LONG POND — Tyler Reddick is looking for a little help from “Clyde” this weekend at Pocono Raceway.
“Clyde” is the name of Reddick’s No. 19 Ford. He won with it at Dover earlier this season and it is the truck the 19-year-old will drive in today’s Pocono Mountains 150 NASCAR Camping World Truck Series race at the 2.5-mile track.
“All our trucks at Brad Keselowski Racing have names and this one is Clyde,” Reddick said. “It’s been a good truck for (crew chief) Doug (Randolph) and Ryan Blaney when he ran it. And it’s been a good truck for me, too. Some teams go with numbers, some go with names. I think names mean a little more than numbers. It’s pretty fun to be able to pick names for the new trucks.”
Reddick certainly has been making a name for himself in the Truck Series.
Through 11-of-23 races, he is second in the standings with 438 points, 14 behind leader and two-time defending series champion Matt Crafton. Besides Dover, Reddick also won the season-opening race at Daytona and has seven top-five and nine top-10 finishes.
Despite being in the championship battle, Reddick said he doesn’t feel any extra pressure.
“I have the same mindset I had going into Daytona,” he said. “Focus on the next race, which is Pocono right here, and run to the best of our ability. We just want to run top-five every weekend. If we can stay in the top five, we have a shot at winning.”
Last year at Pocono, driving “Clyde,” Reddick qualified third and finished 23rd. He said the key to being successful at the track is to minimize your mistakes.
“The straightaways are so long here that if you overshoot the corner a little bit, it will cost you for a long time,” Reddick said. “So hitting your marks is the biggest thing.”
Fortunately for him, Reddick has a veteran he can lean on in team owner Brad Keselowski. In fact, Keselowski is driving the No. 29 Ford in today’s race. He is one of four Sprint Cup drivers entered in the Pocono Mountains 150. Kevin Harvick, Kyle Busch and Austin Dillon are the others.
“Just about anything from the race track to what the truck feels like, how to understand it better, he’s always there,” Reddick said of Keselowski. “He just waits for me to ask him. It’s real good to have somebody like that, ready to give you advice if you need it.
“He’s helped me a lot at place like this and any tracks I come to for the first time.”
During Friday’s 2-hour, 25-minute practice session, Reddick and “Clyde” were eighth-fastest at 163.559 mph. Keselowski was one spot ahead of him at 163.636 mph.
Dillon, the defending race champion, used a run late in practice to post the fastest speed at 166.482 mph in the No. 33 Chevrolet. He was followed by a quartet of Toyotas.
Erik Jones was second at 165.612 mph, Busch was third at 165.023 mph, Timothy Peters was fourth at 164.087 mph and Johnny Sauter was fifth at 164.045 mph.
Points leader Matt Crafton was 10th in practice in the No. 88 Toyota at 163.405 mph.
Harvick, who is driving the No. 00 Chevrolet for JR Motorsports, co-owned by Dale Earnhardt Jr., his sister Kelley and Rick Hendrick, was just 12th fastest at 163.245 mph.
“We made it a little bit better as we got toward the end of practice,” Harvick said. “But (we) definitely have a lot of work to do.”
Qualifying for the Pocono Mountains 150 is at 10 a.m. today. The race is scheduled to get the green flag at 1 p.m.