As the Eldora event turns three, Reddick talks dirt-track racing
In his first full season of competition in the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series, 19-year-old Tyler Reddick has spent plenty of time in the upper reaches of the points standings, making early inroads into trying to dethrone two-time defending champ Matt Crafton. For one week this month, the inroads might be covered with dirt.
Reddick will bring an extensive dirt-track racing background into next Wednesday's 1-800-Car-Cash Mud Summer Classic (7 p.m. ET, FOX Sports 1, MRN, SiriusXM) at Eldora Speedway, the historic half-mile oval in Western Ohio which plays host to the only NASCAR national series event on dirt. The California native, with several age-related records to his credit in both Late Model and Sprint car competition on dirt, finished 11th last season in his first Eldora truck race.
"It was quite an eye-opening experience," said Reddick, who, at 16 years old, became the youngest driver to start in the prestigious World 100 for Late Models at Eldora in 2012. "It feels almost like a Street Stock with how much lack of grip there is, but we've just got a lot more horsepower and a lot less grip. It's a handful. Really hard to get a hold of the race track, so it makes it really interesting. We've been trying to work on our truck to make it better as much as we can for this year, and do some things on the truck that are hopefully going to help on dirt. Hopefully some of my dirt experience can play into that."
NASCAR returned to the dirt with the truck series in 2013, marking the first time in nearly 43 years that the sanctioning body had raced on something other than asphalt or concrete. As the Eldora event turns three, the style of racing is still so foreign to the other 99 percent of the three national series' schedules that the novelty seems to have faded only by microscopic margins.
With each year, there has been the occasional chatter from contrarians to the school of dirt that the Eldora race should still be run, but as an exhibition event. Reddick, however, said that the dirt-track showcase should remain a factor in the season-long championship equation.
"I think it should count as a points race," Reddick said. "If it was just an exhibition, some of these other teams that are just focusing on what they're good at, they'll just stay focused on those things. I think what they tried to do there is just throw another aspect into the game. You don't want to go to Eldora and run dead last. Every spot counts, so teams have to put time into making their equipment the best on the dirt track as they can. It's only one race, but it counts, it's a win and there's points to be had and lost there.
"It's the same deal with the road course," Reddick added, noting the series' annual trip to Canadian Tire Motorsport Park next month. "You know, we only run one road course over the course of the year, but teams that don't put in time to that road-course race or the effort to have the best vehicle possible, at the end of the year, they'll be looking back at that and saying, well, we should've put more effort toward it. I think it's good to have those races that you'd maybe call different or a wild-card or not, but I enjoy those type of races, especially being a dirt-track racer."
Reddick entered 16 of last year's 22 races in the Camping World Truck Series, returning to Brad Keselowski Racing's No. 19 Ford for a full-season campaign this year. He converted right out of the gate with a thrilling victory in the season opener at Daytona, then followed it up with his second truck triumph at Dover in May.
Since the Dover win, Reddick's fortunes have tailed off slightly with just one top-five finish in the last four races, a stretch that has allowed series leader Crafton to maintain an advantage in the standings. Even though it's been a bump in the thus-far-paved road, the season-long goals for the BKR driver haven't changed as Eldora's dirt beckons.
"Our intentions were at the beginning of this year was to chase for a championship," Reddick said. "Honestly, the last two weeks for us haven't been nearly what we wanted at all by any means. They've been kind of perilous. We've been working on it, working hard, trying to make better of a situation that we've put ourselves into. I really feel like we've bounced back a bit. We've had some issues, but surpassing those issues and making your weaknesses your strengths, I feel like we're doing that. We're heading back in the right direction, I feel like. We've just got to keep at it, and Eldora's going to be a good race for us."