A four-time road course winner, NASCAR Cup Series championship leader, 23XI Racing’s Tyler Reddick certainly has proven himself a threat to win on venues such as this weekend’s Naval Base Coronado 3.4-mile circuit. But after winning the last three races, Joe Gibbs Racing’s Denny Hamlin has cut Reddick’s one-time 100-points plus lead atop the championship standings to only 19 points as the field takes Sunday’s green flag. And Reddick conceded this week he is approaching the race weekend slightly differently now than he may have a month ago.
“It’ been something that’s for sure,’’ said Reddick, during a visit to the world famous San Diego Zoo Thursday. “I don’t think any of us took for granted the amount of points lead we had a month ago. We’re still doing a good job of leading laps, I think in the last month we’ve led more laps than anyone else, just unfortunately haven’t found a way to win.
“It just goes to show when you get really hot and someone goes on a tear and wins a lot of races, they can score a lot of points in a short amount of time. Just taking all that in and understanding that when we get to the Chase it’s going to be super important to capitalize on the days you have race-winning speed because you can put a gap on the field.”
As for his confidence and optimism when it comes to road courses, in particular while trying to maintain his points lead Reddick said, “Where are heads were a month ago coming into this race was like, ‘we’ll try to just see how competitive we are, if fast enough win the race.’ Now just have to be a bit more honest with ourselves and figure out which side of it we’re going to be on when we get in the race on Sunday.
“If we’re strong enough on speed to go for the race win or are we just a little off and if we are, have to be honest and go for stage points. We’ll see how we navigate the next two weeks.’’
Reddick was 11th fastest in Friday’s opening practice session and Hamlin was 14th on the speed chart after several drivers turned in faster qualifying practice runs in the closing minutes.
