Reddick celebrates sick and Larson comes up short in regular-season title fight

DARLINGTON, S.C. — With both ends working against him, Tyler Reddick fought to the bitter end and claimed the regular-season championship over Kyle Larson.

Coming into Sunday night, Reddick and Larson were co-favorites to win. However, Reddick struggled to keep himself well inside the car.

“My son was feeling a little down last week at Daytona. We had to take him to the infield care center after the race,” Reddick said. “Midday Friday, I started really struggling. I was hoping Saturday morning it would be gone. It was terrible on Saturday. Woke up Sunday with the same hope it would be gone again. I felt good pretty much all the way up until the race. I don’t know, just must have been the bump off of two or something. It just really got bad by the end of stage one.”

Reddick reported he felt sick inside the car and provided a visual description when the crew asked him about his symptoms.

“I’m throwing up, s–tting myself, all of the above,” he said over the radio.

After finishing fourth in stage one, Reddick’s crew handed him a water bottle and some pills to help him.

Unfortunately, he dropped those pills. But before the next pit stop, his team mixed the pills in his water bottle that they handed to him.

Still, not being at 100%, he couldn’t get a feel for what the car needed and slipped back to eighth in stage two.

“It was tough, man, when we just were bleeding points to the 5 [Larson] in the middle of the race. I was trying to think of what I needed to do to go faster. It was really, really hard to focus on that stuff. I was just not able to really do what I normally do good here in the car,” Reddick said. “I don’t know, I was just kind of driving with one hand, almost, I don’t know how to really describe it. It was really tough in the car.”

While Reddick struggled, Larson was in command. Larson taking the lead on lap 46 of 367 and led 263 of the next 292 laps, claiming the first two stages and looking untouchable in his bid for max points.

Two quick cautions – on laps 315 and 323 – began tipping the scales more in Larson’s favor. Reddick slipped from eighth to 20th behind a group of cars that pitted on lap 323 for fresh tires.

Then, another caution on lap 337 put the title fight back in Reddick’s control.

On the previous run, Briscoe stayed with Larson until that caution, which most drivers hadn’t done all day. It got worse for Larson when Ross Chastain stayed out on old tires, which stalled Larson and Ty Gibbs out, opening the door for Chase Briscoe to take the lead in one corner when the race restarted on lap 342.

“I think where it all kind of got crazy was when Ross [Chastain] stayed out. I had to choose the bottom on the front row. He got a good launch. I just got behind the No. 14 [Chase Briscoe] and kind of lost control of the race from then on,” Larson said.

Larson was still in position to win the regular-season championship until another caution flew on lap 345. Tyler Reddick, Kyle Busch and others all made a decisive four-tire call that allowed Busch to push Larson back to fourth and Reddick to go from 17th to 10th.

In the end, Reddick won the regular-season championship by one point over Larson.

“It’s just a testament to all the hard work that everyone at 23XI – here at the racetrack, week in and week out, back at Airspeed – puts into this. We’re on year four of their goals, right? It’s just been really, really fun the last two years to be a part of this process, building up to where we want to be,” Reddick said.

Driving the Michael Jordan-owned No. 45 23XI Racing Toyota, Reddick will start the playoffs in the No. 3 seed with 2028 points. He still 12 points behind Kyle Larson, who holds the No. 1 seed with 2040 points.

“We were still able to rack up a lot of playoff points this year with the wins, as well as the stage wins. We got two more stage wins today, so that’s always good. You just have to take each week, week-by-week. You have to assess how you did the week before, where you are in points and go prepare for the next week,” Larson said.

Larson is 35 points above the cutline (now between 12th and 13th) while Reddick is 23 points above.

Typically, the cutline wouldn’t be a big deal for some of the frontrunners in the first round. However, there are some wild cards this year with Atlanta up first. Then, Watkins Glen and Bristol could be unpredictable with high tire wear as a possible factor.

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