September 10, 2022 | By Lee Spencer

Tyler Reddick encouraged by pole-winning performance at Kansas

KANSAS CITY, Kan.—Despite the driver landscape changing daily, Tyler Reddick remains focused on the task at hand—winning the 2022 NASCAR Cup title.

The driver of the No. 8 Richard Childress Racing Chevrolet continued that course on Saturday by winning the pole for the Kansas Lottery 400 at Kansas Speedway.

For Reddick, who qualified second at the 1.5-mile track in May, scoring his second pole of the season was a boost of confidence for Sunday.

“It’s reassuring,” Reddick said. “Again, the last few times we’ve been here, we’ve had a car capable of leading and we’ve been able to do that. It’s just been a matter of putting together the whole day, which is something we’ve fought at times throughout the year.

“I’m really glad that we’ve been able to learn from a lot of those experiences. It’s made us stronger; it’s made us better as a team. I feel really good and excited about it. Starting first is great any weekend, but to be able to have that first pit stall selection is going to be key. I’m looking forward to it.”

Reddick established the quick time (29.853-sec.) in Round 1 over Chastain (29.870-sec.). He topped the speed chart with a lap of 180.608 mph (29.899-seconds) for the pole, the third of his Cup career.

Joey Logano was second-quick with a speed of 180.385 mph (29.936-seconds) and will share the front row.

“I thought we had a pretty good lap,” said Logano, who has three wins at Kansas, most recently in 2020. “Our car was tighter than the first run. It was still good the first run. I hated to adjust on it too much and I probably steered Paul (Wolfe, crew chief) a little bit in the wrong direction there and didn’t really adjust enough.

“I am so proud of the Shell Pennzoil team. We picked up a lot from practice and laid down a couple of quick laps there. A couple of front row starts in a row. That first pit stall is pretty big here though. I wish we had that. But we will go at them from where we are at.”

Alex Bowman posted the third-fastest lap followed by Christopher Bell, Ross Chastain,  Bubba Wallace, Kyle Larson, Austin Cindric, William Byron and Chris Buescher.

Although Reddick finished 30th, four laps down, in the spring at Kansas after a left rear tire blew on Lap 116, he was encouraged by leading 24 laps early in the race.

“Having a consistent car is really important,” Reddick said. “This is a track where you’ll have some fall off, but not a lot, so a car that doesn’t swing tight or loose will be important. All of those things, it’s about as perfect of a situation as you’re going to get out there in qualifying today.

“In practice for us, we didn’t have a lot of traffic, so we had a really good read on what our car will do. But from here on out the rest of the weekend; you’re going to be in traffic at some point, whether it’s later, in fifth and fifth on back. I feel really good about the speed our car has shown.

“Handling-wise, it’s just about right where I would want it for a place like this so I can move around a little bit and get up by the wall. It pretty much checked all of our boxes today. We can obviously make some small adjustments, but we’re not having to do anything crazy. We’re pretty happy with what we have.”

In his third full season on the Cup tour, Reddick has shown tremendous potential. He's scored eight podium finishes including two wins at Road America and on the Indy Grand Prix course.

In July, 23XI Racing announced that Reddick will join the roster in 2024. In light of the news that Kyle Busch will be joining Richard Childress Racing next season, how will that affect Reddick?

“If it (happens), then I’ll figure out what to do,” Reddick said. “But until then, I’m just going to keep doing my job and the task at hand. That’s what we did today. We got a pole. We were fast in practice in a lot of different measures.

“If I was pretty bored during the week, didn’t have a lot going on and wasn’t spending a lot of time trying to prepare; it would be easy to get distracted and give that some of your mind and some of your attention. But for me, thankfully, I stay really busy with my team. We have a lot on our minds; right here, doing stuff like this, bringing fast race cars. So we don’t even have time to let that into my head.”