DARLINGTON, S.C. — A day before Sunday’s NASCAR Cup Series event, Tyler Reddick said his most recent Darlington Raceway memory was of battling an agonizing, in-race sickness, and not necessarily the way he powered through it, to claim the circuit’s Regular Season Championship in the 2024 Southern 500. This springtime race last year was another memory-churner for Reddick, who led the most laps before a late-race, on-track clash with Chris Buescher sparked a post-race confrontation.
After Sunday, add a third consecutive finish that produced a memorable Reddick moment, but not a first Cup Series win here.
“This place is notorious for that, right?” Reddick said on pit road after exiting his No. 45 23XI Racing Toyota. “You can do everything right all day long. That wasn’t really us today, but yeah, it’s never over till it’s over at a place like this.”
Reddick finished fourth behind race winner Denny Hamlin after an overtime shuffle for position in Sunday’s Goodyear 400, marking his fourth top-five result in his last seven Darlington starts. He was among the last holders of the lead on a day otherwise dominated by William Byron, jumping out front in the final green-flag pit-stop exchange. That advantage gradually shrunk as the laps ticked down, and a fateful contest for the lead with four laps remaining ultimately turned the tide.
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Crew chief Billy Scott called Reddick to pit road on Lap 239 of a scheduled 293, putting the No. 45 team on the early end of those stopping for four tires and fuel. With quick work, Reddick emerged from the pit cycle with a 3.2-second lead, a margin that had nearly doubled to 5.89 seconds with 25 laps to go.
But a looming threat was rising as Ryan Blaney’s No. 12 Team Penske Ford began to thread his way through traffic to chip away at Reddick’s lead. Blaney had pitted eight laps later than Reddick, and the benefit of his fresher Goodyears was showing.
Reddick scrubbed the wall with nine laps left in regulation, and Blaney chopped the margin to just two seconds. Four laps later, it was a mere 0.3 seconds. With four laps left on the board, Blaney finally pulled alongside, brushed by and cleared the No. 45 Camry through Turn 2.
“I was just kind of hoping that the 12 wouldn’t really get by some of the cars he was racing,” Reddick said. “That was my best chance, I guess, to win.”
But behind them, a laps-down Kyle Larson spun from the second turn in their wake, nosing his No. 5 Chevrolet into the backstretch wall to force a final round of pit stops and a two-lap dash to the finish. Reddick entered pit road second and left second, but he and the rest were leapfrogged by Hamlin, whose No. 11 crew delivered a dazzling final stop, gaining two spots that made the difference. Hamlin pulled away as Reddick fended for running room in a brief, three-wide shuffle with Byron and Christopher Bell in OT.
Scott watched it all from atop the No. 45 pit box. Later, he dissected how the strategy played out, and how Blaney and Hamlin took turns controlling their own late-race fates.
“I wasn’t sure,” Scott told NASCAR.com, when asked if he thought Reddick had enough to hold on at the end. “You know, Blaney was the class of the field all weekend on the long run, especially on the speed chart. So, we knew it was going to be, in large part, theirs to lose in some sense. But you know, we just had to do what was right for us, and we were racing with the 20 (Bell) and the 11 (Hamlin). We had to try to jump them. Kind of expected them to go to the optimal point. So, just the fire-off speed after that stop was good and held on pretty well long-run, I mean, better than anybody else — except Blaney. Kind of expected him to be really close at the end, and just kind of came down to how you were able to get traffic or just how the timing was, just who was out there on new tires racing with you, or who you had to get by that was on just-good-enough tires that made it difficult.
“So it was fun watching it all unfold, and Tyler did a hell of a job getting everything out of it. The last yellow, it kind of gave us a fighting chance, I guess. But also, we knew it came down to whoever controlled the race probably had a really good shot at winning. The pit crew’s done a really good job. They’ve been on it. We’ve been improving all year, and we gained a spot there over the 12. Just the 11 was a little bit better. That was all it took.”
Team co-owner Michael Jordan walked over to share post-race words of encouragement, while Hamlin — 23XI’s other ownership partner — celebrated in Victory Lane. It marked another Darlington near-miss for Reddick, who has led 307 total laps in the last four races here.
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“Yeah, that’s why it’s got the reputation it does,” Scott said. “This place is really tough to get a hold of, finish one off, and I don’t know what the stat was exactly how many races here in a row now that the car that led the most laps didn’t win, so it’s not just us who has to fight through that, but he’s done a great job. He’s got this place figured out. He’s always up there contending, and he’ll have a win coming here soon.”
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