Tyler Reddick rolled into Richmond Raceway Saturday night with one thing on his mind. Locking himself into the playoffs. The math was simple but nerve-wracking: 30 points if a repeat winner showed up, 54 if a fresh face below him in the standings pulled off the upset. And, of course, the cleanest way to wipe away all the scenarios? Just win the whole thing.

The 23XI Racing driver had the speed, the momentum, and the hunger to get it done under the lights. But as is often the case in NASCAR, what looks straightforward on paper rarely plays out the same way on track. And by the end of the night, Reddick’s hopes were tangled in a mess he never saw coming.

Tyler Reddick’s hot start turns into heartbreak

Tyler Reddick rolled into Richmond Raceway looking every bit like a driver ready to lock down his playoff berth. Qualifying on the front row, he fired off strong from the jump, even pulling off the first lead change of the night when he slid past Ryan Preece on Lap 59. From there, the No. 45 Toyota set the tone, storming to a Stage 1 victory that had his 23XI Racing crew fired up. The pace was there, the car looked dialed in, and Reddick’s path to clinching seemed clear.

The momentum didn’t stop in Stage 2. Reddick continued to mix it up at the front, managing tire wear and keeping himself firmly in contention as the laps ticked by. Richmond is all about rhythm and strategy, and Reddick was executing both to near perfection. But as often happens under the lights here, fate had its own script.

Crew chief Chris Gabehart explained what went wrong. “He [Suárez] had about 35 or 40 laps fresher tires than us… just didn’t do a good job of judging it and ultimately cleaned out the leader.” Daniel Suárez had pitted on lap 175 for new tires, whereas Reddick had opted to run on his older tires, hoping to pit in the latter stages of the race. But all the plans were left on the table as Reddick got involved in the wreck.

On Lap 181, the night unraveled. Caught in the middle of a pit cycle shuffle, Reddick suddenly found himself the victim of a chain reaction. Ty Gibbs clipped him off Turn 4 after getting shoved from behind by Daniel Suárez, sending Gibbs’ car skidding up the track and directly into Reddick. The contact spun the No. 45 hard into the SAFER barrier, ending what had been a near-flawless performance.

And I feel terrible for Reddick. But Ty’s just a passenger right there,” Gabehart summed up Reddick’s bad luck bluntly afterward. Instead of celebrating a postseason-clinching night, Reddick was left limping home in 34th place. It was a brutal end to what he had hoped would seal his place in the postseason. Now, it all comes down to the final race at Daytona, where Reddick will need to win at all costs!

Daniel Suárez explains his side

Tyler Reddick’s night unraveled at Richmond, and now he’ll head into Daytona next Sunday still chasing a breakthrough. In 12 career starts at the 2.5-mile superspeedway, Reddick carries an average finish of 23.0 with no wins, though he’s been close. Most recently, he finished runner-up to William Byron, who clinched the regular series championship in this year’s Daytona 500.

That chance for redemption will have to wait, as Richmond ended with a frustrating 34th-place result after a mid-race tangle triggered by Ty Gibbs and Daniel Suárez. “It’s pretty much worst-case scenario,” Reddick said after the race. “We can thank Daniel Suarez for that.”

Suárez, who managed to bring his No. 99 Chevrolet home in seventh, was quick to clear the air. “I feel bad for (Reddick), I think it was,” Suárez admitted after the race. “It really wasn’t intentional. The last thing I wanted (was) to crash him for no reason. (Gibbs) already had older tires and at that point it’s a two- or three-second difference.”

From Suarez’s perspective, it was a chain reaction gone wrong. He explained that Ty Gibbs slowed more than expected while running on worn tires, setting off the contact. “When (Gibbs) went to the bottom, he just slowed down way more than what I anticipated. I bumped him a little bit to get some room but it was maybe too hard of a bump for the tires that he had and he got a wiggle and then he ended up spinning out (Reddick), which wasn’t intentional.”

For Suárez, it was about managing damage control and salvaging a strong finish, but the incident left him carrying the weight of regret. “I feel bad for that. Bad situation there. Just trying to make as much time as possible,” he said, knowing his mistake had derailed someone else’s night.