Tyler Reddick on transition to 23XI, why he likes road courses and NASCAR's return to WGI

Tyler Reddick's first season driving for the 23XI Racing team co-owned by NBA legend Michael Jordan and fellow NASCAR Cup Series driver Denny Hamlin has produced one victory and a guaranteed spot in the 16-driver playoff field with room to spare on the regular-season schedule.

It hasn't all been smooth sailing. A high-profile setback Aug. 6 at Michigan International Speedway led an incensed Reddick to unleash a series of expletives after a mistake on a pit stop left his No. 45 Toyota with a loose right rear wheel. Reddick went from contending for the win to a 30th-place finish.

Reddick, 27, will seek his fifth career Cup victory when he competes in the Go Bowling at The Glen on Aug. 20 at Watkins Glen International's road course. His first victory with 23XI Racing came March 26 at the Circuit of the Americas road course in Texas. Reddick's NASCAR resume also includes 10 Xfinity Series triumphs and the 2018 and 2019 Xfinity Series championships.

Looking back: Kyle Larson repeats at Watkins Glen

Last year Reddick won three Cup races in his third season with Richard Childress Racing. He moved to 23XI Racing a year earlier than originally planned after previous No. 45 driver Kurt Busch stepped away from full-time racing because of lingering concussion-related issues.

Reddick's four Cup wins include three on road courses. He finished 10th at Watkins Glen in the 2021 Cup race and seventh last year.

He is a native of Corning, California, and now lives in Mooresville, North Carolina. (He said he thought his mind was playing tricks on him when he discovered Watkins Glen neighbor Corning, New York). Reddick is set to marry fiancée Alexa De Leon next summer. They have a 3-year-old son, Beau.

Reddick talked about the series' return to Watkins Glen and more during an Aug. 8 interview.

Question: How would you assess the season?

Answer: The tough things that are difficult to have are speed in the race cars. That’s something we have not lacked. We’ve had a lot of speed in our cars.

We try and really pay close attention to what happened (at Michigan), learn from it, not dwell on it because we have a short turnaround with racing on Monday. Preparing three race cars out of the 23XI stable, so we just move on. We get back into the routine of things.

Q: What are the challenges that come with transitioning to a new team?

A: I think for everybody it’s just getting used to the chemistry aspect of it. Me and (crew chief) Billy Scott didn’t necessarily work together, but we had a relationship from our time together at RCR. So just getting used to how 23XI operates, how Toyota conducts themselves as a manufacturer and huge partner of 23XI. That’s just been a learning curve, but it’s something that the team, Toyota, everyone has made very easy.

Everyone’s been great to work with. I really feel like pretty much from the get-go a large amount of the learning curve was behind us. It’s just cleaning up the little things. Me and Billy, we’ve just got to work on our communication. Like at Richmond (on July 30), knowing when to push, knowing when to take back a little bit and making sure we have a solid finish in the day. That stuff we’ll continue to work on as we navigate it, but largely for the most part I feel like it was a really quick transition. We were right away three races in finding ourselves with speed and capable of winning races.

Q: How have the additional road-course races in recent years impacted the series?

A: It’s made it a lot more enjoyable for me, honestly.

I love ovals. I was a dirt racer on ovals growing up and all I really cared to do was race on ovals in my career. Running more on road courses in the stock cars was probably one of the most challenging things I’ve ever done. It was a learning curve I really didn’t understand for a long time and through the help of a lot of great people around me throughout the years I’ve been able to dial it in more and more every time it seems like. It’s been really cool for the last I’d say two years really to be able to show up to road courses and have the speed to be able to contend for wins.

Q: What are keys to success on a road course?

A: It’s the same type of things you need to have on ovals. It’s risk vs. reward and certainly the Next Gen car rewards more aggressive driving, so you don’t have to worry about the risk quite as much because there’s more reward with that. I guess outside of that, it’s a different type of preparation and approach. You have many more corners to learn and when you have a lot of road courses stacked back-to-back like we do the next two weeks you have to balance between the two. You’ve got to focus on what’s ahead at Indy, but you’ve got to be getting ready for Watkins Glen as well.

It’s a different piece to it than a lot of us have been used to in our stock-car careers. You had for the longest time two road courses and that was kind of it. You go into the playoffs running ovals. I’ve definitely enjoyed having more road courses on the schedule and having the (Charlotte) Roval in the playoffs as well.

More: Watkins Glen’s not-so-easy path to Lake Hawks nickname, mascot

Q: Is there added comfort knowing you've run well at Watkins Glen?

A: We’ve certainly been fast. We haven’t quite closed the door on solid finishes. I haven’t had a lot of experience with the wet conditions, but I seem to be faster at Watkins Glen when it is damp or wet. I kind of hope it’s raining its tail off when we get up there because we were battling for the lead when it was doing that last year.

It’s one of those places that has a lot of runoff, speeds are really high and you’ve got to stay really, really aggressive, even in wet conditions.

Q: What stands out about Watkins Glen as an event?

A: We've seen it at a number of places, but Watkins Glen is one of those where it’s a whole event for the fans. They go out, they camp out in the beautiful mountains of New York and just have a really good time. I’ve gotten to see it for myself when I haven’t actually been driving at Watkins Glen just how rowdy it gets up there. People up there really know how to get down. It’s a fun event, the fans are really passionate, they love NASCAR racing and they love their track up there too.

It’s always fun to go up there and certainly the Bus Stop always has lots of action. It’s one of the most interesting sections of track that we race on. It’s so difficult to get right and we’re going so fast through the Bus Stop these days. It’s really crazy to experience in a car.

More: Five hot spots at Watkins Glen International

Q: What other spots at WGI stand out?

A: I’m conflicted on how I feel about all the added runoff over the years at Watkins Glen, but certainly if they’ve paved it, we’ve used it. First it was the runoff between, I guess depending on how you call it, 6 and 7 or 11 and 10 there before the front straightaway. They added the runoff there and I never thought we’d be out there using it and there we were.

The runoff in Turn 1 got added in there. We’re out there using that now too. The runoff off the Carousel, it’s pretty crazy how much room we can take up without any true track limits being enforced. That’s just one thing about Watkins Glen, we’ve really stretched it out as far as we can just trying to find speed.

Q: What’s the key to having as much success as possible the rest of the season?

A: We’ve just got to clean up our mistakes. We’ve got lots of speed in our race cars, lots of capability, we’ve just got to close these races out and take what they’ll give us and nothing more. We’ve just got to be smart.

Follow Andrew Legare on Twitter: @SGAndrewLegare. You can also reach him at alegare@gannett.com. To get unlimited access to the latest news, please subscribe or activate your digital account today

This article originally appeared on Elmira Star-Gazette: Q&A with NASCAR Cup Series driver Tyler Reddick of 23XI Racing