Tyler Reddick walked into the room for his post-race press conference and said bet you weren’t expecting me and it’s hard to argue with him.
For all the success the 23XI Racing No. 45 had at the start of the season, they have gone winless over the past six months and suffered through a catastrophic second half until their sixth victory on Sunday at Phoenix.
“Oh, man, yeah; it’s been a long time,” Reddick said. “To go six months without getting it done was tough on the 45. But it was really cool in the fashion we did it. A big day for us in the Chase, a big day for Rockstar, first win with them on the car, which is awesome.
“Yeah, I guess it wasn’t really a perfect executed day for us again, but we just stayed in the mix, fought our way back up there, as the other drivers and teams had mistakes and miscues.”
There weren’t mistakes made on Sunday as much as it was things not working out. For example, crew chief Billy Scott called for right sides only on their first stop. They went backwards.
The winning call proved to be a two-tire stop, and Reddick executed the restart perfect, a testament to the driver believing in his crew chief to do the right thing even if it didn’t work out before.
“I was just proud of Billy still, even with all that, just going right back to it again knowing it was the right call for us,” Reddick said. “Yeah, many, many times throughout the year we’ve had things happen that in hindsight you wish you’d do differently. Today was an opportunity where it would have been very easy to say, ‘man, two tires early really bit us, let’s not do that again.’
“Billy stuck to what he knew was best, and we executed that at the end.”
Reddick, who always wears his figurative heart on his sleeve, has shown his deep disappointment and showed his exuberance on Sunday evening. He climbed the fence to celebrate with the crown in Phoenix.
“Making up for lost time,” Reddick said. “It had been a while since I won. Yeah, it meant a lot to win today.”
This win also gives him a puncher’s shot at the championship. Combined with a disaster of a day for leaders Kyle Larson and Denny Hamlin, Reddick winning closed the gap from 114 to 56.
A maximum points day is 76. There are three races left at Talladega, Martinsville and Homestead-Miami. There is a pathway once again to a championship that seemed so plausible back in the spring.
“I think for us, week to week primarily still just focus on trying to win races,” Reddick said. “If we can have a calm ‘Dega, get stage points, finish with a car in one piece, I think we’ll have another good points day. Then it will fall to Martinsville.
“Historically, that’s not been a great place for us. I mean, I like the progression that we’ve made in the last year. I mean, yes, we hadn’t won on a short track yet, but we were able to check that box today. The work we made on just making our short track stuff better, me getting better as a driver.
“Like today, today was very frustrating at times, but everyone kind of kept their heads in it. We just kept chipping away with the balance on our car. Put us in a spot to be able to capitalize in the end.
“Looking ahead to Martinsville, I’m excited about it. I feel like I don’t say that too often about Martinsville. I’m always excited to learn and get better. Very excited to see what we’ll have there.”
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