DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. – All Tyler Reddick needed was a clean race in the Cup Series regular-season finale at Daytona International Speedway. It was anything but that for the No. 45 team.
Less than 20 laps into Saturday’s Coke Zero Sugar 400, Reddick was nose-deep into the inside wall exiting Turn 4. He tangled with Todd Gilliland, spinning both cars in the process.
“I just screwed up, honestly, trying to get to the middle lane,” Reddick said. “The hole wasn’t there and just made a mistake.”
Reddick backed down pit road to the service of the Billy Scott-led No. 45 crew where the crew plastered bear bond over the hood and attempted to fix the splitter. The 2024 regular season champion knew he was in for a long night.
Reddick’s playoff chances were saved soon after the next restart. With 20 drivers needing to win in order to qualify for the postseason, he was racing Alex Bowman for what could be the final playoff spot on points. On Lap 26, Joey Logano got pinched between Kyle Busch and Bubba Wallace towards the front of the field, triggering a 12-car pileup on the frontstretch. Notably, Bowman received heavy damage, ending his evening.
Reddick was locked in to the playoffs on points, no matter the winner of the race.
“The wreck and carnage that happened right after our incident is pretty much what saved us,” Reddick stated. “I guess we didn’t get a winner, so maybe it wouldn’t have. It’s tough to be in the spot nonetheless and I made the night really hard for us.”
Anything that could go wrong has gone wrong for Reddick in recent months. He enters the playoffs with five top-five and nine top-10 finishes through the opening 26 events. With 10 races remaining in 2025, he can’t match his top 10 total from a Championship 4 run in 2024 (21). The No. 45 car has led 153 laps, on pace to be his fewest in three seasons with 23XI Racing.
Four of those top 10s came in the opening eight races of 2025. The No. 45 team limps into the postseason with five top 10s in the last 18 races, with 10 of those finishes being outside the top 15.
Reddick, who has won multiple races in the previous three seasons, enters the playoffs puzzled.
“I wish I could tell you,” Reddick said on his playoff outlook. “If things go well and we don’t make mistakes, I think we’re capable of doing well. We’ve made more mistakes than anything.”
The Round of 16 kicks off with the Southern 500 at Darlington Raceway where Reddick has four top-five finishes in the last seven attempts at “The Track Too Tough to Tame.” The middle race of the round is World Wide Technology Raceway at Gateway where he has one finish inside the top 15 (fourth in 2024) through three starts. It concludes with Bristol Motor Speedway, ranking among Reddick’s worst venues with an average finish of 20th in eight tries.
The main objective for Reddick is to just have clean races.
“I know the playoffs are here, but we just need to have a couple of weeks put together where we don’t have any issues,” Reddick added. “That would be great. If we can do that in the Round of 16, we will advance. We’ve been a mess: wrecked a lot, gave away a lot of races. It’s been a tough year, for sure.”
Reddick enters the playoffs as the No. 14 seed.