NASCAR CRAFTSMAN TRUCK SERIES CHAMPIONSHIP RACE

November 6, 2026

Tyler Gibbs

Press Conference

An Interview with:

THE MODERATOR: Joined by our first member of the championship-winning team, from the president of TRD Tyler Gibbs; also TRD and Toyota won the Cup manufacturers championship, clinched that a couple races as well.

So Tyler, talk about Kaden's championship and Toyota's season overall.

TYLER GIBBS: Yeah, I would like to say what a privilege it is for us to be partners with Johnny and Kevin and Matt and David, the TRICON guys. Again, you couldn't ask for better partners than them. They've put everything into it that's been needed. They've gone above and beyond.

You look at what Kaden did last year, obviously losing his ride, unfortunately Stewart was injured, and getting into a new truck with a new team, with a new manufacturer, ran the Playoffs the that way he did, made the final four, really learned a lot.

That's one of the things that Scott Zipadelli has said consistently is just how Kaden continues to learn and learn and learn. He's asking a lot of questions from different people, taking them and applying them. I think you saw that today.

It's unfortunate what happened with Layne. Sorry they couldn't race till the end. I was really proud of Kaden for racing all the way to the end. He didn't need to. He could have backed off and run real conservatively, but he went out there and obviously took it at the end.

So just really proud of them.

Our season as a whole, watching Kaden get better and closer and closer and closer. As soon as he got his first win, to finish the season with five like he did, I think is a testament to him and his team, all the things that he learned over the course of the season.

THE MODERATOR: Questions for Tyler.

Q. A lot of Toyota prospects that come through, they come in with a lot of hype. We kind of know about them a little bit and the expectations. Didn't seem like Kaden came in with a lot of expectations. What was it about him from your perspective that jumped out that this is a kid we really believe in?

TYLER GIBBS: Good question.

When you look at our process and you look at, again, the people at the performance center, Trent Rodriguez and Caitlin Quinn, just the whole team that's there. What they're doing in terms of looking at drivers, the equipment, evaluating how they're running in the equipment they're running in.

We had a good feeling I guess I'll say about Kaden. I don't want to say that we knew. There were some good indications there. The way he just carries himself, the work that he does. There's just a lot there. There were some things we could help him with, we worked on with him, he continues to get better and better at.

But he was one that we had watched and we kind of liked, and then we had an opportunity. Hey, look what we've got. Again, he's put a lot of work in to get to where he is.

We feel like we're giving him an opportunity to really show what he has.

Q. Seemed like a moment this year, mid-summer, he was doing well, but felt like he was missing the last little thing. What was that moment? What was he missing?

KADEN HONEYCUTT: I think it was just, again, him developing his process, his confidence, just continuing to learn how to deal with disappointment. I feel like I should have won that one; I didn't. How you come back, overcome that, approach it the next time.

His first win, I think we see some drivers when they get their first win, we all recognize based on where they've come from, how they've raced, that a win is a good thing. They'll continue to get them over time.

With Kaden, it was like, okay, right, the dam is going to burst here; we're going to see more than one more win this year and he certainly showed that, he demonstrated that.

Q. How do you view your long-term plans with Kaden?

TYLER GIBBS: Like we do with most of the drivers that we have a long-term relationship with, we have some obligations on our side and he has some with his.

We have rights to certain things, if we do certain things. We outline those early on. It's in our mind very fair. So we've given him that opportunity. He certainly has exceeded what our expectations would be. We expected him to win races this year and to run for a championship. He's won a championship.

We continue to watch that road play out. I'm not going to go into the details of what our terms are. We are comfortable with where we are and excited to have him going forward.

Q. To go from what Corey Heim did a year ago to what Kaden was able to do this year, especially in the last half of the season, come into himself as a driver, what does that do for you at TRD to see that pipeline working, transition from someone who was so successful?

TYLER GIBBS: Yeah, huge shoes to fill with where Corey was last year, setting the record with wins.

I've asked this question. I think there's only one other crew chief, but when you think about Scott, he has now won three championships with three different drivers. I think there's one other that's done that in the Busch Series.

That's just a testament to Scott's process, to Scott's team, to the way that he leads, to the way that those guys do all of the things that are necessary to prepare someone to fill the shoes of someone like Corey.

We didn't have an expectation he was going to eclipse Corey in his first full season in a Toyota. We certainly had high expectations. I would say that Kaden has met all of those expectations.

Q. Denny and Christopher were in here earlier and kind acknowledged the lack of championships on the Cup Series side. How do you look at that from TRD's perspective? Do you feel there is any retooling necessary?

TYLER GIBBS: Yeah, I think we still have some more work to do in looking at the data.

When you look at the numbers from a top level, let's take the last 10 years, so '17, '18, '19 very, very strong. Won a couple of manufacturers championships, won a couple of drivers championships.

The car changes to the Next Gen car. We see some challenges there candidly. You look at last year, we won 14 years. This year we won 18 races. It feels like we are getting back to a little bit of where we were in '17, '18, '19. Not that we were far off.

But this is a really tough garage. They're going to take advantage of every single weakness, whether it's a mistake you make or whether it's them just excelling in the given moment, as we saw a number of times in the championship race itself.

