Since beginning his NASCAR National Series career, Tyler Reddick has always had a special knack for Darlington Raceway. Still, until Sunday’s Goodyear 400, the 23XI Racing driver had never made it to Victory Lane at the 1.366-mile racetrack in South Carolina.
Reddick didn’t just win Sunday’s event, though; instead, the Corning, California-native had a subset of different problems to overcome throughout the 400-mile contest, which led to an extremely gutsy performance by NASCAR’s strongest driver in 2026.
After smoking the highly-competitive NASCAR Cup Series field in qualifying on Saturday and winning the pole, Reddick had issues just moments into the race, reporting potential voltage issues from Lap 1.
Granted, that wasn’t going to be an immediate problem, as the No. 45 XFINITY Mobile Toyota Camry XSE was able to maintain its full pace for the short-term, but the 23XI Racing team had to go to work and figure out how they were going to diagnose and fix the issue.
After being a dominant force in the opening stage of the event, a small miscue on pit road, though it cost Reddick track position, was the least of his worries, rebounding to finish second in the first stage.
23XI Racing brought Reddick down pit road immediately after the green-white checkered flag was displayed, and got to work; quickly diagnosing it was an internal issue with the alternator, and putting a bigger battery in to make sure the No. 45 would last until the end of the race.
The one catch? On an excruciatingly hot 80-plus-degree day, at a racetrack many drivers already find to be a physical challenge, Tyler Reddick would have to run the majority of the race without the aid of any cooling systems. In fact, at one point, the FOX Sports on-board camera caught Reddick purging the hot water from his cool suit to prevent it from overheating him even more.
Throughout the second stage of the race, and even into the final stage, Reddick moved himself forward gradually. But what finally put him into contention was when multiple drivers stayed out after a quick caution, allowing him to make quick progress against other drivers on his strategy on the restart.
Billy Scott had a plan in that final stage, though, choosing to split the final run of the race exactly in half, a move that left the 23XI Racing driver on the racetrack for five-to-six laps longer than most of the leaders. But what came of that strategy was a BULLET by the name of Tyler Reddick.
At times, the No. 45 was seven-tenths of a second faster than race-leader Brad Keselowski, and with 28 laps remaining in the race, Reddick made the move for the lead and never looked back.
RACE RESULTS: NASCAR Cup Series Goodyear 400 (Darlington)
“I know never to give up,” Reddick said after climbing from the car. “I think it’s very fitting that when we finally get our first win here at Darlington, that ‘The Lady in Black’ would test us like that. We’ve been so close so many times. I mean, lap one, we had the charging problem where the battery wasn’t charging at all. All day long, just not running fans. Sweat my tail off inside the race car, and we knew it was going to be physical.”
After leading a race-high 142 laps, Brad Keselowski collected his best finish since returning to NASCAR Cup Series competition from a broken leg in the off-season, finishing second-place in his Greg Biffle tribute car for RFK Racing.
Ryan Blaney, after having another problem on pit road with a loose wheel this weekend at Darlington, drove all the way back up to a podium finish, coming home in third.
Carson Hocevar was fourth after a slightly different pit strategy, one similar to that of eventual race-winner Tyler Reddick, put him as low as 17th-place in the final stage. Austin Cindric rounded out the top-five, his first such finish since last August at Richmond Raceway.
Ty Gibbs, Daniel Suarez, William Byron, Chris Buescher, and Erik Jones completed the top-10.
Buescher, driving the No. 17 Ford Mustang Dark Horse for RFK Racing, also looked to have a chance at the victory after choosing to stay on the racetrack on three-lap old tires at one point in the middle portion of the race, but coming to pit road, he had contact from Reddick that did everything but send the Prosper, Texas-native into the wall.
Chase Briscoe was running inside the top-five with less than five laps remaining when he made contact with Riley Herbst (who had sustained damage from an accident earlier in the afternoon) and smacked the Turn 4 wall. That dropped him to 12th.
Tyler Reddick extends his points lead, leaving Darlington with a whopping 95 points after just six races. Ryan Blaney is now second with Ty Gibbs in third.
Next for the NASCAR Cup Series is a trip to Martinsville Speedway, with the Cook Out 400 taking place on Sunday, March 29, at 3:30 PM ET on FS1, MRN, and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio Channel 90.
