NASCAR News: Weather washes away Cup Series qualifying in Atlanta

NASCAR Cup Series qualifying at EchoPark Speedway near Atlanta has been canceled due to inclement weather.

With no time trials, Daytona 500 winner Tyler Reddick will start first in Sunday’s Autotrader 400 (3 p.m. ET, FOX, PRN Radio, HBO Max, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio, FOX One) with the lineup set according to the NASCAR Rule Book. His No. 45 23XI Racing Toyota will be flanked on the front row by the No. 22 Team Penske Ford of Joey Logano, a two-time winner at the 1.54-mile track.

A perennial threat on drafting tracks, Ricky Stenhouse Jr. will line up third in the No. 47 Chevrolet for Hyak Motorsports. Defending EchoPark Speedway winner and hometown favorite Chase Elliott starts alongside him on the outside of Row 2 in the No. 9 Chevrolet for Hendrick Motorsports.

Steady mid-morning rain mixed with lightning placed Atlanta on-track activity on hold. Saturday’s schedule includes a pair of races for the other two NASCAR national series — the Fr8 Racing 208 for the Craftsman Truck Series (1:30 p.m. ET, FS1, NASCAR Racing Network Radio, SiriusXM, FOX One) and the Bennett Transportation & Logistics 250 for the O’Reilly Auto Parts Series (5 p.m. ET, The CW, PRN Radio, SiriusXM).

Saturday’s weather forced the first cancellation of Cup Series qualifying at EchoPark since 2008.

Starting Lineup for Autotrader 400

Tyler Reddick was made available to the media on Saturday prior to the NASCAR Cup Series race from EchoPark Speedway.

TYLER REDDICK, No. 45 Pinnacle Toyota Camry XSE, 23XI Racing

Can you tell us about your week? 

“Yeah, someone could probably walk up to me and say, ‘We did an interview on Tuesday or yesterday, I’d be like, yeah,’ because, I mean, there’s just so many of them, but yeah, it’s really cool, but to your point, not a lot of sleep. That’s okay. I’m kind of used to that with an eight-month old, and there’s the occasional middle of the night wake up from Beau. It’s been a lot of fun. I think getting to go to these places and do these things, that part is cool, but, for me, what I’ve enjoyed the most is kind of having the opportunity to, whether it was going on First Things First, or just a number of the shows, getting to interact with the analyst or the anchors that didn’t know a lot about racing, that were genuinely curious about racing, whether it was because they were intrigued by the finish, and how exciting it looked, and just chaotic it was, or the number of athletes that were drawn to understand and learn more because they saw Michael (Jordan, co-owner, 23XI Racing) in Victory Lane, and he’s the owner of 45 and he won the 500. I think that for me was probably the part I enjoyed the most – is getting to like tell them about Michael and to tell them about NASCAR and like what our world is kind of like, among all else. That was probably the part that I enjoyed a lot.”

Do you have a Daytona 500 or two that stick out in your memory? 

“Well, yes, unfortunately, it wasn’t a good one. I feel like one of the first ones I really sat down and watched start to finish was 2001. I know there’s a lot of great Daytona races that I watched, but, I mean, when you talk about just impactful – that one. It was a rough day, but there was a lot of other races that I got to watch, but, I mean, in that sense, the one that was the most impactful was 2001 for sure.”

Is the ring safe? 

“Not really (laughter). Yeah, it’s fallen off my hand a lot (laughter). I just didn’t wear it in here today because if it starts raining, it just falls off my hand. I figured that out after I left the media center on Sunday. I got a ride back closer to the garage, or I don’t know, I think my bus driver, Tyler Clark, was like helping Alexa (Reddick, Tyler’s wife) with something. So, I don’t know. I just remember, getting back to the garage and opening the door on the rental car, and the ring just took off. I went chasing it across the asphalt, so that wasn’t be good (laughter). But, then, of course, it fell off when I went to shake Mark’s (Consuelos) hand on (LIVE with) Kelly and Mark, so, yeah, it’s fallen off a few times, but it’s got character and there’s stories behind it, so it is what it is.”

Does the Daytona 500 win start the season or is its own accomplishment? 

“I feel like it’s a little bit above. Maybe it just depends if I wreck or if I run good (laughter), I would just tell myself that, but going back a couple years, we would go to Daytona and then I think, if I’m remembering it right, we just go straight to Fontana. I might be wrong, maybe I don’t remember it very well, but I think when you kind of, in today’s schedule, when you have Daytona, and then you come here, and it’s another speedway race, like, it doesn’t feel like it’s its own thing, because in a lot of ways, the mentality you have if it’s in a good place, Daytona, it’s very similar to what you want to do here. Yes, the runs happen faster, and there’s more handling in the corners, but just that mindset, when you’re drafting, like I feel like it kind of carries on. I think, for me, I’ve the last two years, but I guess that’s, those are the two race I finished well, I’ve said, ‘All right, we got a good finish. We scored some decent points. Let’s build on it.’ I think the years that I crashed out or just didn’t have a very good finish. I tried to say, ‘okay, well, it’s done. It’s in the past.’ So, I think I’ve kind of approached it both ways over the years.”

Did Michael Jordan share anything with you one-on-one on what the win meant to him?

