NASCAR appreciated Tyler Reddick not shedding debris around Sonoma Raceway when he suffered a flat tire late in Sunday’s race, but it still had to enforce the rule book.
The left-front tire on Reddick’s 23XI Racing Toyota went down coming off Turn 11 with 14 laps to go. It was an inopportune time for the issue as Reddick has already passed pit road and would have had to limp his wounded car back around the 1.99-mile course.
Instead, Reddick hooked a right and drove across the ‘island’, which is the center section between the straightaway coming to Turn 11 and the frontstretch. NASCAR penalized Reddick for cutting the course and made him serve a pass-through penalty.
“Obviously, it changes it time and distance of the race,” NASCAR Cup Series director Brad Moran told SiriusXM NASCAR Radio on Tuesday. “So yes, he did go down pit road and got his tires changed, but came back well ahead of where he would have. We appreciate the fact he didn’t tear stuff up down the racetrack, but unfortunately, we have rules that you cannot shortcut the course, and that was a shortcut back to pit road. He saved about 90% of the racetrack.
— Racer —