Denny Hamlin himself got swept up in the chaos with 10 laps to go in the Daytona 500 on Sunday, taking Christopher Bell along with him. A push from his 23XI Racing driver Corey Heim went wrong, sending Hamlin into the wall before he collected the No. 20 running beside him. Yet when the race ended, and the checkered flag waved, Hamlin still found a silver lining, as his team’s driver, Tyler Reddick, stood in victory lane.
Hamlinknows the road the team has walked over the past year and a half with the antitrust lawsuit hanging over their heads, and he knows the weight Reddick carried off the track with his son. Through it all, he watched the No. 45 driver grind through the off-season. In shop talks and crew chatter, Hamlin noticed a shift in Reddick’s mindset.
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That shift, in his eyes, paved the way for the win. “From my standpoint, the off-season is usually where I spend the most time at 23XI. Obviously, this off-season I didn’t get to spend as much time there as I wanted. But I talked to a lot of people in the shop, and they felt like Tyler had changed his, not approach… his outlook, really was optimistic, all in on correcting the wrongs and wanting to get better this off-season.”
“We held an ownership held a meeting with everyone in competition a few weeks ago, a couple of weeks ago. I look back there, Tyler is the only one making notes, and he just was really turned on. That’s what we want out of him. I knew four or five years ago, whenever it was that I talked to him for the first time about, hey, I need you over here. So I just knew that his ceiling was so, so high,” he added.
Last year, Hamlin kept his expectations in check, letting results speak for themselves. But now, he believes a win like this, coming right out of the gate, can lift a load off Reddick’s shoulders. With that pressure eased, Hamlin hopes Reddick can cut loose the way he always has. That free-flow style is what drew Hamlin and the team to him in the first place: the guy races on instinct.
Hamlin’s view on Reddick’s championship chances
Hamlin has long sung Reddick’s praises and made it clear he sees more in the tank. When pressed on title chances, the 23XI Racing co-owner pointed to Reddick’s knack for wringing speed out of a car, sometimes in ways even he cannot match. It might show up for a single lap, but the speed is there.
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Hamlin added that when a team finds someone who can tap into that kind of raw ability, the next step is adding polish. Coating in race craft, passing along lessons from years of trial and error, and suddenly, the puzzle starts coming together. In his mind, that mix can mold a driver who has all the tools to chase a championship.
Road course racing has taken a larger slice of the NASCAR calendar in recent years, though the count dips this season. Even so, Reddick holds his own there and can run with the pack. Hamlin believes Reddick checks all the boxes for a title run, not just from growth but from showing up and delivering across tracks on the schedule.
The post Denny Hamlin Reveals the Secret Behind Tyler Reddick Bouncing Back from Dismal Cup Season appeared first on The SportsRush.
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