. What is going through your minds about what he might do when he did what he did?

BILLY SCOTT: I watched qualifying round two, so I knew what he was going to do (smiling).

Q. Explain that.

BILLY SCOTT: Fortunately Blaney didn't (smiling).

Yeah, I didn't know what to expect, honestly. We were watching as intently as anyone.

I was amazed still, probably still trying to recover from watching him drive by Denny previously just to get in position to do that. I joke about it, but I figured he was going to send it on the top because that's where his comfort zone is.

After a few laps on tires, that was a fairly dominant lane. Like you said, just amazing he stuck it perfectly, was able to get to his outside before he could block it.

Q. Tyler has had a lot of moments in his career at the Cup level. Is this his signature moment, elevating himself to a higher level?

BILLY SCOTT: Yeah, I would say so.

DAVE ROGERS: Yeah.

BILLY SCOTT: With everything on the line. It doesn't get any bigger than this until we get to Phoenix. Just to watch the guys that are battling for the cut line and must-win scenarios, to all be running up there in the top six, seven, that's all it was for the second half of the race.

To be able to do that against them, figure out how to get by three of 'em in a few laps, yes, I think that puts a statement on how good he is.

DAVE ROGERS: Yeah, I mean, I agree. Must-win situation. The 45, the 11, the 12, they're all hungry, fighting for a Playoff berth or Championship 4 berth. Best of the best going at it with everything they have.

Tyler had a tire disadvantage, a clean air disadvantage, still prevails. I think it speaks volumes about how good of a driver he is, how determined he is, just how much talent he has.

It's a pleasure to work with Tyler. It's a pleasure to work with the entire 45 team. The whole group, they have so much talent. To perform at this level today, I think they just showcased what they're capable of.

Q. Billy, last week the talk is maybe he was too aggressive in that situation. Aggression is also what makes him what he is. How do you see that aggression, how do you work to mold that? Last week there was maybe too much aggression, and this week maybe Tyler Reddick doesn't win if he's not Tyler Reddick.

BILLY SCOTT: That's right. First off, my opinion is last week was not too aggressive. Was there risks involved? Yes. Was there risks on the guys that took two tires at the middle of the race, stayed up front, have cars on better tires behind him? Yes. That's part of what we do.

We were very supportive of him this week. I think he was probably harder on himself than anybody else was within our company.

Like you said, that's who he is. That's what we're promoting. Last week wasn't a must-win, but I think this week was a lot closer to that. Phoenix will be close to that again. That's the aggression you need at this point in the season.

I think we got away with a lot through the summer months of being semi-conservative, taking what it would give us. We learned to race that way and scored a lot of points because of it.

I now when it's all on the line and you got to have wins, it changes.

Q. Dave, from your perspective?

DAVE ROGERS: You play to your player's strengths, right? One of his strengths is he can live on the edge. Every now and then when you live on the edge, you step over. But we're playing to his strengths. He's an aggressive driver. We embrace it and we're unapologetic for it. We want him to go out there and get after it.

With time, years, maybe he'll make a better decision here or there. I think it's a lot of fun working with a driver that just wants to get after it, isn't scared. It's fun. We're going to play to our strengths.

Q. You both were not there the first year of 23XI. Denny talked about a five-year plan being a championship team. Fourth year, ahead of schedule. What does it mean to be in the Championship 4, the journey to get to this point?

BILLY SCOTT: Yeah, I think it's just important that they gave us all the tools we needed, made sure we had proper support from TRD and our alliance with JGR. We're not lacking for anything. Whether we made it or not, I think it was clear that we at least had established ourselves to be able to be.

Yes, to check that off the list, to get to the next level, go there and contend, that's certainly rewarding to get there before it was (indiscernible) out to be expected. It's just a testament to how closely we all work together and how they're committed to making this a success, too.

DAVE ROGERS: Billy hit on it, right? There's a lot of people that set goals out. I want to do this. They don't give you what you need to complete those goals. Hats off to Michael and Denny and our ownership group for putting the tools in place to let us do this.

We have a strong alliance with JGR. We have the best OEM with Toyota. We have a lot of great partners that help us. Then we have a lot of smart people at Airspeed that know how to use those resources. You kind of need both: the resources and you need to know how to use them.

I think the folks at Airspeed do a really good job. They work efficiently, they work together. They just do a lot of good work to make sure we're capitalizing on what we have.

I know Denny had a five-year plan. Doesn't always work like that, right? Even though we're in the Final 4 at Phoenix this year, who knows what next year is going to bring. This is the best stockcar racers in the world, best teams in the world. It's very competitive.

Everyone at Airspeed and 23XI are extremely hungry. We're just going to keep pushing and see where we can go.

Q. Billy, what position is Tyler in on the front row with two lap older tires? In that situation, what should happen typically compared to what did happen?

BILLY SCOTT: I guess you could say what happened is what should have happened. At a lap-and-a-half disadvantage at a track here where the falloff is so excessive in the first few laps, you expect the car out front on older tires to get taken advantage of, people put them in a bad spot. Every corner that goes by, it gets closer and closer to being equal. The biggest advantage with those on stickers is the very first corner.

I can't say it was a total surprise they were able to go three-wide and stuck in the middle. What was a surprise was how quickly he was able to overcome the tire disadvantage and still make something work.

Q. Billy, you talk about Tyler living on the edge. Were you concerned because of last week that he would not be on the edge as much?

BILLY SCOTT: No. Actually I think it's the opposite. I think because of last week, we were in a hole, we all felt we were really close to a must-win scenario, I think that makes it more acceptable to be on the edge.

I think if there's ever been a time we've struggled this year it's when we did have an advantage and we needed to be somewhat conscious of our decisions and are safe on chances we take.

I think whenever he's on the edge and we're all out for wins like this is when he's in his element. So I think it worked out well.

Q. At Darlington we saw Tyler tough it out. He was so sick. Got the regular-season championship. You see what he did today. What does he have that makes him so special and so different?

BILLY SCOTT: I think it's just a combination of talent and resilience. When things aren't going right, I sometimes think he's in his element. He seems to deal with that really well, stay calm and focused. He has that much talent to fall back on to where even if he has to overcome some sort of disadvantage, whether it's being sick, tire disadvantage, he's been able to.

DAVE ROGERS: I just echo what Billy said. He's an incredible talent. He's just got everything it takes. He's really young. He's got a lot of growing to do still. He has an abundance of talent. He wants to win. He's determined to win. He puts the work in. He doesn't come here unprepared. He comes to the racetrack prepared. He knows what has to happen each week.

He's just checking all the boxes right now.

Q. Obviously off track there's a lot going on, uncertainty with the organization, with the lawsuit, charters. People are human. You have a lot of people at your organization. How do you work through that? I'm sure there have been a lot of questions about what next year might be like. How do you handle that?

DAVE ROGERS: That's a good question.

But I think we just answered it. We represent the competition department, so we compete. Our ownership is committed to giving us the resources we need to compete. It's our job to use those resources the best we can, regardless of any outside situation, whether it's the one you bring up or any other situation, right?

We're here to win races. I think everyone at 23XI is focused on that.

I think any team that competes for a championship or wins a championship has to deal with distractions. There's so many roadblocks in the way, so much noise, so many distractions. I don't care who it is, what it is, if you are going to win a championship, you have to fight through adversity. That's just part of it.

This is one of those distractions that we're choosing to ignore and just compete at the highest level we know how.

THE MODERATOR: Thank you.