DARLINGTON, S.C. — Just as it has in the courtrooms in 2025, 23XI Racing put up a strong fight on the racetrack on Sunday (Aug. 31) in the Southern 500.
Tyler Reddick finished second, nearly besting winner Chase Briscoe, while Bubba Wallace finished sixth in the NASCAR Cup Series playoff opener at Darlington Raceway. With those results, Reddick now sits 35 points above the cut line and Wallace is 25 points ahead of it.
The double top 10 comes amid a time where the future is unknown for 23XI. With the NASCAR vs. 23XI Racing/Front Row Motorsports lawsuit ongoing, it puts the race team’s future up in the air depending on the final verdict. But that distraction did not slow the Michael Jordan- and Denny Hamlin-owned venture down in the slightest bit.
Reddick finished second to Briscoe in all three stages on Sunday. In turns 3 and 4 of the final laps, he shipped his No. 45 to the inside of the No. 19, but he couldn’t make it stick enough to get alongside Briscoe.
“I think Monday morning, I’ll wake up and be thinking playoffs,” Reddick said. “Right now, I’m just thinking about this race, Darlington. Yes, those things are great for us, but man, I’ve done everything but win at this place, and it’s really starting to drive me nuts.”
One thing Reddick didn’t want to do was repeat what happened in the spring 2024 race at Darlington, when he dove to the inside of Chris Buescher and wiped them both out.
“Oh, I had zero faith [it would stick in turns 3 and 4], and it didn’t stick,” Reddick said. “Well, last year in the spring, I gave it my best effort, and it didn’t stick, and that time it didn’t stick either. It’s a pretty similar story. Last spring with Buescher and Briscoe, this time I remembered what happened in the spring, and I was able to get ahead of it just a little sooner and not wipe out Chase. I know he’s wiped me out before, but we need the points, so trying to think about that, I guess.”
Reddick was referring to the finish of the Bristol Dirt Race in 2022 as the time when Briscoe wiped him out. Ironically, Reddick almost got wiped out on lap 1 of Sunday’s Southern 500 when Josh Berry spun out and into his left side. Reddick got some damage, but he made a remarkable save to keep the car out of the wall.
“It was very similar to me and the 99 [Daniel Suarez] and the 54 [Ty Gibbs] getting together at Richmond [Raceway],” Reddick said. “I just kind of heard it, and I saw the right front tire turn up and it clipped me. I don’t know if me smoking it in the wall in the spring helped me save it in that moment, but I just got very fortunate to not end our day on lap 1.”
Wallace ran inside of the top 10 all race, even getting up into the top five for stage 1. The sixth-place result was Wallace’s second best ever result at Darlington. All five of his five career top 10s at The Track Too Tough To Tame have occurred in the last seven races there. The result also comes at a critical time for Wallace — not just because it’s the first playoff race, but also because it gets the No. 23 team back on track after back-to-back finishes outside of the top 25.
“I was doing my best to not over-drive the corners the last couple of laps,” Wallace said. “I could see the 45 [Reddick] really challenging the 19 [Briscoe], so all-in-all good day for our team, great playoff start. Just solid execution.
“We had a couple of mistakes on pit road. We had a couple mistakes overall, but we were able to rebound really well.”
Michael Massie joined Frontstretch in 2017 and has served as the Content Director since 2020.
Massie, a Richmond, Va., native, has covered NASCAR, IndyCar, SRX and the CARS Tour. Outside of motorsports, the Virginia Tech grad and Green Bay Packers minority owner can be seen cheering on his beloved Hokies and Packers.