By: Zach Catanzareti, Staff Writer
Kicking off his first full XFINITY Series season with a win at Daytona, Tyler Reddick has gone winless since. In the meantime, his teammate Justin Allgaier came into Indianapolis Motor Speedway on Monday with a series-leading four wins in the opening 25 races.
And after the rain-postponed Lilly Diabetes 250, they finished 1-2, with Reddick coming home second behind Allgaier’s fifth win of 2018.
Starting ninth, Reddick was a common name in the top five most of the day. And when the aggression quickly grew during restarts, Reddick, with the exception os a brush with the wall, avoided the mess.
“Everyone had their own mentality on how they wanted to approach this race,” Reddick said. “Some had their cars more trimmed out. The guys you saw struggling on restarts had very trimmed-out cars.
“We were in the middle, a little sketchy on restarts but had good speed when we got singled out.”
Bringing good speed to the track has become more common for the No. 9 JR Motorsports Chevrolet. With a third-place run last weekend at Darlington, back-to-back podiums is a first for the 22-year-old and it comes in good time with the playoffs two weeks away.
“To have two of our best days all year back-to-back is really good,” he said. “It’s about executing and if we keep doing that, we’re doing really good. We have to see if we can get one more really good race and we’ll be right where we need to be for the playoffs.”
With a 17-lap green run to the end, Reddick was able to maintain his second position, however, was unable to rise from there. With a second-place run, Reddick was happy about the package at this 2.5-mile track.
“It makes the racing exciting, keeps all the drivers close,” he said. “That’s what a lot of fans are looking for. I’ve never ran another package here but everything I know is that air is everything here. It still matters a bit with this package. I think this package works really well here.”
Reddick isn’t a fan of the package outside the gates of Indy, however.
“I have zero interest running it anywhere else,” he said. “The racing is good enough on the other 1.5-mile tracks. Michigan, it was a good test but I feel the racing is fine the way it is. it’s hard to make the racing as tight as it could be when the tires wear out like that.
“When everything is right, it’s spectacular.”