Tyler Reddick lost 43 points in the final five laps of the NASCAR Cup race at San Diego, and now moves on to Sonoma with just an eight-point advantage over Denny Hamlin in the championship.
20 of those points went away once he lost the lead to 23XI Racing teammate Corey Heim, but the other 23 were given away after suffering a flat tire, falling back to 25th.
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It was an unfortunate end to a difficult weekend for the No. 45 team, featuring a spin in qualifying, repairs that forced them to the rear of the field, a mid-race spin, and a late-race incident while battling for the win.
“The only way this day could have been worse is if, somehow, the contact we had took him [Heim] out of winning this race as well,” Heim told a group of reporters including Motorsport.com.
“I flat-out made a couple of mistakes, and it cost me the lead, then I made some more mistakes trying to get the lead back. Ultimately, today’s result is on me, whether it’s the spin and having to go to the back in qualifying, just the disaster it was today during the race — yeah, just wasn’t a good day.”
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Reddick asserted that Heim did nothing wrong and he simply ‘overdid’ it, lamenting: “Just not the way to race a teammate.”
Answering a question from Motorsport.com’s Matt Weaver about what he said to Heim post-race, Reddick explained: “I just apologized. He raced me really clean, he got the lead fair and square, and I just overdid it. I didn’t have much left, and I made some bad decisions pretty much all day long, whether it was the beginning of the day, the middle of the day, or the end of the day.”
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After slamming doors with Heim, which caused the No. 67 to bounce off the wall, Reddick actually lifted, realizing his error and not wanting to take the lead back in such a way.
“I ran him straight in the wall. That wasn’t right. I wasn’t going to pass him for the win that way, especially a teammate,” remarked Reddick in another interview.
Watch: Reddick after lead battle with Heim: ‘I overdid it … that wasn’t right’
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