What Happened?
Tyler Reddick endured a grueling final three overtime restarts to win his first NASCAR Cup Series race in 2023 coming at Circuit of the Americas on March 26. Despite his best efforts, Kyle Busch finished second with Alex Bowman, Ross Chastain and William Byron completing the top five.
This is Reddick’s third road-course win out of his four total Cup Series victories and his first for 23XI Racing.
But What Really Happened?
Just forget about those last 10 laps for a minute. We were having a good time.
With no stage breaks scheduled for a NASCAR Cup Series points race since 2016, we got to see crew chiefs and race teams play out some interesting and varied pit strategies on a road course for the first time in what feels like forever. It was something most of these long behemoth circuits need desperately.
And that was such a breath of fresh air, wasn’t it?
Stage breaks made strategies far more simplified as it allowed crew chiefs to plan their racing gameplays around those two scheduled yellow flags. However, with them removed from the equation, it allowed teams to play around a little with fuel and tire strategies.
As eventual race winner Reddick opted to race on the three-stop strategy opting for fresher tires and faster pace, race rival Byron was going the two-stop route hoping that track position would have ahead of the No. 45 at the end.
And for a great majority of the first 40 or so laps, nobody really had an answer as to whose strategy would play out best.
Really, it felt like watching a Formula 1 race.
How fitting too, as NASCAR decided to lift that stage break barrier on a racetrack that was made for F1 cars in a race that featured two F1 World Champions and had Drive to Survive star and Haas F1 Team Principal Guenther Steiner in the FOX Sports booth commentating alongside.
With Steiner, Jenson Button, Kimi Raikkonen and COTA itself being among the stories of the day, Sunday was a great chance for NASCAR to draw in some of those F1 fans that they’ve been missing out on the last couple of years.
However, for a race that likely had a number of those fans watching NASCAR for the first time, those final four cautions may be a reason why they won’t be returning any time soon.
The first of those many, many late race yellows waved on lap 58 when Brad Keselowski stalled in turn 7.
That caution flag saw the field bunched up again and, with a 10-lap shootout ahead of them and the leader only one successful divebomb away, the Cup Series field did what they do best: beat the snot out of each other.
After the next caution and the ones after that, Sunday’s race ended the late-race circus with a whopping three overtime restarts – with each one having fans facepalm harder than the last.
Regardless, one shouldn’t take this race as a failure. Rather, it should be a learning experience.
Those first 50 or so laps were fun to watch play out and were a reminder of what NASCAR racing used to be before the stage-break era. If it weren’t for those pesky debris cautions breeding other cautions, Sunday would be looked upon far more favorably.
It was a reminder of what racing can be on a road course, and maybe when we go to Sonoma Raceway, it’s what it will be.
Who stood out?
Even after five cautions bunched the field up right behind him in prime divebombing position, Reddick and 23XI Racing stayed vigilant and held off all challengers – just like he did almost all day.
In a field that had F1 and IMSA champions alike challenging the NASCAR regulars, Reddick whooped them all. After leading 41 of the 75 laps ran all day, that black Monster Energy No. 45 seemingly had no challengers other than the No. 24 of Byron who led a second-most 28 laps.
However, the real accomplishment is not his dominance, it’s his survival.
With cautions perpetually breeding cautions near the end of the race, Reddick’s chances of outlasting an overly optimistic divebomb from one of his competitors withered away further.
When it comes to overtime restarts, race leaders haven’t had the best track record in 2023. Before Sunday, none of the drivers that were leading at the scheduled distance had gone on to win in overtime.
However, the No. 45 stayed ahead on restart after restart and after running up front for so long all day, any other race winner – except for maybe Byron – really wouldn’t have been justified.
In the end, Reddick won his third road-course race of his career and gave Toyota its first win of 2023. More impressively, the Californian has won three of the last five Cup Series road-course events.
Is Reddick the new road course ace?
Who fell flat?
Entering Sunday, not many likely had Kyle Larson as their picks to win.
However, after four career road-course wins, including the last two races at Watkins Glen International, it certainly isn’t farfetched to think of him as a sleeper that could steal a win.
However, after being punted by Bubba Wallace in a crash on lap 11 that saw him stalled, having a broken toe link and suffering a speeding penalty, he certainly didn’t show the road-course prowess he’s shown in the past.
Larson would rally back to finish 14th. Although, after seeing half the field being involved in a crash in one way or another in the last 10 laps, results of survival races like these aren’t really fair to gauge one’s performance, for better or for worse.
Not to mention, if Larson wasn’t involved in that incident when he was, one has to wonder if he could have shown the speed his two Hendrick Motorsports teammates Byron and Bowman did.
Better than last time?
For 57 laps? Yes.
The last 18 laps? No.
Even though 2022 had the wild ending involving Chastain and AJ Allmendinger that will likely be used for promotional purposes for decades to come, Sunday’s event wasn’t terribly different from what we saw one year ago.
In 2022, there were seven unscheduled cautions. That only a slight improvement over Sunday’s eight. Additionally, there were nine different leaders with 13 lead changes in 2022. In comparison, there were seven leaders and 16 lead changes on Sunday.
However, despite some balanced-out statistics, there’s no exaggeration when saying the first two stages were a treat for racing fans. On top of that, seeing the leaders of Reddick and Byron duke it out periodically in what looked like a duel between racing veterans highlighted some of the best parts of road racing that much of the sport has seemingly forgotten about.
If you can look past the race concluding demolition derby that occurred, you can see some of the good things about COTA and road racing as a whole.
Paint scheme of the race
It was another weekend of some stylish schemes making their debuts for 2023. Some notable mentions include Kyle Busch‘s blue and orange Netspend livery, Noah Gragson‘s Black Rifle Coffee scheme and Kimi Raikkonen‘s black and red Onxhomes.com Chevrolet.
Although while all of those schemes looked great on the track, Corey LaJoie‘s OpTic Gaming No. 7 Spire Motorsports meant something a little more toward for not only the low-funded team but for the sport as well.
What’s next?
The Cup Series heads to the Action Track.
The NASCAR Cup Series returns to Richmond Raceway for its first visit to a track under a mile in 2023. Qualifying for the 400-lap event will be on Saturday, April 1 at 10:50 a.m. ET. The field will take the green on Sunday, April 2 at 3:30 p.m. ET. with coverage on FOX Sports 1.
Dalton Hopkins began writing for Frontstretch in April 2021. Currently, he is the lead writer for the weekly Thinkin' Out Loud column, co-host of the Frontstretch Happy Hour podcast, and one of our lead reporters. Beforehand, he wrote for IMSA shortly after graduating from Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in 2019. Simultaneously, he also serves as a Captain in the US Army.
Follow Dalton on Twitter @PitLaneCPT