After having his runner-up finish in Saturday afternoon’s Contender Boats 250 at Homestead-Miami (Fla.) Speedway disqualified, NASCAR Cup Series sophomore Tyler Reddick was seeking redemption during Sunday’s Dixie Vodka 400 at Homestead-Miami (Fla.) Speedway.
The Richard Childress Racing driver would find himself near the rear of the field for the 267-lap race but methodically began his climb from 35th and found himself on the cusp of the top-20 at the event’s competition caution at Lap 25.
While struggling with the handling of his No. 8 Cheddar’s Scratch Kitchen Chevrolet ZL1 1LE throughout the remainder of the first stage, Reddick took 25th and knew the road to the top-10 would be a steep climb.
Luckily for Reddick and his No. 8 Chevrolet team, as the track continued to transition into nightfall, the speed of their car picked up considerably.
Hustling to 18th by the end of Stage 2, the team was prepared to make their mark during Stage 3 and the run to the checkered.
When the sun set and the lights began to beam down on the 1.5-mile speedway, Reddick’s found his cushion on the tight high line of Homestead’s circle.
Running inches from the wall, Reddick would begin to find grip and speed that propelled him forward, especially in the closing 30 laps of the race.
With less than 20 laps to go in the race, Reddick found himself 12 seconds behind leader William Byron and eight seconds behind competitors Martin Truex Jr. and Kyle Larson.
Using the aggressive groove to his advantage, Reddick would be able to slice his deficit to Byron and eventually overtake Truex and Larson but without a caution, Reddick ran out of laps and finished 2.77-seconds behind Bryon at the checkered flag.
The finish was Reddick’s first top-five since finishing fourth at Bristol (Tenn.) Motor Speedway last September and bettered his previous Homestead effort of fourth last June.
“Well, finishing second is a good night considering how the first two weekends of the season have gone, but I hate that I didn’t get this Cheddar’s Scratch Kitchen Chevy into Victory Lane because if I would have then I would have gotten a lot of people in America free chicken tenders on Monday night,” said Reddick.
“We tried to work on our Cheddar’s Scratch Kitchen Chevy throughout the night. We learned a lot. You have to win these races by being very consistent and making the right calls as a driver and as a team. I’m proud of how fast we were at the end of the race.”
Reddick blamed the final restart of the night for causing him to lose valuable time and ultimately a chance at his first Cup Series victory.
“Once I really saw how fast we were in clean air at the end of the race, and I saw how fast we were catching everybody it became beyond frustrating because I know just two or three different decisions on a restart would have put me miles ahead. I knew that we were going to have to have a well-executed restart.
“We didn’t do that, and it takes time to get around all of those cars who pass you on a restart because they are all really good drivers. That’s the difference. I thought we would be better in the day and everyone would catch up at night, but it was the opposite of that.”
Disappointed with second, Reddick knew there were still positives from the team’s performance.
“Well, there’s a lot of positives,” said Reddick. “I feel like the story of our — of my rookie season and the story of our team last year was start off really good, midway through the race, just go all the — it just blows up in our face and we just don’t get a good finish out of it.
“Today was the opposite, which was nice. It’s something that we’ve been needing to get, figure out how we can have nights like this and what we can do to continue to stay hungry and keep fighting.”
With Reddick’s fourth career top-five finish in the books, he heads to Las Vegas (Nev.) Motor Speedway for the Mar. 7 running of the Pennzoil 400, where he looks to better a track-best of 18th earned in March 2020.
Follow Zach Grafe on Twitter @z_grafe83.
CATCHFENCE.com senior editor Chris Knight contributed to this report.
