Incredible, that’s all that can be said about Tyler Reddick, and his incredible start to the 2026 NASCAR Cup Series season. Twice in the closing laps of Sunday’s AdventHealth 400 at Kansas Speedway, it appeared his shot at the victory had been snatched away.
Looks can be deceiving, but what isn’t deceiving is Reddick’s uncanny ability to close out wins. After contact with Denny Hamlin and Christopher Bell on an overtime restart, Reddick was able to charge back around Kyle Larson for the race lead, going into the final turns of the final lap, and he pulled across the line to score his fifth win of the opening nine races.
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While seeing Reddick win races is no longer shocking, even the way he took the win on Sunday at Kansas was shocking to everybody, including the driver of the No. 45 Toyota.
“These late-race restarts, it gets really, really crazy there. Obviously, I had a run on [Larson], and I was just shocked I was able to get to his inside there,” Reddick admitted.
With the last-lap pass for the win, Reddick became just the fifth driver to ever win five of the opening nine races in a NASCAR Cup Series season. And it capped off a nearly flawless weekend for Reddick, who paced NASCAR Cup Series practice, qualifying, and took the race win.
Michael Jordan, an NBA legend and co-owner of Reddick’s 23XI Racing team, knows a thing or two about clutch moments in big-games. Even Jordan is stunned by what Reddick is doing to the competition this season.
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“…This kid is on fire,” Jordan exclaimed in a post-race interview on FOX. “I don’t even know what to say. I don’t know if I can cool him down. He’s unbelievable. That was an unbelievable last couple of laps, and I’m proud of him, I’m proud of the whole team.”
As Reddick was burning down his tires on the frontstretch, Larson, the defending series champion, was coming to terms with the fact that he had another win slip through his grasp. Larson has not won a race since he captured the victory in this race last spring.
But on a positive note for Larson, his runner-up finish moved him inside of the top-five of the NASCAR Cup Series championship standings.
Chase Briscoe would claw his way through the field on the final restart of the race, and would come home in third, ahead of Hamlin, who was very disappointed in a caution that came out just before he could collect the white flag in regulation to Sunday’s race, was also disappointed in his own execution on track in overtime.
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“I mean, obviously, it’s not winning,” Hamlin said when asked what the most frustrating part of finishing fourth was. “It’s Cody Ware, six laps down, wrecking. I don’t know, just add it up. It’s just, I fell for the same move that [Larson] got me a couple of years ago when I was on the inside. So, I’ve got to learn from those mistakes that I’m making and not executing those last few laps.”
Bubba Wallace, Reddick’s 23XI Racing teammate, would round out the top-five finishers in the AdventHealth 400 at Kansas.
It was a great day overall for 23XI Racing, as the team’s other two drivers, Riley Herbst and Corey Heim, finished 14th and 15th.
Christopher Bell, who was in the thick of the battle for the win in overtime, suffered damage after contact with Reddick and Hamlin, and he would spin onto pit road with one lap to go. Bell was able to salvage a 20th-place run, but it is a far cry from the sure-fire top-five finish he was heading toward.
This article was originally published on www.si.com/onsi/racing-america as Reddick Makes MJ Proud With Incredible Rally For Fifth Win of Season.
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