Tyler Reddick looks at Sunday’s run at Las Vegas Motor Speedway as an outlier for his 23XI Racing team and one they are eager to learn from immediately.
“How we performed at Vegas is not ourselves,” Reddick said.
Reddick finished eighth in the South Point 400, but it was the overall performance through the 400-mile event that brought frustration. In the opening race of the third round of the postseason, Reddick didn’t lead a lap and earned just nine stage points. It was an empty result after entering the weekend optimistic about being able to capitalize on the first intermediate track in the round.
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“We’re definitely further behind than we wanted to be coming out of Vegas,” Reddick said of being 16 points below the playoff grid cutline. “You guys know the stats better than me, but I swear I’ve heard it — we’ve led at like every mile-and-a-half track going into Vegas and then we didn’t lead a single one while we were there. That’s frustrating for sure because the car showed it had good speed; our handling was not what we’re kind of used to, and we really thought we were going to have a handle on it, literally, going into the race on Sunday, and we did not. Pretty much from the beginning of that race, it was a handful all day.
“The car had speed, it’s just the handling wasn’t there. It’s very unlike us. In practice, the car was fast, it was just very difficult to hang on and manage it over the course of a run, manage it in traffic, and it just built for a tough day for us. That was definitely disappointing but at the same time, we can learn from our mistakes and certain things we didn’t really like that our car did at Vegas as we approach Homestead. It was a tough day, for sure. Hopefully, on the other side of it, when we get to Homestead, we’ll be better.”
Homestead-Miami Speedway has been kind to Reddick in the past, and it’s a track he’s always glad to see on the schedule. It’s the perfect place to move on to after a tough weekend, and Reddick said he can’t wait to get back on track.
In four Xfinity Series starts at Homestead-Miami, Reddick won twice, which also claimed him the series championship. Of his three Cup Series starts at the track, Reddick has two top-five finishes.
This is the furthest Reddick has ever been in the Cup Series postseason in three appearances. Until this year, he’d never made it out of the first round.
“I think coming into this year, it was just about getting both cars in the playoffs and just seeing where we’re at right now,” Reddick said. “When we look at the speed we’ve had this year, we’ve led a few laps at a number of different places; we’ve had good speed. So, I guess when the year started, we didn’t really know where our ceiling was going to be, but when we look at the speed we’ve had this year, I think being in the Round of 8 was very possible for us.
“When you look at how the years transpire, we’re about where we should be. I would like to take it a step further by all means, but I think for us, it’s been a good year. We just want to keep going. I don’t think anyone on this team or in this organization will ever settle for good enough. We’re just going to keep pushing.”