While his boss Denny Hamlin won the Food City 500, Tyler Reddick could only manage a lowly P30 finish. Turns out that his car was significantly damaged, but the aerodynamical disadvantage that would normally pose did not make the slightest difference at the tire management carnival at the Bristol Motor Speedway. Speaking about the event, the 28-year-old rued the missed opportunity to fight for the win at the event.

Ever since the Next-Gen car came into existence, short-track racing has been a disaster. The race leaders could easily cut off the air of the ones following, which would completely throw off the aero balance, making it extremely difficult for them to turn. None of that happened on Sunday as it became a race fully dependent on strategy as tires blew out left and right.

Tyler Reddick rues stage 1 crash that took him out of contention

Tyler Reddick was a big fan of that, probably not of the excessive tire wear but that they got to do something different finally on a short track. However, the driver of the #45 was involved in a crash from a restart on lap 31 when he was leading and was spun around before being hit in the front by Carson Hocevar’s #77. This ruined his race and damaged his car enough to not allow him to fight for places later on in the race. But Reddick did not realize how bad things were until after the event.

“I’ve had many miserable days where I do something stupid in the beginning in the race and I’m out there racing for nothing but that was…I wish I was in the mix in the race. That was the most fun I have had in a long time. The craziest part was…we’ve always talked about aero with this car, short tracks and everything. I knew my car was damaged but I did not know it was quite literally destroyed in the front. And I’m out there racing with people and I’m wondering why people are getting frustrated. Then I see my car after the race and I’m like “Oh.” It was like killed. But I was still in the mix. It was like aero didn’t matter as much,” the 23XI Racing star said on a recent episode of the Door Bumper Clear podcast.

A driver who finished P30 rarely comes out of the car in a relatively good mood just because the racing was so fun. But that’s exactly what the driver of the #45 car felt after the race at Bristol. He could not believe that tire management was on his mind while he was in the Next-Gen car.

23XI Racing star’s Next-Gen surprise knew no bounds at Bristol

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For NASCAR, such reactions will mean the world. Inadvertently, they have found something that can make short-track racing leaps and bounds better than what it has been and they did not even need the new aero package. With the Next-Gen, everything has been about aero and that’s something fans and drivers have grown tired of. But all of that changed at The Last Great Coliseum.

“Yesterday’s race was not that it was a very different animal than I’ve ever seen it Bristol. Going back, I don’t know how far you know in time at Bristol. It felt very old school to me. It was actually a lot of fun. I know we were laps down, but as a driver, I’ve never been in a next-gen car and thought. Okay, I gotta take care of my tires. I gotta be thinking 30, 40 laps ahead, right,” said Tyler Reddick earlier in the podcast, revealing his pleasant surprise.

There’s a lot to be learned from the Food City 500 and with there being a few days until the next short-track race, NASCAR will be do everything in its power to make sure it can recreate the excitement and the drama with a little less tire wear. Reddick would be one of its biggest supporters, along with many others.

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