Reddick full sends himself to the Championship 4 in Homestead-Miami barnburner
HOMESTEAD, Fla. — Tyler Reddick pulled off a full-send move into turn three at Homestead-Miami Speedway that worked well enough to get him into the Championship 4.
Reddick vaulted from being 17 points below the cutline to leaving the 1.5-mile track as the winner of Sunday’s NASCAR Cup Series Straight Talk Wireless 400 and as the second driver to clinch a Championship 4 berth.
“We were backed in a corner, man. We had no other choice. I know we were on tire deficit. Here at Homestead Miami Speedway, that’s a death sentence. I don’t care. We did what it took to win this race. We’re fighting for a championship,” Reddick said.
This is the first time Reddick will make the Championship 4 in the Cup Series. His only other Championship 4 berths in NASCAR resulted in Xfinity Series championships in 2018 and 2019.
This is also the first time that 23XI Racing has made either the driver’s or owner’s Championship 4. It comes as owners Denny Hamlin and Michael Jordan as they are locked in a lawsuit with NASCAR over the 2025 charter agreement.
With eight laps to go, it looked like the bossman was going to get that win-and-you’re-in berth. Reddick caught a great break with tough restart on older tires, compared to Hamlin who used that to lock in his grip on the field.
Ryan Blaney had other ideas. Blaney pried away at Hamlin on the bottom of the track, finally racing alongside him with two laps to go. Blaney pulled alongside him on the backstretch and cleared him exiting turn four.
The white flag didn’t mean surrender for Tyler Reddick. Reddick passed Hamlin on the bottom in turn one and almost got to Blaney. Reddick pulled in front of Hamlin on the backstretch, setting up a full-send move that netted him a season-saving win.
The move astonished Blaney.
“I thought I got into three hard and the 45 just went in there and it stuck for him. That is really impressive. I hate to give one away there like that. I don’t know if we gave it away. We got the lead back after losing it on the restart and just that last lap didn’t play out for us. I appreciate everybody on the 12 team for bringing a really fast race car,” he said, disappointed.
TOP-10 (LAP 267): Tyler Reddick (led eight times for 97 laps), Ryan Blaney (led seven times for 47 laps), Denny Hamlin (led three times for 21 laps), Christopher Bell (led twice for three laps), Chase Elliott (led six times for 81 laps), William Byron, Alex Bowman, A.J. Allmendinger, Carson Hocevar, Ryan Preece
The race featured a track-record 33 lead changes.
How the race was won
Reddick won the first stage and had a fast racecar. However, in stage two, he fell behind and finished fourth in the stage as his performance normalized in dirty air.
As the race ticked down to 47 laps to go in the 267-lap affair, Reddick ran fifth. Crew chief Billy Scott kept him out on the track for 31 laps longer than anyone else, hoping for a caution. Then, when that caution didn’t come, Scott brought him in with 16 laps to go.
Just a few laps later, Reddick caught that caution. Kyle Larson spun for the second time of the day while fiercely racing Blaney in lap traffic, giving Reddick the saving grace he needed. He stayed out, setting up the final run to the checkers that got away from him and then came back to him on the final lap.
Through the field
Larson finished 13th. Including the spin, he caused two of the four cautions for incident. On lap 49, he popped a right-rear tire and hit the wall.
Justin Haley finished 34th, one lap down. Haley was at the center of the other two cautions for incident. He spun in turn three on laps one and 188, the latter incident after a bump from Ty Gibbs.
Gibbs finished 36th, six laps down after a gear issue. His car is going back to the R&D Center for further inspection. NASCAR is also bringing Kyle Busch’s car back to the R&D Center. Busch finished 31st.
Bubba Wallace finished 18th after looking strong early on. Five spots behind Wallace was Martin Truex Jr., who ran strong throughout the race.
NASCAR Cup Series playoff standings after Homestead-Miami Speedway
- Joey Logano – 1 WIN
- Tyler Reddick – 1 WIN
- Christopher Bell – 4132 points (+29 points to the cutline)
- William Byron – 4110 (+7)
- Kyle Larson – 4103 (-7 points to the cutline)
- Denny Hamlin – 4092 (-18)
- Ryan Blaney – 4072 (-38)
- Chase Elliott – 4067 (-41)
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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