“We talked about a little bit in Victory Lane, and, yeah, I mean, just for him as an owner, he made it very clear to us a couple weeks before the season got going, all leadership got together, drivers and whatnot, and just made sure that we had our goals aligned and everything, and he made it very clear then and he confirmed it again, Victory Lane, what he expects of us as an organization, and when we have opportunities like that it’s important for us to get the job done, and, for us on the 45, we didn’t do that last year. So, to kind of be able to right out of the gate this year, be able to capitalize on it was cool. I saw it on the Jordan Brand post, on socials, but the word I heard it say a few times was just clutch. It was cool. He thought it was cool that, in the heat of the moment, even as things seemed to kind of get out of sight, and come back into sight, like, in the closing laps, that where I was just able to make the right choices on the final lap and win the race. Just clutch.

Can you imagine in your lifetime that there will be a Daytona 500 where there will not be a wreck in the last lap? 

“With this current car, I don’t see it. Even towards when I had my time in the Gen 6 car, the runs were big, and you could really get all over the back to somebody and push hard. I think whether it’s the handling or the bubble, just kind of getting bigger, like it used to be, with previous cars, that will have to change for the wreck, a wreck or multiple wrecks, not to happen on the last lap. Just, you’re able to push pretty much at any point. I think everybody understands it’s not worth the risk pushing in the trioval early in the race. It’s not worth the risk to push if you’re not lined up well, and all that just goes out the window on the last lap, because if you check up and don’t give the car ahead of you the push, you’re just not going to have to momentum. I mean, you have the opportunity to win the race or put yourself a position to win a race or the Daytona 500, so, all the caution that you have just kind of goes out the window in the closing laps, and I think that’s why the accidents happen, but if you don’t have that aggression, you don’t have the momentum, and you’re not up there in the mix anyways.”

Is there a particular moment from all of the media this week that stood out? 

“I’d say when I’ve been to Empire State Building once before. I think when we went and did PBR Madison Square Garden a couple years ago, I got to go check out the Empire State Building, but this time around, we did the 86th floor. We did 102, but they also let me up to 103, which is, open to the air, there’s rail. You just kind of out there in the open air, way up high in New York City, that was really cool. So, yeah, just leaning over that rail and seeing how far down it was, and just the city kind of out in front of you, that was really, really cool.”

What do you feel like you’ve been missing here since the reconfiguration?

“Yeah, I mean, in my opinion on that one, I don’t feel like, I mean, I understand on a consistent basis to what has happened here, but, in my opinion, for my car, my team, 23XI, I don’t feel like that one really lines up well for me. Over the years here, I feel like we’ve always had a very solid Camry and I just, more times than not, I’ve kind of messed it up here at the end of the race, whether it’s just not being too aggressive or just not being towards the front at the end of the race, but most of the time, I feel like we come here and we have what we need to win. Our best shot at it definitely was the last summer race here, and I just didn’t make the right choices at the end. I think the lessons I learned from that, the lessons I’ve learned from running the course of the 500 on Sunday, just making adjustments as a driver are in the right direction, going forward for races at Atlanta, and then Talladega, that we’ll have.”

Was there anything specific about where the team members signed the car before it went into the museum?

“Unfortunately, I can’t speak on that one at all. I wasn’t there to participate. I got to see a couple pictures of it, and I don’t know, I don’t know where the idea came from or how it started, but I kind of loved that they did it the way that they did it. If there’s a signature on the jack post, I imagine it’s my jackman, Brandon Banks. I’m guessing Dakota (Ratcliff, rear tire changer) and Hunter (Masling, front tire changer) from a signing perspective, front and back of the car, so, yeah, I wish I could have partaken in that some way, but there was a lot going on Monday, so I just kind of heard about it like you did.”

What is it about COTA that you’ve been able to have so much success there? 

“Well, years ago, it was the fact that it had so many big braking zones. When the tires were harder, you’d be very aggressive and just push. I think now maybe it’s just the laps that I have there. I’ve got to run other races there, win other things there over the years, and so I think maybe at this point, it’s just the amount of laps that I have there, just kind of understanding the track. One thing I love about it, that adds to the challenge is the track gets so many laps on it throughout the year, from all the things that are racing there, or things that are just on track, track days. Every time we go there, different sections are repaved, and the grip level’s different, and that part that I really enjoy. I think, just for me, we’re able to qualify really good, and as the year went on, we needed to continue to find long run speed to keep up with Shane (van Gisbergen), and we’ve worked really hard on that in the off season, and we’re excited to see where we fall in with the gains that it looks like we’ve made. I think it’s going be really hard to be much faster than Shane, but hopefully, we just got up a little bit more.”

Do you feel like you missed out on any prep for Atlanta because of the media tour? 

“No, I don’t think so. I feel pretty good about it. Fortunately, it just kind of worked out the one day we had at home, or, like, the half day I had it home, I don’t know. that’s what we normally kind of do all of our free race stuff, so we’re able to cover everything, and, like, a normal week on that day. Yeah, I haven’t been able to – I haven’t made a post-race meeting yet this year. There’s a number of things that have been out of sorts, if you will, but yeah, for the most part, it was a normal week on the prep side, so I think I’ll be good.”