Tyler Reddick, Taylor Gray and Gio Ruggiero delivered victories at Kansas Speedway this weekend – giving Toyota its first weekend sweep of the season.
NASCAR
Reddick continued his history-making season as the Californianative had an incredible overtime restart at Kansas Speedway to claim his fifth win in the first nine Cup Series races this season. He is the first driver to win five of the first nine races in a season since Dale Earnhardt in 1987.
“It was really chaotic,” said Reddick. “We had a decent launch on the 11 (Denny Hamlin). The 5 (Kyle Larson) put him middle of the three, and then the 20 (Christopher Bell) got to my outside – we all ran out of real estate off of turn two. It’s a bummer I got Christopher there, and pretty much took his shot of winning the race or running top-five like he did all day, so that one in the moment stings, and you just have to put it behind you really fast and go and win the race for Toyota. I was glad we were able to get back to the 5. I was really surprised we had that kind of grip on those right sides, but I took advantage of it and was able to make the move.”
- Tyler Reddick
The win added to a best-ever start for Toyota, winning seven of the first nine events this season, while Reddick led four Toyota drivers in the top-five – Reddick, Chase Briscoe (third), Denny Hamlin (fourth) and Bubba Wallace (fifth). It is the second straight Kansas race that Toyota has had four of the top-five finishers, and 16th time in our history.
Ty Gibbs (ninth) extended his career-best streak to seven straight top-10 finishes, while 23XI Racing made more team history with four drivers in the top-15 for the first time – Reddick, Wallace, Riley Herbst (14th) and Corey Heim (15th).
In the NASCAR O’Reilly Series race on Saturday evening, Taylor Gray’s crew chief Jason Ratcliff proved to have the winning pit call at Kansas Speedway on Saturday night as Ratcliff brought his driver in four laps before the leaders, and Gray took care of the rest – leading the last 48 laps on his way to his first victory of the season and second of his career. His teammate, Brent Crews, finished fifth in his mile-and-a-half debut.
“First off – thank you to everyone at Joe Gibbs Racing, TOYOTA RACING, Operation 300 – and how about (crew chief) Jason Ratcliff,” said Gray. “Man, that pit call was awesome. I knew we had a car capable of winning. I thought the 20 (Brandon Jones) was better than us before the green flag cycle, but you just have to stay locked in. We needed to be a little bit freer – Jason made a really good adjustment on the car, a really good pit call. Can’t thank everyone enough. It’s been a long start to the year. Not that we aren’t bringing speed to the race track, things just haven’t gone our way, so it is nice to be able to close one out.”
- Taylor Gray
Brandon Jones had the dominant car most of the evening as he won both stages and led a race high 67 (of 200) laps, before a pit road penalty on his final stop relegated him to eighth. Dean Thompson nearly put four Supras in the top-10 as he brought his Sam Hunt Racing Toyota home in 11th.
ARCA
Gio Ruggiero dominated the ARCA Menards Series race early and then had a stellar overtime run to win for the second time in as many starts at Kansas Speedway on Saturday afternoon. Ruggiero led the most laps – 50 of 108 – and led three Toyotas in the top-four finishers, with points leader Jake Bollman in third and Gavan Boschele in fourth. Toyota Development Driver Jade Avedisian was impressive in her mile-and-a-half debut, running in the top-five before finishing seventh.
SPRINT CAR
In the rain-delayed Sunday night feature at Tri-State Speedway, Buddy Kofoid was battling in the closing laps for his fourth consecutive World of Outlaws win before making contact with eventual race winner Tyler Courtney. Kofoid was scored 19th at the finish.
WHAT’S NEXT
Another tripleheader weekend is on tap this week as NASCAR and ARCA take on Talladega Superspeedway. Saturday, April 25, kicks off with ARCA Menards Series action at 1:30 p.m. ET on FS1, followed by the NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series at 4:00 p.m. ET on the CW. The NASCAR Cup Series closes the weekend on Sunday, April 26, at 3:00 p.m. ET on FOX.
