Tyler Reddick’s Blunt Post-Race Confession Stirs Doubt Before Elimination Cut

Tyler Reddick rolled out of Darlington looking like a serious title contender, sitting fourth in the playoff standings with a 35-point cushion. But fast forward just one week to World Wide Technology Raceway, and things didn’t feel nearly as secure. Gateway wasn’t catastrophic, but it wasn’t the kind of run that screams “championship favorite” either. For a driver with speed, skill, and a solid points cushion, the expectation is to look untouchable this time of year. Yet his post-race words told a different story. One that raised eyebrows about where the No. 45 team really stands heading into Bristol.

What looked like a promising day from the jump at Gateway, starting 7th on the grid, unraveled into a frustrating 16th-place finish. “Just typical, frustrating day,” Reddick admitted post-race. While the stat sheet only shows the finish, the struggles went much deeper. First, during the first round of pit stops, the No. 45 23XI crew didn’t tighten the left-rear tire all the way, leading Reddick to pit in Denny Hamlin’s stall and cost him valuable time. Then, midway through the race, Reddick reported brake issues that seemed to plague him for much of the afternoon.

On Lap 173, while running 33rd, he told his crew that the right-front brake kept locking up, forcing him to dial in more rear brake to compensate. Still, after the race, he clarified to Frontstretch, “The brakes, uh, didn’t really seem to be the issue. Um, more of a tire issue, but um, I don’t know. We had that one run we were really, really bad. Um, and that’s when it was really important there to kind of have your track position for that final run. So when that happens of you know, I mean, you’re going to finish terribly.”

Now, Tyler Reddick sits 7th in the playoff standings with a 37-point cushion, a sharp drop from his Darlington high of 4th. “I hope 37’s enough. We’ll see,” he said. For a driver with top-tier speed, that doesn’t sound like the confidence of someone cruising toward the Round of 12.

With Bristol looming as the final race of the Round of 16, Reddick finds himself at a crossroads. And if anything, this should call for some sort of alarm, given his previous Bristol finishes with 23XI Racing.

If the No. 45 can avoid trouble and nail the setup, he’s got the speed to advance. But if the same mistakes that haunted him at Gateway show up again, his cushion could disappear in a hurry. In a round defined by unpredictability, Reddick’s margin for error just got razor-thin.

While that’s that, there was at least something that fans found hilarious this Sunday’s race, including the No. 45 driver.

Tyler Reddick roasts NASCAR

If there’s one thing fans love about NASCAR, it’s the unpredictability. Sometimes it’s a wild pit strategy. Sometimes it’s a surprise late-race caution. Or even Christopher Bell’s frustration over his radio. And sometimes, it’s a distance marker sign. At World Wide Technology Raceway, one of those brake-zone signs fell onto the track just as Stage 3 was getting underway, prompting a debris caution that flipped the rhythm of the race.

These signs, meant to help drivers gauge their braking points into the corners, are fairly routine at tracks. Not everyone uses them, but for those who do, they’re a vital visual reference. Unfortunately, when one of them ended up in the racing groove, NASCAR had no choice but to throw the yellow. The timing couldn’t have been worse, especially for Bubba Wallace, who lost the lead on the restart that followed.

Tyler Reddick, meanwhile, wasn’t mad; he was amused. Over the radio, the 23XI driver let out one of the more memorable soundbites of the playoffs so far. “That’s f—— hilarious,” Reddick cracked, according to Dalton Hopkins of Frontstretch. “They took all that time under caution to fix and it’s already broke. That’s some NASCAR s— right there.”

For a race that already had its fair share of frustrations, especially for Reddick and the No. 45 team, this oddball moment stood out as a perfect mix of comedy and chaos. It also served as a reminder that in NASCAR, no matter how finely tuned the cars and strategies are, something as small as a fallen sign can rewrite the script in an instant. And leave drivers (and fans) laughing or fuming, depending on which side of the restart they were on.