I don't think there's a fundamental flaw, if you will.

Again, this year we won 18 races. Thrilled that we won the manufacturers championship. When you look at what that means, the way that whole -- we've affected so many drivers and so many individual car teams. That shows the breadth of our impact. It's not just us, it's the drivers, the teams. But it's that partnership across all of them.

I think we take a lot of pride in that. That's how we work with our dealers, customers. It's not about just one customer, just one dealer. It's about all of our dealers and all of our customers being successful.

For us, the manufacturers championship is a big deal. We recognize that the drivers championship gets more exposure, and it should. We want that in our sport.

So to have won 18 and not won the drivers is disappointing. We still have a shot. We've got two shots. We've got a lot of work to do and we're going to need some help.

But anything's possible. We're going to give it all we've got on Sunday.

Q. You have a Texas driver; all your trucks were made in Texas. Do you think this will help you market some of the trucks that you have?

TYLER GIBBS: I think winning helps market everywhere. So yes. My boss is the SVP of all of automotive operations for Toyota North America, and we were at the bottom of the stage talking about what we were able to do this year.

He said, Winning is what gets the name out there and gets people considering our products.

So for us, it's always been about that. We've been really consistent. It's about winning races and competing for championships. That's what gets people to come to our dealerships and talk to our dealers.

It's not our job to sell the cars. It's our job to get the people to go to the dealerships. The dealerships will sell the cars. This helps us.

Q. You talked about how important manufacturers championships are. How do you utilize that? It's important to your brand, but how is that put into play so that it helps continue to spread the message for Toyota?

TYLER GIBBS: I think you'll see something during the race broadcast on Sunday. But for us, we have a variety of different metrics and why we're in motorsport. One of them is in an internal metric to Toyota and our team members, not just at TRD, but broadly across the factories and the plants and suppliers and dealerships.

Things like this, the manufacturers championship, really go, again, to speak to that whole piece. This is about how we help all of our partners. It just reinforces the message that we're working through the dealers and our customers, working through our plant partners as well.

For us it's a demonstration of that. You in Texas, you in Indiana, you in Kentucky, you're part of this. You're the ones who help us do this. Thank you for that.

That's how we try to take advantage of it.

Q. Big shoes to fill. When David Gilliland Racing rebranded to TRICON they had to replace a juggernaut, Kyle Busch Motorsports. Can you give us insight into the whole process? Also, has it surprised you that they have kind of hit this point so quickly?

TYLER GIBBS: That's a good question.

I think that when KBM switched to Chevrolet we had some opportunities with different teams. So we had to evaluate those teams, what were their resources, what was their willingness to really step in and do what KBM had done for years, right?

In looking at the candidates, David and then Johnny shortly thereafter, really clear choice. When you look at Kevin, we talked earlier about personalities in our sport. Kevin is one of those people that everybody knows 'cause they've seen him, 'cause he's been around, but they don't appreciate what Kevin does and how well he does it.

The way that he runs that team, again, the leadership that he provides, the mentorship that he provides, the partnership that he provides, the support, but sometimes the stick and all of those things.

I'm not really surprised. When you look at where Kevin was before and how successful they were, it's not surprising that he's implemented that same process at TRICON. When you look at Johnny and, again, the passion that Johnny has for motorsports. You look at the way he's building this.

There certainly is an element about his grandsons, and there is a much bigger piece about the sport itself and what he's doing and what they're doing.

You look at the Siennas they've given away to some of our disabled veterans, things like that. For Johnny, like David, David was a racer, Johnny was a racer on the NHRA side. He's just passionate about it.

So having partners like that makes the choice look really good from this perspective now. But back then it wasn't a terribly difficult decision to make. They had all the elements we were looking for.

Q. You mentioned with Kaden that you felt the dam getting ready to burst. When exactly did you feel that happen?

TYLER GIBBS: When he got his first win, for me. I felt pretty certain he was going to win a race. Might have taken a couple weeks longer than I thought it was going to. He wins a race, he wins a road course. Yes, we have a tiger by the tail right now.

Again, you're watching him get better and better. Tonight he wasn't the best truck in the first stage or second stage, but he hung around, did a good job. Scotty made some good adjustments at the stage two break; Kaden fired off. Once he knew where he was late in the third stage, he just absolutely went for it.

You got to really appreciate that. He's aggressive that way. A win is important. So it was great to see him get that today.

Q. Back at Talladega TRICON makes the announcement for next season about its roster, back-to-back titles. How excited are you for the future from that organization?

TYLER GIBBS: Yeah, we think that our truck teams next year are going to take a lot of wins from each other. When you look at Sammy, look at his maturity, he's still such a young guy, but you look at his maturity. You look at Kaden being back. Gio is getting better and better. He's still so young.

These kids, they're so young, they want to go so fast. It's fun to see Gio competing with Corey and to be competing with Kaden. You're just going to continue to watch him get better and better.

For us, we just think we're going to be beating ourselves. Not that there won't be good competition out there next year, but we're going to have a number of winners we think next year.

THE MODERATOR: Tyler, congratulations. Thanks for your time.

TYLER GIBBS: Thank you very much.