KANSAS CITY, Kan. — Tyler Reddick emerged from Sunday’s NASCAR Cup Series event at Kansas Speedway with a rugged rally to seventh place, snapping a three-race drought without a top-10 finish. But the visit also left him with a significant points deficit and a virtual must-win scenario for Sunday’s elimination race at Charlotte Motor Speedway’s ever-difficult road-course-slash-oval layout.
“It’s tough,” Reddick said post-race. “Yeah, obviously there’s only one thing we can do at Charlotte, and that’s what we’ll be focused on.”
The 23XI Racing driver’s postseason plight and on-track performance, though, were secondary to more critical personal concerns. Reddick’s wife, Alexa, shared Sunday that 4-month-old son, Rookie, was in a cardiovascular intensive care unit at Leavine Children’s Hospital with signs of heart failure.
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“It’s difficult. It’s not what you want for your kids,” Reddick said. “You know, as a father, it’s … my first son Beau’s hit his head, you know, bruised himself up, cut himself up, but yeah, what my son Rookie’s going through is serious. So yeah, a tricky situation, and just more than anything, just ready to get on a plane and go home.”
Measures were taken post-race to expedite Reddick’s return to North Carolina. The 29-year-old driver said that some consideration was given to potentially skipping the event to be with his family before ultimately deciding to race on.
“I wouldn’t say it was off the table, depending on how things were going,” Reddick said, “but thankfully he’s doing well enough to where me and my wife were on the same page about staying.”
Reddick started 12th in the Hollywood Casino 400, and pit-road miscues in each of the first two portions of the race hindered him from making incremental gains on his points gap at the stage breaks. On Lap 60 of 273, Reddick made an additional stop because of a right-rear tire that wasn’t fully fastened, a move that left him 24th at the end of the first stage. During the Stage 1 intermission, he took evasive action to avoid a car leaving its pit stall for the second consecutive week. Missing his own stall to miss hitting fellow Toyota driver Christopher Bell left him 28th for the restart, and Reddick was only able to claw back to 14th when the second batch of stage points were paid out.
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Reddick was eventually able to battle into contention as the final stage progressed, but nine of the remaining 12 playoff drivers collected points with top-10 finishes at the stage breaks. Five of those drivers made double-digit additions to their points hauls, while Reddick received none — eventually leaving him 29 points below the elimination line ahead of Sunday’s Charlotte Roval race (3 p.m. ET, USA, PRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio, NBC Sports App).
“It was a rebound, for sure. Just the tough thing about it, just didn’t get any stage points today and I think we were definitely good enough to do that,” Reddick said. “So yeah, when that happens, you lose ground and that’s what happened to us today.”
Reddick still had the opportunity to convert with a victory once a series of late-race yellow flags flew, all following a rally into the top 10 and eventually the top five. A mix-up on lane choice before the first overtime left race-leading 23XI teammate Bubba Wallace without an aerodynamic push, though the No. 45 team remedied that oversight for the final clinching restart.
Reddick said he had a shot at the checkered flag, but that his efforts needed help.
“It was going to have to play out a very specific way,” Reddick said. “I feel like I was about as good as what was ahead of me. You work hard to get that track position, and we were still climbing back up before those cautions at the end.”
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