Recent Doldrums Have Reddick In Surprise Playoff Hole

Tyler Reddick (Nigel Kinrade/NKP photo)

KANSAS CITY, Kan. – The Hollywood Casino 400 presented by ESPN BET wasn’t a race to write home about for Tyler Reddick Sunday evening at Kansas Speedway.

However, the 28-year-old certainly isn’t in dire straits in the NASCAR Cup Series playoffs, by any means. He just needs to step up his game, now on the outside looking in toward the elimination bubble.

Onlookers could point to a pure lack of speed for Reddick and 23XI Racing at Kansas. It was that proverbial “it” factor that many fans and pundits throw around in sports. The Corning, Calif., native and his No. 45 DraftKings Toyota Camry XSE team simply didn’t have it.

To begin the day, Reddick hung around the top 10. However, later on, his car seemed to have an anchor on it. He wasn’t able to crack the top 20 in the closing laps, settling for a disappointing 25th-place finish.

It was Reddick’s third straight result of 20th or worse and fourth in the past six races.

“I guess, for me, it comes down to just performance. For a month straight, we haven’t been that great, but we have two weeks to figure it out,” said Reddick, who didn’t mince words after the race.

After a late race restart, Reddick made a move to jump into the middle lane four-wide behind Kyle Larson, but ended up buried in traffic after losing forward momentum.

“That restart was a lot of [why we finished so far back]. That’s just part of it,” he said. “When you have really good cars, you can make incredible moves on restarts, and when things aren’t just going the way you want them to inside the race car it’s really easy to have a big mistake.

“That's what ultimately cost us our finish.”

Tyler Reddick in action Sunday at Kansas Speedway. (Nigel Kinrade/NKP photo)

As a whole, 23XI Racing looked off at Kansas. The two-car team didn’t look like the organization that has three wins and has led 225 laps as a unit since 2022. Although Reddick spent seven circuits out front Sunday, his teammate Bubba Wallace came home 17th. Neither driver was able to collect stage points.

Due to that, Reddick is four points below rival Joey Logano for the eighth spot in points. Once the hottest driver in the sport after winning the regular season championship, Reddick has cooled down considerably at the worst possible time.

He’ll turn to Talladega (Ala.) Superspeedway, a track where he won in the spring, to try and turn his luck around. It may be the turning point he needs, as his points cushion from his previously banked playoff points is gone.

However, all it takes is one race on any given weekend. That sentiment just needs to come sooner for Reddick so he doesn’t land in a must-win situation at the Charlotte (N.C.) Motor Speedway ROVAL in two weeks’ time.

Broadcast coverage of the YellaWood 500 at Talladega begins Sunday, Oct. 6 at 2 p.m. ET, live on NBC, the Motor Racing Network and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio, channel 90.

Beginning with Talladega, the final six races of the Cup Series season will all be televised on the NBC broadcast network, providing a maximum potential audience in the run toward the Bill France Cup.