Kyle Larson and Tyler Reddick fought tooth and nail for the victory at the Las Vegas Motor Speedway, but it was the Hendrick Motorsports man who came out on top in the end. After the victory, Larson took to X to share a picture of when the two were kids and the caption might be something that the 23XI Racing star might not be amused by after Vegas. Larson and Reddick seemed to have grown up together racing sprint cars on dirt tracks, and the latter had a unique pose for the camera.

It was an intense battle between the two stock car racing drivers on Sunday and, at one point, it seemed like Reddick would get the job done in the nick of time. However, Larson’s experience came into the picture with just a couple of laps remaining as he made an intelligent move to block the #45’s momentum, killing off his run to the checkered flag.

Kyle Larson reminisces about the old days of dirt racing against 23XI star

He took to X and shared a picture of him and Tyler Reddick after the race, perhaps as a way of acknowledging the fight that the 23XI star put up. The picture was originally shared by eminent motorsports journalist Jeff Gluck and it showed Larson and Reddick standing in front of their respective sprint cars. The driver of the #45 had his arms up in the image doing a double thumbs-up and the 2021 Cup Series champion was quite amused with that pose.

“I just want @TylerReddick to bring back the double thumbs up like the old days 👍🏼👍🏼,” he wrote as he shared the image. It was done in good fun but given that Larson had just beaten Reddick to what seemed like a certain victory, maybe the former Cup Series champion should have waited for a few days.

Regardless, there is a huge amount of respect between the two Cup Series stars. Yung Money had to dig deep into his racecraft to find a way of stopping his competitor and, as it turns out, the HMS star had made a crucial error that had almost cost him the race win.

It was almost like Kyle Larson knew what the 23XI Racing driver was attempting to do towards the end of the race to get past him and blocked him from having a sniff of an opening. And it’s not a surprise considering that they used to race together in their younger days. Larson is one of the most level-headed and methodical competitors in the Cup Series today, and it was his intelligence that booked him a spot in the playoffs.

How Tyler Reddick’s strategy to win was thwarted with just 2 laps to go

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By the time only 10 laps were remaining in the Pennzoil 400, Kyle Larson had noticed that Tyler Reddick was gaining on him especially at the top part of the track through turns 3 and 4. So, as a defensive maneuver, he went up the track to block the 23XI Racing driver’s air. However, it did more harm than good as Reddick was not affected by it, and it put the #5 in a precarious position from all the weaving around. However, the 2021 Cup Series champion pulled a rabbit out of the hat with a couple of laps remaining to seal the deal.

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“I thought I had a decent gap with 8-ish laps left and I was like okay I need to go up top in 3 and 4 to try to build some momentum and that was the wrong move and it really allowed him to get much closer to me and then I was like now I gotta block, air block…tried in 1 and 2, 3 or 4 laps left, he was running a little bit higher than me in 1 and 2 and I was trying to take his airway and really mess his angle up off of 2 but it didn’t hurt that bad and he was close to me in 3 and 4 or down the backstretch,” Larson explained.

“I don’t know what happened that next corner but there with 2 to go, he expected me to run the middle or top or something and I was able to do a nice lazy arc to the bottom and take his air away in 3 and 4, got him tight, yeah that killed his run down the front stretch and thankfully that was the white flag so I knew as long as I hit my marks, I was going to be safe to the checker.” 

It was a battle purely of strategy, and on the day; it was Yung Money who emerged victorious over his childhood dirt racing rival.

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