Tyler Reddick won the Autotrader 400 at EchoPark Speedway with his No. 45 Toyota Camry NASCAR Cup Car.
We dig into the details of whether the fender that flew off the car gave him an aero advantage.Ed. note — this article originally ran last month, and we’re moving it forward for those who missed it.
Welcome to the Bozi Breakdown. TTAC Creator Bozidar “Bozi” Tatarević is a Bosnian-American racing mechanic, writer, and technical consultant born in Sarajevo in 1986. After immigrating to the U.S. in 1995, he learned English in elementary school and eventually turned his passion for cars—fostered by his father Slav—into a full-time career. Laid off from a tech job in 2008, Bozi began wrenching professionally, eventually launching a shop and car export business with his family. His technical message board posts led to a writing career with outlets like TTAC, Motorsport.com, Road & Track and Racecar Engineering.In 2018, he made his pro mechanic debut at Watkins Glen and now works as a tire carrier and mechanic for Vasser Sullivan Racing in IMSA, with 10 wins and a 2023 GTD Pro title. Bozi also consults via his agency Podium Prime, with clients ranging from race teams to media production companies.The TTAC Creators Series tells stories and amplifies creators from all corners of the car world, including culture, dealerships, collections, modified builds and more.A transcript of the video, summarized by AI and edited by a human staffer, is below.[Image: YouTube]Become a TTAC insider. Get the latest news, features, TTAC takes, and everything else that gets to the truth about cars first by subscribing to our newsletter.
Transcript:Did a missing right-front fender help Tyler Reddick win the Autotrader 400 at EchoPark Speedway? Today we’re going to answer that question with all the technical details.My name is Bozi Tatarevic. I’m a technical analyst, and let’s get into what happened at EchoPark and how Tyler got to the front.With the race winding down, there was a big crash. Reddick ended up running into Denny Hamlin, and the front-right corner of his car was pretty wrecked. There was damage to the splitter, the front bumper, and the right-front fender was completely torn off the car.Immediately, there were concerns about whether he would still have speed. At superspeedways like Atlanta, Talladega, and Daytona, you want to have as little drag as possible. Whenever you have body panels missing from the car, or gaps in the bodywork, that typically generates drag.But to everyone’s surprise, once the team completed some repairs and the race restarted, Reddick was making his way toward the front. Almost immediately, speculation began about whether the team had discovered some kind of trick because of that missing right-front fender.My inspection of the car and the available photos, along with some analysis of how the aerodynamics work on the NASCAR Next Gen car, leads me to believe that the change probably improved aerodynamic performance in some areas while hurting it in others.One thing we can reasonably deduce from the missing fender is that the car likely gained front downforce. If we look at cars like GT3 race cars and other sports cars, you’ll often see louvers over the fenders or other types of openings. Those features release pressure from the wheel well. When that pressure is released, it typically increases front downforce.With more front downforce, there’s more …
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Author: Bozi Tatarevic, TTAC Creator
