In what became a timed race due to Mother Nature pelting the city of Chicago with heavy rain multiple times on Sunday, Tyler Reddick was charging hard in the waning moments of the Grant Park 165 at the Chicago Street Course. He was on the standard, slick Goodyear tires, chasing down race leader Alex Bowman, who was on wet-weather tires.
When Bowman took the white flag, which came a lap following the conclusion time of 8:20 p.m. CT, Reddick passed road-course ringer Joey Hand for second. The No. 45 Toyota was more than 3.5 seconds behind the No. 48 Chevrolet.
With the track drying rapidly, Reddick was taking chunks of time out of his deficit behind Bowman. In the previous lap, Reddick was more than two seconds quicker. And through the first four corners of the white flag lap, he chopped off half the gap, setting himself up nicely for the back half of the course.
Reddick’s hunt for the race win went awry in Turn 5, however, bouncing off the inside wall. That stopped all of his momentum and he limped around the course to hang on to second, ahead of his Toyota teammate Ty Gibbs. Bowman scored the victory, snapping an 80-race winless streak.
“I would have gotten there,” Reddick said. “What would have happened once I got there, who knows? The plaza turn, Turn 8 to Turn 12, that part of the race track hadn’t been my best part of the race track all weekend. Certainly, we would have gotten really close. It seemed like, even on the dries, the driest lane, there was more braking potential, more grip potential at the very end even if you were in some of the damp track.
“I think I would have gotten there. [Bowman] would have fought hard, but unfortunately, we will never know.”
Reddick simply miscalculated Turn 5. It was a mistake that could have given the No. 45 team five additional playoff points, one week after missing out on an overtime victory at Nashville Superspeedway when drivers were in limbo of making it to the end on fuel.
“I clearly just screwed up,” Reddick added. “Trying to stay in the dry groove and I had more than enough of a dry groove. I cut the wheel a little too hard.
“Just not focused enough, I guess. I knew I was going to get to him. I knew the earlier I could get to him the more options I was going to have.”
When the race restarted for the final time, Reddick was 13th. Over the final five laps, he gained 11 positions. The runner-up finish marks consecutive top-five finishes for the No. 45 team. Dating back to the Coca-Cola 600 in late May, Reddick has six finishes of eighth or better over the last seven races. The lone outlier was a 22nd-place effort at the Cup Series’ inaugural race at Iowa Speedway.
By scoring 37 points at Chicago, Reddick moved up to third in the regular season standings, 23 points behind regular season championship leader Kyle Larson.