Tyler Reddick has finished no worse than third in the last three NASCAR Cup Series races, but with how hard he’s been on himself afterward, it might not feel that way.
A week ago, Reddick hit the wall on the final lap in Chicago when he was chasing down Alex Bowman. Reddick admitted afterward that he “screwed up” and made the “dumbest mistake.” He finished second.
A third-place finish the week before at Nashville Superspeedway was also disappointing to him. Reddick was in a good position on fuel and tires going into the fifth and final overtime when he couldn’t find a way around Joey Logano on the last lap. Afterward, Reddick said he “didn’t get the job done” and was clearly discouraged.
Statistically, it’s been a good two weeks. Emotionally, not as much for Reddick. But the 23XI Racing driver said Saturday he doesn’t carry those battles.
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“I think I move past it (pretty well), thankfully,” Reddick said at Pocono Raceway. “There are a number of negatives, and I chose to analyze those (but) I’d say by the time we’re done having our meetings on Monday, it’s in the rearview mirror, and moved on thinking about the positives from the weekend and thinking about what we have ahead of us.”
Fortunately, there is plenty ahead for Reddick and the No. 45 team. As the regular season winds down, Reddick has entered the picture for the regular-season championship as he moved to third in the point standings with his Chicago result, which was his sixth top-10 finish in the last seven races.
Reddick is 23 points out of the point lead with six races remaining. It goes without saying that Reddick is aware it won’t be easy to earn the regular-season title and the 15 additional playoff points. He is one of seven drivers less than 100 points behind leader Kyle Larson.
“It’s on my mind now,” Reddick said of the regular season champion battle. “It wasn’t certainly back in February, March, April — didn’t even cross my mind a single time. I didn’t know if we were going to be able to run those guys back down.
“We had kind of a messy start of the year — like we did last year — and here we are. We’ve closed the gap and we’re within striking distance.”
A victory at Talladega Superspeedway (April 21) has Reddick locked into the postseason. However, he has just eight playoff points.
Reddick was 12th in the standings after the season’s first three races.