Reddick, Busch, Herbst get new crew members
LAS VEGAS — Three NASCAR Cup Series teams will have new crew members for this weekend at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.
Las Vegas natives Kyle Busch and Riley Herbst and three-time 2026 winner Tyler Reddick will each have a new jackman.
Herbst will have Noah Massey as his jackman while Damian Jackson is filling in for Brandon Banks at teammate Reddick’s team. Banks is reportedly injured.
Busch will have Nick Covey, who comes to his No. 8 team from the part-time No. 33 team. The No. 33 team has made two starts this season, with Jesse Love at Circuit of the Americas and Austin Hill at Phoenix, but isn’t entered at Las Vegas.
Herbst will have Noah Massey as his jackman. His regular jackman, Damian Jackson, is filling in for Brandon Banks at teammate Tyler Reddick’s team. Banks is reportedly out with an injury.
Reddick, Herbst and Busch are each off to very different starts to the season.
Reddick won the first three races and finished eighth in the fourth race at Phoenix. He leads the points by 60 and is in Chase contention by 127.
If there’s anyone Reddick has to thank for helping get his season off to a historically-great start, it’s likely Riley Herbst.
Herbst pushed Reddick to the lead, helping him secure his first Harley J. Earl trophy. Herbst tried a move to get the trophy himself but he settled for eighth after mistiming the move and setting off a wreck.
Since then, Herbst finished 33rd with a crashed car at EchoPark Speedway Atlanta, 23rd at Circuit of the Americas and 18th at Phoenix. He now sits 24th in points, 28 points below the Chase cutline.
Busch is in between Reddick and Herbst in points. The pole winner and leader of 19 laps in the Daytona 500 has had a tough season since the start – crashing out at Atlanta on lap 125 after running well and struggling for speed at Circuit of the Americas and Phoenix.
After leading laps and contending for the win at COTA the year before, he spent just 32 of the 95 laps in the top-15 this year. Then, at Phoenix, he was often the slowest car on the track and suffered multiple tire failures.
However, Busch persisted and received the free pass on lap 255. After surviving chaos in the final 48 laps, Busch ultimately finished 17th.
Last year, Busch started fourth in the spring Las Vegas race but had a tire issue on lap 34 of 267 that kept him to a 33rd-place finish. In the fall, he started 32nd and salvaged an eighth-place finish.
Reddick finished 24th and fifth last year in Las Vegas, while Herbst finished 19th and 17th last year at the track.
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Jonathan Fjeld View All
Jonathan Fjeld is the co-owner of the The Racing Experts, LLC. He has been with TRE since 2010.
A Twin Valley, MN, native, Fjeld became a motorsports fan at just three years old (first race was the 2002 Pennsylvania 500). He worked as a contributor and writer for TRE from 2010-18. Since then, he has stepped up and covered 24 NASCAR race weekends and taken on a larger role with TRE. He became the co-owner and managing editor in 2023 and has guided the site to massive growth in that time.
Fjeld has covered a wide array of stories and moments over the years, including Kevin Harvick's final Cup Series season, the first NASCAR national series disqualification in over 50 years, Shane van Gisbergen's stunning win in Chicago and the first Cup Series race at Road America in 66 years – as well as up-and-coming drivers' stories and stories from inside the sport, like the tech it takes for Hendrick Motorsports to remain a top-tier team.
Currently, he resides in Albuquerque, N.M., where he works for KOB 4, an NBC station. He works as a digital producer and does on-air reports. He loves spending time with friends and family, playing and listening to music, exploring new places, being outdoors, reading books and writing among other activities. You can email him at fjeldjonathan@gmail.com