Tyler Reddick got into the “Championship 4” in dramatic fashion with his win at the Straight Talk Wireless 400 at Homestead-Miami Speedway.
Entering the final lap, Reddick was in third place behind Denny Hamlin and Ryan Blaney, but Reddick went to the inside lane and got past Hamlin on Turn 2. He then throttled past Blaney on the outside on Turn 4 and held on to win.
Reddick explained his perspective on the thrilling win on Monday’s edition of “Kevin Harvick’s Happy Hour.”
“Things had to play out a certain way. Like, Denny and Blaney getting to racing really hurt their momentum on the corners [and] kept me close. That final lap, I was just hoping I was going to get clean air, and Blaney wasn’t able to cover the bottom. And Denny took such a great distance around the corner that I was able to slide up in front of them, and then Turn 3 happened. That whole last corner just kind of blows my mind,” Reddick told host Kevin Harvick. “I think Blaney was expecting something similar to what I attempted at Darlington with [Chris] Buescher. I think he was expecting me to really just overdrive entry and center and try to clear him in the middle. I think he went to cover that attack, and once I saw that, I saw my window, my opening. I didn’t lift until I got to his door. I didn’t know what was going to happen on the other side of it. I didn’t know if I was going to hit the wall or lose my momentum, but I knew if I wanted to have a shot at battling for the win, I had to at least get even with him.
“Then, my car stuck. It stuck really, really well. I wasn’t even as close to the wall in the middle of the corner and exit as I thought I would be, and I came off Turn 4, and it was just disbelief. I couldn’t believe what just happened.”
Reddick led 97 of 400 laps.
On the season, Reddick is fourth in total points (4,098), with three wins, 12 top-five finishes and 20 top-10 finishes. Christopher Bell, William Byron, Kyle Larson and Reddick are the four drivers in the “Championship 4.”
Reddick has the utmost conviction about the No. 45 team down the homestretch.
“Kind of the name of the game for us over the course of the regular season is just not defeating ourselves. If we have an issue arise, we find a way to put it in the past and move forward. A lot of our best races in the regular season were days where things going into Stage 2 or going into Stage 3, something goes wrong,” Reddick said. “We lose all of our track position, and we have to drive back through the field. We’ve been able to do that time and time again in the regular season. In the playoffs, it wasn’t necessarily going that way for us, but our body of work and the amount of times we’ve had those days and still gotten the finishes is still there.
“I have a high amount of belief in my team, and a regular-season championship shows that we’ve been capable of overcoming things. I knew that we were going to put what happened behind us and get ready for the next stop, the next restart.”
Prior to winning at Homestead, Reddick finished 35th in the South Point 400 at Las Vegas Motor Speedway. The win marked his first top-10 finish in seven races (Sept. 8) and his first win in the NASCAR playoff.
Reddick is in his second season at 23XI Racing after winning two races in his first season with the team (2023). He spent the previous four seasons at Richard Childress Racing (2019-22).
Two races remain in the 2024 Cup Series season, with the XFINITY 500 at Martinsville Speedway this Sunday, followed by the NASCAR Cup Series Championship at Phoenix Raceway the following week.
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