With a battered car and dwindling hope in the chaotic final laps at Atlanta, Tyler Reddick‘s shot at victory seemed to be over. But an unlikely ally was about to change everything. With two wins in the opening two races, the 23XI Racing driver seems to have hit the ground running in the ongoing Cup Series campaign.

Tyler Reddick reacts to his race win

Reddick’s chances looked slim with a damaged car, a fact his own team owner, Denny Hamlin, noted with disbelief. But in the chaotic final lap, a decisive push from Chase Briscoe changed everything, creating a controversial finish that Briscoe later had to defend. “Just crazy. You know, we got back going after that crash, and the car was very ill-handling, very loose,” Reddick said. “I mean, Denny, we’re just joking about how bad my car looked, and he was just like, ‘I can’t believe you’re making the moves you are.’”

Somehow, miraculously, Reddick made some strong moves and got into the top five. He managed to get a fragile lead, and it seemed like history repeated itself. “Again, just like it, at Daytona, had a toyed out the back, just very fortunate for that,” Reddick said after the checkered flag was waved. “And Chase Briscoe gives a big push. And somehow, with all the damage we had, he himself and Ross were not able to get back to me, which is just crazy.”

The last-lap drama was reminiscent of the Daytona 500, where the odds were stacked against him as well. Just when the race was nearing its end, Lady Luck favored the California-native, who was in the right place at the right time. Initially, it was his teammate, Bubba Wallace, who seemed to be winning. But he made a late move towards the top row, and he lost places because of it. Reddick, running behind him, was now battling alongside Carson Hocevar.

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A late push from Briscoe, as he mentioned, ultimately won the race for him. While this seemed to be more of a manufacturer bond, as both drivers are under Toyota, Briscoe cleared up the situation, claiming he had nowhere else to go.

Chase Briscoe clears his stance on assisting Reddick’s race win

Almost all the drivers running at the top had suffered major damage by the end of the race. At the time when Bubba Wallace lost the lead, there were three contenders on the final lap: Reddick, Hocevar, and Briscoe. They could’ve easily made it a three-wide and left it on pure pace to see who won, but the JGR driver had other plans.

He had a strong run, charging from the back of the field to challenge for the win. Despite this, many were dissatisfied, claiming he could have tried to win the race rather than pushing Reddick. But he cleared the air regarding this on social media.

“My run I had I knew wasn’t big enough to clear them both, so I would have been stuck 3 wide on the bottom, and the 1 would have pushed the 77 to the win, and I probably run 4th or 5th,” he wrote on X.

Hocevar had been pushing out throughout the race, and he seemed to be doing the same on the final lap. It was apparent that switching the line and moving towards the inside could’ve proven to be disastrous for Chase Briscoe, who was already recovering from a poor Daytona 500.

At the end, settling with a second-place finish was the smarter play than gambling on a late move for the race win and instead losing multiple places.