Wild wreck flips Cup playoffs at Las Vegas
LAS VEGAS — Tyler Reddick’s frontstretch flip at Las Vegas Motor Speedway was symbolic for what it did to the NASCAR Cup Series playoffs.
Reddick won the first 80-lap stage after jumping ahead of Christopher Bell in a late-stage pit stop. A few drivers taking two tires shuffled him into traffic and in a tense situation on lap 90.
Exiting turn four, Reddick raced three-wide to the outside of Chase Elliott and Marin Truex Jr. Truex drifted up the track, bumping into Elliott who bumped into Reddick. Reddick spun to the inside of the track, caught the transition between the grass and the pavement of the quarter-mile track and flipped over.
Reddick drove back to pit road but the team immediately found the car destroyed, knocking him out of the race.
While Reddick salvaged some points with the stage win, Elliott wasn’t as lucky. He didn’t earn any stage points and fell a couple of laps down and fell 37 laps down, eventually out of the race altogether, after repairing damaged sustained in the crash.
Ryan Blaney cleared the DVP clock after getting involved in a secondary incident to the Reddick-Elliott incident. However, Blaney stayed on track, falling more than six laps down in 32nd, trying to salvage anything he could after starting in the rear and showing speed.
Outside of the the three playoff drivers having issues, the other five drivers finished inside the Top-11:
- Joey Logano: Winner
- Christopher Bell: Second
- William Byron: Fourth
- Denny Hamlin: Eighth
- Kyle Larson: 11th
MORE ON PLAYOFFS AND SOUTH POINT 400: Cup: ‘Even Season’ Logano rides miracle wave into Championship 4
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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