UPDATE: Sunday, June 4, 2023 at 5:40 PM ET
The drivers are all strapped into their cars, window nets have been fastened, cars have been re-fired and the yellow flag has been displayed. This race is mere moments away from being restarted after a weather hold of just over one hour and 45 minutes.
UPDATE: Sunday, June 4, 2023 at 5:30 PM ET
NASCAR has cleared drivers to return to their cars, and will allow the teams one crew member to clean the windshield before caution laps resume.
As long as weather cooperates, the restart of the Enjoy Illinois 300 at World Wide Technology Raceway should be happening very soon.
ORIGINAL STORY
Tyler Reddick has had a great season in his first year driving the No. 45 23XI Racing Toyota Camry, but his Sunday got off to a less-than-ideal start as he went for a spin on Lap 2 of the Enjoy Illinois 300 at Gateway.
Reddick looked to be attempting to work his way to the inside of Ricky Stenhouse Jr. for the 10th position in Turn 1 when the two made contact and Reddick went for a spin in his McDonald’s machine.
Fortunately, for Reddick, he didn’t make any contact with anything as he spun out.
Here is a video of Reddick’s Lap 2 spin:
Here was the spin by Tyler Reddick earlier that brought out the caution. A lightning strike under that yellow put us under the red flag, where we still remain. #NASCAR pic.twitter.com/FHBOXjo0Rc
— Toby Christie (@Toby_Christie) June 4, 2023
Under this early-race caution, a lightning strike near World Wide Technology Raceway forced NASCAR to put the race in a red flag condition at around 3:55 PM ET.
Anytime there is a lightning strike in the vicinity of the race track, it resets the lightning hold clock to 30 minutes.
At 5:07 PM ET, the lightning clock had gotten down to roughly nine minutes left, when another lightning strike reset things. RFK Racing documented the moment as it happened, as well as the reaction from Brad Keselowski:
We had 9 mins left in the lightning clock and @keselowski goes “You know guys, I’m feeling pretty optimistic. I think we’re going back racing here!” and IMMEDIATELY the clock reset 😂😂😂 pic.twitter.com/52CBGZ22Ux
— RFK Racing (@RFKracing) June 4, 2023
When the race goes back to green, Kyle Busch will resume the event as the leader of the race. Busch, the polesitter, had lost the lead to Ryan Blaney, who led lap one, but by the time the caution came out on Lap 2, Busch had worked ahead of Blaney for the top spot.
The top-10 drivers in the running when the race was red-flagged after five laps were Busch, Blaney, Denny Hamlin, Martin Truex Jr., Kevin Harvick, Joey Logano, William Byron, Austin Cindric, Ross Chastain and Ricky Stenhouse Jr.
