Reddick's wild ride in Vegas puts him on the back foot for Homestead
Yesterday at 07:07 PM
Tyler Reddick went for a familiar move Sunday at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, but it backfired and resulted in a rollover on the frontstretch — then he drove away from the crash scene.
On lap 89 of the South Point 400, Reddick took a run he had in the far outside lane off Turn 4 and got to the outside of Chase Elliott and Martin Truex Jr. The hole closed quickly as everyone came together, with Reddick bouncing off the wall and Chase Elliott near simultaneously. He then continued down the track and hit the right side of Brad Keselowski's car.
Reddick's No. 45 Toyota then spun through the grass and, when it hit the pavement of the quarter-mile track, was sent into a full flip before landing on its wheels. Once the car was done sliding, Reddick was back on the throttle and drove to his pit stall, but the team quickly realized the suspension was broken and the day was over.
TYLER REDDICK FLIPS!
Reddick and Chase Elliott both crash. Reddick was able to drive his car to pit road but is done for the day. #NASCARPlayoffspic.twitter.com/kBjgRp4TC0
— NASCAR on NBC (@NASCARonNBC) October 20, 2024
"I figured there was a toe link or something like that bent," Reddick said. "I didn't know the left front was broke. I got into the stall and realized I didn't have brakes, and I was like, ‘OK, this can't be good,’ so I was hoping that we could have fixed it.
"I was ready to keep going. But the car was just absolutely destroyed."
The incident happened as he was running inside the top five and it was less than 10 minutes after he won the first stage.
"You just have to be aggressive on restarts," Reddick said. "It's how the Next Gen racing has been from the beginning. I saw them both have a moment, and I just had to split second decision. You have to be aggressive on the restart; it's hard to pass after a while.
"Being myself on a mile-and-a-half, being aggressive – by the time I realized I was in trouble, started sliding and was coming up, and I was pretty much already on their outside at that point, with nowhere to really go. I needed to make the decision earlier when I saw them sliding to be more conservative to avoid an incident. It's just not who I am, but it is unfortunate. It took us out of the race. We had a really, really fast Jordan Brand Toyota Camry probably would have been in the mix all race long. But we will go to Homestead, a place where I have had to get it done before and go for it there."
Reddick began the round 10 points above the cutline. He is now sixth and 30 points below a transfer spot, with Homestead-Miami Speedway and Martinsville Speedway filling out the round.
"We can still have a good day at Homestead and be in the mix in Martinsville," Reddick said. "Ideally, it would have been nice to win today. It would be nice to win next week, and that's what we will focus on, but thankfully we got 10 stage points in Stage 1, and it's not like we're absolutely out of it on points yet. We're going to have to be perfect from here on out, probably."
