By David Morgan, Associate Editor
SPEEDWAY, Ind. – The Beast is most definitely Unleashed.
For the second day in a row, Tyler Reddick and his No. 45 Beast Unleashed Toyota Camry has found its way to the top of the timing sheet, this time Reddick’s lap of 49.469 seconds, 181.932 mph was enough to earn him the pole for the Brickyard 400.
“I was one of the last cars to go in Group B, so I watched a lot of drivers in Round one have issues in Turn 4 and a couple of other areas on the race track. It definitely seemed like it was easy to overstep the boundaries,” Reddick said.
“I wanted to put down a good lap in that first round – and it was a very solid lap. We knew we had a solid car, and it was going to be important to make the right adjustments and back it up in round two. We had a little bit of pace fall off in round two from round one at first, but nevertheless, I thought we did a good job with the adjustments, and we were able to lay a lap down good enough to claim the pole.”
Reddick would unseat his 23XI Racing team owner Denny Hamlin from the top spot with his lap, bumping Hamlin to the outside of the front row for Sunday’s race.
“Well, if I tear it up, he’s paying for it (laughs). It’s his car,” Reddick said of going against Hamlin from the front row. “I try not to use that against him. I honestly feel like we race each other very fair, but hard. I’ve learned a lot about racing from him as well.
“I feel like we have a good level of trust and respect for one another, but obviously, when we come to a place like this (Indianapolis Motor Speedway), I know how badly he wants to win here. And I know how bad I want to win here. It’ll just be something we’ll have to manage throughout the day, and we’ll just see how it goes.
“Obviously, he and the 11 team are stout. The 5 (Kyle Larson), the 9 (Chase Elliott), those are guys that have been good all year long. But yeah, I wonder if that’s something he thinks about while we’re racing. Like ‘man, if he uses me up?’ Is he thinking about fixing up his race car or worried about his race?”
Chase Elliott will start third, followed by his Hendrick Motorsports teammates William Byron and Kyle Larson to round out the top-five.
The remainder of the top-10 starters on Sunday will be Ty Gibbs, Ryan Blaney, last year’s winner on the Indianapolis road course Michael McDowell, Ricky Stenhouse Jr., and John Hunter Nemechek.
Battle for…
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