INDIANAPOLIS — Tyler Reddick has already won a NASCAR Cup Series race at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, but it wasn’t on the famed 2.5-mile oval.
Reddick, who won the 2022 Verizon 200 at the Brickyard on the IMS Road Course for Richard Childress Racing, was the fastest driver in Friday’s practice for the 30th Anniversary of the Brickyard 400 at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.
Reddick’s fastest lap was 182.582 miles per hour in the No. 45 Toyota. That was faster than Ryan Blaney’s No. 12 Menards/Atlas Ford at 181.928 mph for Team Penske.
Denny Hamlin was third in the No. 11 Sport Clips Toyota at 181.561 mph followed by Joe Gibbs Racing teammate Christopher Bell’s No. 20 Rheem Toyota at 181.371 mph. Alex Bowman rounded out the top five at 180.930 mph in the No. 48 Chevrolet for Hendrick Motorsports.
This year’s Indianapolis 500 Rookie of the Year, Kyle Larson, was the first driver off pit road and his No. 5 Hendrickcars.com Chevrolet was the first to complete a lap around the 2.5-mile IMS oval in Friday’s practice. He would finish the session sixth in speed at 180.774 mph.
The Speedway came to life with all cars on the track for a productive practice until the first red flag stopped the session for debris with 23 minutes left in the practice.
After the session resumed, Reddick showed the same prowess on the IMS oval as he had on the road course with his race-winning effort from 2022.
“That’s good,” Reddick said afterwards. “It seemed pretty solid. When you come to a place like this, that’s always something you hope for.
“I’ve been fortunate, we’ve run the road course here, and we’ve been really, really strong. Obviously, it seemed like Denny (Hamlin) had a really good test and we were able to get some good data from him.
“Tracks like this, it’s always a question mark to some degree, you know? How close is your sim preparation going to be? But it seemed like everyone did a pretty good job.
“I’m pretty happy with how the car drives. Certainly, it’s interesting how the draft works. I do feel like there is some sort of tow you can get out there, but also, the dirty air that comes with it is a challenge.
“So, it was just a big learning session.”
The NextGen car is much different than the Gen Six that last ran on the IMS oval in 2020. Although it may be “nimbler” in terms of its handling and steering, the aerodynamics are different.
“If the car you’re running behind would miss the bottom a little, it was somewhat manageable from like 15 (car lengths) back,” Reddick explained. “You can get a tow down the straightaway it seemed like.
“But if they hit the bottom, it was tough to manage.
“I don’t how that’s going to work as we were all pretty spread out. You know, we can all run some sort of a good pace. I think, I would expect a lot of mistakes in the race on Sunday once we’re all packed up on restarts.”