NASCAR’s Tyler Reddick Is Learning To Trust The Process After Summer Slump

It’s Okay To Not Be Okay

The sport of NASCAR has a peculiar way of making a driver who wins five of nine races look as though something is wrong with him three months when the wins, or even decent finishes, aren’t clicking off with regularity.

“I think when you start the year off celebrating the results as much as we did, it’s easy to kind of fall into the wrong side of it when those results are not going the way that you want them to.” Reddick said.

For Reddick his way of avoiding that wrong side is to look for the positives, those small moments during an otherwise difficult race that show future potential.

“Like there’s a balance,” he says. “You know, one thing that just happens with bad results, they stack up. You go back and you reflect on points lost, points gained, right? And it’s like, man, you know we really fumbled this, but in each of those races, you know there’s a lot that still happens, a lot of good decisions, a lot of grit, a lot of fight through those situations. So those bad days weren’t even worse.

“See, I think it’s just important to still understand and take away what good still came out of that race. “

Take the races at San Diego and Richmond. At the inaugural street course race at Coronado Reddick crashed in qualifying but still led laps. At Richmond he also led laps. And while the finishes may not be noteworthy, 25^th in San Diego and 11^th at Richmond, there were good takeaways for both driver and team.

“There’s still a lot of positives in a weekend where you may finish 11th or 15th or 30^th,” he said. “You know that it’s like, well, we were on track to finish 36 before we went to the extent that we did to get back on the track, etcetera.”

No matter what happens on the track, however, Reddick knows he still has not only the support of his family, but his sponsors as well.

“It’s great to know that the 23XI partners believe in what the team is capable of and they’re willing to ride right through it with us through the ups and downs,” he said. “But I think at the same time, though, it is okay to say, look, things haven’t been okay…that’s how the issues become bigger ones.”

We Win You Win

Earlier this season when Reddick was in the midst of his historic win streak, one of those partners, Mobil 1, celebrated by presenting Reddick with a special trophy. It included a drop of the engine oil from Reddick’s Daytona 500 winning car.

And while mementos like that are great when everything’s going well, when the relationship is good, it’s great to know the support is still just as strong when things are not going so well.

“Knowing that I have everyone’s support is really helpful because the pressures just don’t continue to add up and build,” Reddick said. “It helps you from letting the bad stretches from being heavier than it really is.”

A good example of partner support is a new sweepstakes just announced from Mobil 1 and O’Reilly Auto Parts. The We Win, You Win contest will give fans the chance to win when a driver on the 23XI Racing team does.

For Reddick, the program brings back memories of being a fan himself.

“For me growing up watching it, being able to be a part of something like that, have the opportunity to watch your driver, your team compete for winning races and having some stakes involved in it too … as a kid growing up, you would always get excited when you hear about different sweepstakes taking place,” Reddick said.

Now, as the driver, Reddick gets to give somebody else that experience.

“It’s really a cool opportunity to be able to bring a fan … they get to watch us, watch myself or one of the other 23XI drivers win a race, and then get to come back to a race the following year at Charlotte … and hopefully get the opportunity to see it in person too. It’s really, really special.”

Reddick has just one request for the lucky winner.

“Priority No. 1 after they win is when they do come to the racetrack, when they do come to Charlotte, we’ve got to win again. So they get to experience Victory Lane in real life.”

Slow Can Be Fast

Perspective is useful, but eventually Reddick has to stop being philosophical and go win a championship.

The immediate priority for Reddick, of course, is the Chase — that 10-race stretch that will determine this year’s NASCAR Cup champion.

He has already shown he knows how to win. Five victories in the first nine races is pretty compelling evidence of that. But the summer has given him something else that could prove just as valuable when the championship is on the line: perspective.

Reddick highlights a single point earned at Sonoma for the fastest lap of the race despite power-steering problems as an example. It might seem insignificant now, but when the points during the Chase are being counted, that single point could suddenly matter a great deal.

“That one point could be the difference in the seeding for the Chase,” Reddick said. “That mindset of not leaving a single point on the table, if a similar situation plays out in the Chase, could be the difference between winning and losing the championship.”

The bigger lesson, however, may have nothing to do with points.

After the remarkable start to the season, Reddick admits there was a period when everything was simply moving too fast.

“There was a stretch there where it was just all go, all gas, no brakes,” he said. “I think I literally had that on a helmet one time when I was younger.”

The answer now isn’t necessarily to push harder.

“At some point you’ve got to stop for a second,” Reddick said. “I think the biggest thing is understanding how we had our success. I think we have a pretty good idea of what we were doing right and what things, when we’ve had our issues, have gotten away from us.”

That may be the most important thing Reddick takes into the Chase. Not the five wins. Not the summer struggles. Not even the points that got away.

The lesson is to trust the process that produced the success in the first place.

“I don’t think it’s about turning it up necessarily,” Reddick said. “It’s just about making sure we stick to what works for us, trusting our process, trusting our people. And not letting one bad race really affect how we carry ourselves into the next week.”