Tyler Reddick has been on an absolute tear.
Monday’s (Aug. 19) race at Michigan International Speedway marked his second win of the 2024 NASCAR Cup Series season, and it came on the heels of a seven-race stretch where he’s finished no worse than sixth.
Reddick is sporting an average finish of 3.3 in his last seven starts, a mark that no one else has achieved in the Next Gen car.
Since the start of the streak with a sixth-place finish at New Hampshire Motor Speedway on June 23, Reddick has roared from sixth in regular season points to the points lead for the first time in his Cup career.
Along with his two wins at Michigan and Talladega Superspeedway, Reddick leads all drivers this season with 11 top-five finishes and 17 top-10 finishes in 24 starts. No one else is even close to Reddick in the top 10s department, as William Byron and Christopher Bell are tied for second at 13.
Reddick also leads the Cup Series in average finish (10.5), and his greatest strength in 2024 has been maximizing his performance week in and week out. Reddick has never had an average finish better than 15.0 in a full-time Cup season, so his 2024 has marked a considerable improvement in consistency. And that consistency might pay off in two weeks’ time if he is able to capture the regular season championship and the coveted 15 playoff points that come with it.
And to show just how stellar of a season Reddick’s had, he’s already set career highs for top fives and top 10s in a season, and there’s still 12 races left for him to keep adding to those already enormous totals.
But perhaps the biggest testament to Reddick’s progress this season is the sheer number of races where he’s been in contention to win with the checkered flag in sight.
At Las Vegas Motor Speedway in March, Reddick finished second after a late-race duel with Kyle Larson. While Larson had dominated the afternoon, Reddick had the better car at the finish, and it took an absolutely perfect performance of aeroblocking from Larson to keep the No. 45 at bay.
At Texas Motor Speedway, Reddick had the best long-run car by far, and he had a five-second lead until a barrage of late-race restarts in the final 20 laps left him with fourth. He finally reached the win column at Talladega, where he led the inside line at the end of the race and sailed to the checkers after Michael McDowell’s poorly timed block allowed the No. 45 to sneak past Brad Keselowski.
Reddick’s only major blunder came at Darlington Raceway in May, where he had the dominant car and led a career-best 174 laps. With time running out and under 10 laps to go, Reddick made an impatient and low-percentage move against Chris Buescher for the lead, which cut both of their tires and relegated them to finishes in the 30s.
Ever since that Darlington error, Reddick has scored a top 10 in nine of the last 10 races. At Nashville Superspeedway, he was one logic-defying Joey Logano fuel save away from taking the checkered flag in the 5OT madness. In the following week at the Chicago street course, Reddick had a full head of steam on dry tires, and he was one accidental wall hit away from giving Alex Bowman a serious run for his money on the final lap.
In the Brickyard 400, Reddick won the pole and led the most laps. He would’ve had a serious chance at defeating Larson in another restart on fresher tires had NASCAR not waited 30 seconds to throw the yellow for the clearly immobilized car of Ryan Preece.
All that leads to last weekend at Michigan, where Reddick powered away from the rest of the field in the final stage and kept his composure despite a questionable late caution that wiped out his two-second lead. After losing the lead to Byron in the first overtime restart, Reddick powered back and retook the lead in the second to end a frustrating stretch of near misses.
Now with two wins, the best average finish, the most top 10s and the regular season points lead, there’s no one with more momentum in the garage than Reddick and the No. 45 team. He only continues to improve as a driver with age, and 23XI Racing has transformed itself from an upstart team to a bona fide championship contender in less than four full seasons at the Cup level.
His first year-and-a-half in the No. 45 car has been everything that Denny Hamlin, Michael Jordan and 23XI Racing had hoped for and more. And it’s in this 2024 season where Reddick has taken the extra leap to solidify himself as a part of NASCAR’s elite.
About the author
Stephen Stumpf is the NASCAR Content Director for Frontstretch and is a three-year veteran of the site. His weekly columns include “Stat Sheet” and “4 Burning Questions.” He also writes commentary, contributes to podcasts, edits articles and is frequently at the track for on-site coverage.
Can find on Twitter @stephen_stumpf.
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