What looked to perhaps be a runaway in the point standings for DAYTONA 500 winner Tyler Reddick, has now become a compelling competitive duel with none other than one of his 23XI Racing team owners, Joe Gibbs Racing’s veteran Denny Hamlin, who is turning in a title comeback for the ages.
Reddick heads into Sunday night’s Quaker State 400 Available at Walmart at Atlanta’s EchoPark Speedway (7 p.m. ET on TNT, PRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio) as the defending race winner. It’s where Reddick collected his second straight win to start the season – and did so convincingly, claiming pole position and leading the most laps.
The good vibes from that February race for Reddick can’t hurt. After having what looked like an insurmountable lead in the point standings in the Spring, Reddick has lost 173 points to Hamlin in the last seven races and now trails Hamlin by 44 points with seven races remaining in the regular season.
Reddick’s suffered three consecutive finishes of 25th or worse heading to Atlanta, but just as when he was leading the points by three digits, he has been calm in the turn of fortune.
“That’s racing,” said Reddick, driver of the No. 45 23XI Racing Toyota. “We had a really good start, and we were reminded about how fast things can change. The nice thing for us is that it seems like the speed is there and the potential is there, we were just finally served a dose of races not going our way.
“Some of it you could argue was inflicted on ourselves. What we need to have with our cars with our team we still do have. We got a couple of not good points days. Funny enough at Pocono we ran well but still lost points. That’s how high of a level we have to execute right now. We have to be scoring lots and lots of points, not just getting the finishes. So, we have to have clean days.”
If the points battle weren’t compelling enough, Atlanta’s 1.54-mile high banks have always been a thrill show – one of three drafting tracks (also Daytona International Speedway and Talladega Superspeedway) on the schedule, Atlanta has traditionally provided some of the most thrilling action of the season.
Reddick has reason to be optimistic. He scored two of his five season wins on drafting tracks – Daytona and Atlanta – while Hamlin – one of the sport’s best ever on drafting tracks hasn’t scored a top 10 on them yet this season. Reddick’s average finish is 5.33, while Hamlin’s is 19.67.
“The two races we have there, the track is very different between the two and that’s the fun thing about it,” Reddick said. “I do enjoy going back to some of these race tracks twice in the calendar year. It is nice when we do go twice and we have conditions change like they do. We go there in March, February and it’s cool, handling is not as big of an issue, and everyone packs up and races really tight.
“We got back there in the summer races it’s easier to slip up and easier to track. Cars get more spread out because handling is important. So, every time we come back for the second date when it’s warm the racing is just a bit different and that’s one thing I enjoy about that event.”
Beyond the position there has been a lot of recent movement elsewhere in the standings with only seven races left to decide which 16 drivers advance to The Chase.
Roush Fenway Keselowski Racing, which had an inspired start to the year, is still looking for its first trophy and now only has one of its three cars safely inside the Chase field – Chris Buescher in seventh place. Ryan Preece dropped out of the 16th position after last week’s 32nd-place run at Chicagoland and owner-driver Brad Keselowski has fallen from ninth to 20th in the standings in the last seven weeks.
Speaking to the strength of competition, Legacy Motor Club’s Erik Jones, now in 16th place and Keselowski in 20th place are only separated by 19 points heading into Atlanta.
Three-time NASCAR Cup Series champion Joey Logano sits in 18th place in the standings, only 16 points behind Jones in that cutoff position. The polesitter in this race last year, Logano the driver of the No. 22 Team Penske Ford, has two wins at Atlanta including this race in 2024. He started on the outside of the front row in February and finished 18th.
The Penske team is tops in laps led at the newly configured Atlanta track and leads all other teams with nine wins in 18 stages. Logano is still racing for his first stage win of the season.
The $1 million to-win In-Season Challenge continues to provide upsets and must-see racing as well. This week pits a couple initial longshots – Hendrick Motorsports’ Alex Bowman against Front Row Motorsports’ Todd Gilliland and a battle of “Chases” with last week’s Chicago winner, JGR’s Chase Briscoe up against Georgia’s own, defending Atlanta race winner, Hendrick Motorsport’s Chase Elliott.
The other quarterfinal bracket features a teammate duel between JGR’s Hamlin and Christopher Bell. Penske’s Ryan Blaney versus Hendrick’s William Byron make up the final head-to-head battle in what has been a compelling subplot to the summer competition televised on TNT.
NASCAR Cup Series’ Busch Light Pole Qualifying is Saturday at 4:30 p.m. ET (truTV, PRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio). Logano won pole position for this race last year. Reddick won from pole position at Atlanta this February.
— NASCAR News Wire —