Tyler Reddick puts frustrating Michigan behind, focuses on Indy

INDIANAPOLIS — Amid the expletives shouted on the team’s radio, one of the few words that didn’t need to be bleeped was “unacceptable!”

Tyler Reddick was furious during last week’s race at Michigan International Speedway after a loose wheel cost him a chance to win.

Reddick lost control of his car because of the wheel shortly after exiting pit road and had to return to the pits. He went on to place 30th, finishing three laps behind winner Chris Buescher.

A slew of mistakes, misfortune and miscalculations have sidetracked 23XI Racing this season. Drivers, pit crews and others have been to blame at times. Those instances have kept the organization from winning more than one race this year.

Reddick has that victory for the team this season, taking the checkered flag at Circuit of the Americas in March. Wallace is winless this year but holds the next-to-last playoff spot with three races left in the regular season.

Reddick, who won last year’s race on the Indy road course, will start second in Sunday’s race (2:30 p.m. ET on NBC). Wallace starts 19th.

Last weekend’s woes were enough for Reddick.

“You never want to lose your cool, but certainly, if you are hot about something, it’s best to let it go and move on,” Reddick said Saturday at Indianapolis Motor Speedway. “If you sit on it for weeks and weeks and weeks and don’t let it out, it’s not helping the situation for sure.”

Wallace also has been vocal about his pit crew in the past.

“I’m happy for him to voice his frustration,” Wallace said of Reddick. “Hell, I got sat down and talked to when I did it. So I’m glad we’re getting to a better spot for our team.”

This wasn’t the first time this season Reddick has had a loose wheel. Just as bothersome was that the crew had time to make sure the tire was tight because they were waiting on fuel during that stop.

“That’s one of the difficult things about it,” Reddick said. “At Nashville a few (weeks) back, I felt like we had something similar happen, where we are waiting on fuel there. Obviously at Michigan, we were. It’s just something we’ve got to be better at.”

Both Wallace and Reddick have acknowledged mistakes they’ve made that have cost them chances to win or strong finishes, so it is not them picking on one part of the organization.

“I’ve made plenty of mistakes this year,” Reddick said. “I feel like I’ve cost our team two chances of winning from driver mistakes at Richmond and at Chicago Street Course. We all make mistakes. It’s part of it.”

Reddick crashed into the tire barriers at Chicago. He had a commitment line violation at Richmond.

Co-owner Denny Hamlin understands Reddick’s angst at Michigan.

“It’s frustrating from my standpoint because I lived through it myself,” Hamlin said. “I know what Tyler is going through and the emotion you have — and Bubba too. It’s free spots (given) to the competition.

“It’s a process. It’s going to take years. I can’t emphasize how much time it takes. Our ownership has bought into the fact of investing in our pit crews into the future and what we need to do to make it better.”

But with the playoffs approaching, the focus moves to more immediate matters.

“The team is young and building, and doing the things that they need to do,” Reddick said. “It’s just part of it. It can get frustrating at times for sure, as I’m sure that everyone heard, but we are working through it. We keep doing the difficult parts of it.

“It’s really difficult to win a race if you don’t bring fast race cars, and we’ve been bringing a lot of fast race cars – we will just keep putting ourselves in those positions and hopefully we will grow on pit road and continue to learn from our mistakes. That’s the biggest thing – learn from our mistakes and move forward, then it is all worth it.”