Jul
In roughly three years in the NASCAR Cup Series, Tyler Reddick has experienced chances to win titles come and go, and each time he did, he was “miserable.”
In two consecutive years as the Xfinity Series winner, he had earned numerous races, but Cup victories were a different matter.
On Sunday, Reddick defeated Chase Elliott, the best road racer in the latest season, to not only secure his first victory but also do so at Road America.
In addition to having to catch up with Elliott and overtake him to triumph, Reddick also had to keep Elliott at bay for the remaining 16 laps.
His post-race celebration, which also included visits from many other racers, showed the significance of his success.
“It was just a huge sense of relief. This whole team, we’ve been at it for a couple years now together, and even some of us back to the Xfinity Series days,” Reddick, 26, said. “That first year together in the Xfinity Series we were able to go out and back up a championship and win a lot of races.
“Then we got slapped in the face with the reality of what Cup racing is like, and just I’ve had to learn a lot over the course of these last three years in the Cup Series as a driver, but I’ve had some really great people behind me to help me do that.
“A lot of great people have helped an immense amount along the way, and it’s just – what a crazy ride it’s been, and just had to put a lot into it. All of us have. It’s really nice to get it finally done.”
After placing 16th or worse in 4 of the past 5 races, Reddick was in real risk of missing the Cup series playoffs going into Sunday’s race.
In all actuality, his squad had given up on racing for points.
“It was kind of nice in some way to be in the spot where we were where points really weren’t going to matter that much over the next 10 races. We knew we needed to go out there and win,” Reddick said.
“To kind of just put points aside and put the whole day together like we did and not make the big mistakes and just all day long. It was nice to be coming off pit road right there off the bumper of (Elliott) and just me and him go at it and may the best team win.
“Thankfully, it was us today.”
Despite the fact that Reddick had always regarded circuit tracks as his “weakness,” he claimed to have made a concerted attempt to improve since a disastrous performance at the Charlotte Roval in 2020, where his poor braking also made Kevin Harvick’s day miserable.
“I was tired of just being so bad that I felt like I was just kind of in the way and had to get out of everybody’s way and wanted to change that,” he said.
“The nice thing about it is the hard work you put in is what you get out of it. … A year-and-a-half ago or so we rolled into the beginning of the year, we were way better, and that was great, but it wasn’t good enough because we still didn’t get the job done. We still didn’t win.
“So, we just kept plugging away at it.”
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