From this point forward, Tyler Reddick’s name will always be preceded by the words “DAYTONA 500 Champion”.
The Corning, California-native went to Victory Lane in Sunday’s 68th Running of ‘The Great American Race’ in his No. 45 Chumba Casino Toyota Camry XSE after making a bold last-lap pass on NASCAR’s Most Popular Driver, Chase Elliott, at the entrance to the tri-oval.
With chaos unfolding behind him in the form of a vicious multi-car accident, Reddick was able to cross the start-finish line with a three-tenth-of-a-second advantage over runner-up finisher, Ricky Stenhouse, Jr., himself a former champion of the DAYTONA 500.
The victory marks the ninth win in the NASCAR Cup Series for the 30-year-old driver, six of which have come since joining 23XI Racing at the start of 2023. Speaking of 23XI, the victory marks a landmark 10th win at NASCAR’s top-level.
RELATED: 2026 DAYTONA 500 Race Results
Reddick took the white flag running in the fourth position, but leading the charge of the middle lane when the seas parted, and Carson Hocevar, Michael McDowell, and Erik Jones all made contact and spun to the inside of the racetrack, nicking the nose of the No. 45 along the way.
The loss of momentum from that slight contact cost Reddick some spots and left the multi-time NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series champion to regroup, having to battle back from sitting fourth, again, halfway down the backstretch.
With an out-of-this-world shove from Riley Herbst, Reddick’s teammate at 23XI Racing, the driver of the No. 45 got to third, and when second-place driver Zane Smith backed up to the nose of Reddick to get a run, the Toyota Camry XSE driver swung high and made the move himself, getting clear as the entire pack wrecked behind him.
“We had the lead there when that caution came out, lined up next to McDowell, and we just kept getting hung, a couple times in the closing laps there,” Reddick explained. “Just every time we’d kind of break up, there would be nowhere left to go but to push, and they pushed me, obviously.
“My teammate, Riley Herbst, gave me a lot of pushes there and then tried to win the race for himself, as he should have at the end. Just incredible how it all played out. Just true Daytona madness.”
Reddick snapped a winless streak in the NASCAR Cup Series that lasted just over a season, having last won at Homestead-Miami Speedway in the Fall of 2024. The 23XI Racing driver admits that the weight of not winning a race last season, despite having the opportunity to do just that, was sitting on his shoulders a bit coming into the new season.
“Last year was really hard for all of us, hard for me. When you’re a Cup driver, and you get to this level and drive for Michael Jordan, it’s expected that you win every single year,” Reddick said post-race. “For us to go on that drought, we did make us look hard in the mirror, and really proud of everyone on our Chumba Casino Toyota Camry. Worked really hard in the off-season, and there were many points in this race where we weren’t making decisions we wanted to, but we just reset, and every opportunity we got to rese,t we went back at it.
The victory also marks the second superspeedway win for Reddick in the NASCAR Cup Series, having won at Talladega Superspeedway in Spring 2024. But, it also means Reddick has won in the NASCAR Cup, O’Reilly Auto Parts, and Craftsman Truck Series at Daytona International Speedway — joining Kyle Busch as the only two drivers who have done so.
Ricky Stenhouse, Jr. crossed the line in the runner-up position, putting together a fantastic start to the 2026 NASCAR Cup Series campaign for himself, HYAK Motorsports, and brand-new sponsor Chef Boyardee. Stenhouse sustained damage in the final-lap crash, but managed to cross the line ahead of the other drivers involved.
Joey Logano and Chase Elliott both took substantial hits in the final-lap crash but survived to be credited with a third and fourth-place finish. Brad Keselowski, just eight weeks removed from breaking his femur, collected a top-five in the DAYTONA 500.
Zane Smith looked as though he might be in contention to win Front Row Motorsports’ second DAYTONA 500, but crossed the line in sixth, with Chris Buescher, Riley Herbst, Josh Berry, and Bubba Wallace rounding out the top-10. Wallace led a race-high 39 laps, but wasn’t in the right position at the end of the race, dropping him back to 10th.
The race featured a record-high 23 leaders for a total of 66 lead changes, the final of which came when Reddick got by Elliott on the final lap. In winning the race, the driver of the No. 45 Toyota Camry XSE led a single lap.
Heading into the second NASCAR Cup Series event of 2026 at EchoPark Speedway, Reddick holds a 17-point advantage over Zane Smith. The series will run the AutoTrader 400 on Sunday, February 22 at 3:00 PM ET on FOX, PRN, and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio Channel 90.
