In just one week, Tyler Redick is gone reversing his car on the roof to DNF his place with a win in the NASCAR Championship Quad.
Tyler’s car sponsor for the Straight Talk Wireless 400 at Homestead-Miami Speedway on Sunday (10/27) was Monster Energy’s The Beast. It’s easy to compare the track Tyler drives to the sponsor name on his car.
The first race of Round 8 was held on October 20 at the Las Vegas Motor Speedway. Joey Logano won the race for the top four in the Championship. Tyler Reddick’s car overturned during that race, sliding onto its roof and causing him to have a “Did Not Finish” or DNF for the race. Completing just 89 laps for the week, he left Las Vegas 30 points short of NASCAR’s playoff cutoff line. He could still score a top four in the Championship if the others did poorly and he did well. However, if he wanted to hold his destiny in his own hands, he simply had to win.
Tyler started off the weekend at Homestead-Miami Speedway by winning the pole for the race. He led four times for a total of 57 laps in the first round, including the final lap, to earn the win and maximum bonus points in the round. Tyler continued to perform well in the second round. However, Denny Hamlin, Chase Elliott and Ryan Blaney began to show that they would have a say in which car would win the race. Danny won the second round.
Stage three continued the battle between the remaining drivers in the playoffs, with both Tyler Reddick and Ryan Blaney leading most of the time. However, Denny Hamlin and Chase Elliott were never far behind. Tyler’s team decided to employ a different pit tactic than all the other cars he was racing against in an attempt to gain the ultimate advantage. Unfortunately, the yellow flag didn’t drop when it needed to for the program to work perfectly.
However, the yellow was dropped shortly after Tyler was forced to pit for fuel and tires. The restart of the race put Tyler back on the pole as he was eliminated. Unfortunately that meant he had tires with a few spins on them, while others had fresh tires with tighter grip.
The green flag was waived with seven laps to go in the race. Fresher tires allowed several cars to run past Tyler as he dropped back to third or fourth under green in the first lap. Tyler didn’t give up. He started racing hard and smart. He found a way to push his car to give himself a chance to win. He was running behind second-place Denny Hamlin when the white flag waved. Going through turns one and two, he passed Dan.
Tyler began to beat Ryan Blaney for the lead, dropping down the backstretch. Ryan dropped to the center of the track to take turns three and four. Tyler stayed high and was “ripping the fence” through those turns. That gave him the momentum he needed to come out of turn four and take the win. It was Tyler’s first win at Homestead-Miami Speedway, his first win in the 2024 NASCAR playoffs, his third win of the 2024 season and his eighth career Cup Series victory.
Rounding out the top six finishes in the race were NASCAR playoff drivers Ryan Blaney (2nd), Denny Hamlin (3rd), Christopher Bell (4th), Chase Elliott (5th) and William Byron (5th). The two remaining playoff drivers were Kyle Larson (13th) and Joey Logano (28th). See full results of the Straight Talk Wireless 400 race here.
Tyler Reddick joins Joey Logano as the two drivers locked in the Championship Four at Phoenix. Next week, two more drivers will advance either in points or one with a win and one with points. See the NASCAR playoff standings here. It won’t be easy, though. The last chance for the remaining six drivers is a short run at Martinsville Speedway in the Xfinity 500 on Sunday, Nov. 3.
Author: Buck Stevens
