Michael Jordan’s star, Tyler Reddick, had an eight-point lead before Sonoma. One fact that cannot be denied is that he’s an excellent road course driver. Afterwards, however, he left the race second in the standings. Taking the lead from him was a man who felt ever so familiar: his 23XI Racing boss, Denny Hamlin.

A PRN panel laid out what that means heading into the final eight races of the regular season.

“He’s living rent-free in Tyler Reddick’s head,” analyst Andrew Kurland said. “It’s got to be looming large.”

Sonoma was a mess for both of them. Reddick’s power steering failed early, costing his No. 45 team six laps under the hood on pit road. He finished 36th. Despite running a broken car for most of the race, he still clocked the fastest lap of the day, a reminder of what he had and could not use.

Hamlin was not much better. He ran inside the top ten early, then got caught in a four-car chain reaction on a Lap 64 restart and spun into the dirt with a damaged front splitter. He limped home on the 26th. Between the two of them, they combined for 62nd place. And Hamlin still took the points lead by one.
Kurland framed the psychological weight of that directly.

“Denny’s having a record year and he’s as good as he’s ever been,” he said. “Can they stay within striking distance? Can they keep it close and still make this a two-car battle for the regular season championship?”

Candice Spencer added that both drivers have something to prove, but the dynamic is different.

“Denny is the guy that’s like, I got this moment, let me run with it,” she said. “He’s going to run with a big chip on his shoulder. But I also think Reddick is the kind of guy that’s like, I’m not going to let this loom in front of me. He’s going to fight back as much as he can.”

The chip on Hamlin’s shoulder is real and documented. He finished runner-up in the 2025 championship. He is widely called the greatest NASCAR driver to never win a title. He entered 2026 driving through a re-torn shoulder labrum, delaying surgery until November just to stay in contention.

He lost his father in a house fire in December 2025, and has raced every lap since with that weight on him. What followed was a summer tear nobody saw coming. Three straight wins at Nashville, Michigan, and Pocono erased what had been a 129-point Reddick advantage. Kurland pointed to the exact moment it turned.

“A lot of this hinges on the moment that Denny and Michael Jordan had a number of weeks ago,” he said. “Tyler Reddick is winning all these races and Denny’s finishing kind of lackluster. You see Michael Jordan kind of poke the bear a little bit, and all of a sudden Denny comes to life.”

Reddick started the season fast, five wins in the first nine races, including the Daytona 500. The last driver to open a season that way was Dale Earnhardt in 1987. Since then, Hamlin has pulled even and taken the lead. The standings now read 719 to 718, with Ryan Blaney a distant third at 615.

Spencer’s closing thought was direct: “I think there’s going to be a fun battle between the two of them.”