Reddick Defies Odds In NASCAR Cup Series

By Dennis Krause

Tyler Reddick is off to a historic start in NASCAR’s Cup Series. His win in Sunday’s race at the 2.4-mile road course at Circuit of the Americas was an unprecedented third in a row to start the season.

“Yeah, that’s pretty crazy,” said Reddick. “Yeah, just trying to soak it all in, honestly. I think it’s so fitting that it had to happen coming into here, a place where I got my first pole years ago, a place that, road course wise, is a great fit for me.

“In this day and age of Cup racing, the Daytona 500 is so hard to win. It’s so hard to survive at EchoPark Speedway, and we were able to do that. And to be able to hold off Shane [van Gisbergen] at the end of that race to make it three in a row, yeah, it seems just very fitting that we had to go through the hurdles we did, especially these last two weeks, to pull this off.”

23XI Racing team co-owner Denny Hamlin tried to put Reddick’s win in perspective.

“It’s unbelievable. I’m not going to see it again in my lifetime, someone to go out there and win three races in a row to start the season. Yeah, what a dream start for those guys. All kinds of — got Atlanta and Daytona and here. It’s just different tracks. It’s not necessarily one type.

“Yeah, that’s why I’m confident in it not happening again of my lifetime,” Hamlin continued, “because of the randomness factor of those races. Defying odds, that’s for sure. I don’t know if you parlayed all your winnings from the first week, second week, third week what you’d have. I’m sure someone has figured that out, but it would be a big number.”

With each successive race, the odds get longer that Reddick will continue his winning ways. In the past, the shorter tracks on NASCAR’s schedule have been a bigger challenge for him. But that hasn’t dimmed his outlook heading to the one-mile oval at Phoenix Raceway this weekend.

“Well, I know the numbers don’t necessarily — well, my experience is in spring in Phoenix. A number of years, I think dating back to even the start of this car, we’ve been able to go there and be knocking on the door.

“Last year we had the power steering failure that kind of knocked us out of it.

“Two years ago I remember me and Denny got together, the caution came out in the middle of the cycle.

“In my opinion, we go to the spring Phoenix race, we’re typically, like, right there.

“For whatever reason, when we go in the fall, we’re a little bit off.

“But I feel like we’ve, again, kind of like we’ve done here — I’m really excited to see what we have for speed and pace over the next two weekends because we’ve worked really hard to improve things here.

“We’ve worked hard to kind of rethink how we get around Phoenix, and we’ve just kind of doubled down on the things that we’ve been improving at Vegas. Honestly, I’m very excited to see what kind of pace we have at Phoenix and Vegas as it comes up.”

Hamlin, for one, saw Reddick’s potential, both in the NASCAR Craftsman Trucks Series, and in what is now the O’Reilly Auto Parts Series, where he was a two-time champion.

“He’s complete,” Hamlin stated. “The one area that we continue to work on with him is on the short tracks. I think that’s where he can still improve a little bit. But we’re working pretty hard on improving him at those types of tracks.

“But he’s complete. Certainly more complete than I am at this stage, where I’ve got a handful of races where it’s like, it would be tough for us to go out there and compete for a win. There’s less of those for him.

“He’s got a lot of really good things going on. I think it’s just — we’re steadily seeing him continue to get better. What I love to see is the work that he puts in and the things that we provide him for information. He’s soaking it all in and he’s using it and executing it.

“What I’ve seen out of him over the last few years is just where he had some weaknesses, our team has helped him shore those up. It’s amazing to see how well he’s doing.”

Billy Scott, Reddick’s crew chief on the No. 45 Toyota agrees, and says his driver is a budding superstar because of his work ethic.

“He puts in so many hours and never wants to go home when we’re doing sim testing and film stuff. But I think a lot of them do.

“I think a lot of it is just coming down to just a natural ability and just being in a good place. He’s put a lot of work into not just the on-track side of things but also where we stand with expectations.

“He’s kept all that in good perspective and comes every week hungry to do it again, and he’s just able to. There’s really not many places that he’s not a contender.”

Even with a 70-point cushion in the standings, Reddick has no plans to change how he races this weekend at Phoenix, and the following weekend at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.

“We’ll just manage it lap after lap, corner after corner. Certainly, I’ll just have to be mindful, understand what I’m racing for in those moments, is it worth the risk or is it not.

“But certainly I think to an extent, if we just continue to bring really fast race cars, we won’t have to put ourselves in tricky spots in the race. We’re able to kind of race a little bit smarter.

“For me,” Reddick continued, “I really enjoyed racing for points in 2024 when we had that battle come down to the end at Darlington with [Kyle] Larson to win the regular season championship then. For me, I enjoy this. I know it’s ironic I’m saying that with a 70-point lead, but just to be able to execute in the first two races that are just hard to have clean days, to get the points that we did there, and then come in here and be able to grab stage points in Stage 2 and then obviously win the race is real special.”

Dennis Krause has spent decades covering all forms of motorsports, including over 40 Indianapolis 500s, with stints at WIBA Radio, PIT PASS - Radio’s Premier Motorsports Magazine and Motorsports Minute. Follow him on X @DennisKrause500 or motorsportsminute.bluesky.social or motorsportsminute on Threads or MotorsportsMinute+ on Facebook.

Reddick Defies Odds In NASCAR Cup Series

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