After a phenomenal start to the 2026 season, followed by an agonizing dry spell, Tyler Reddick returned to Victory Lane on Sunday—and simultaneously did NASCAR Cup Series leader Kyle Larson a significant favor.
Snookering the top contenders in the Chase presented by Mobil 1 after a restart on Lap 294, Reddick surged past Chase Briscoe into the lead a lap later and pulled away to beat runner-up Ryan Blaney by 0.801 seconds in the Freeway Insurance 500, as Briscoe faded to eighth on older tires.
Reddick’s sixth win of the season and first at Phoenix Raceway, combined with Larson’s catastrophic 34th-place result, brought seven drivers into the mix for the series championship with three races left.
The driver of the No. 45 23XI Racing Toyota won five of the first nine races this season, including the first three, but since then had endured a winless streak of 23 races.
“That’s way too long,” a relieved Reddick said after performing a massive celebratory burnout in front of the main grandstand. “Man, the way we worked there, I mean, thinking of Phoenix, we wanted to be a lot better when we came back here (after the March race). I think we checked that box.
“For us, this group never lost motivation, never lost the drive to keep searching and keep trying to find ways to make ourselves better, just be an all-around better team… Just something about today, I had a really good feeling. Practice was amazing. Yeah, we’re back to Victory Lane.”
Before Sunday’s race at the one-mile speedway, Larson led second-place Denny Hamlin by 49 points with four races left in the postseason. After Reddick won for the 14th time in his career, there are now six drivers within 56 points of the Chase leader.
Fourth-place finisher Christopher Bell climbed one spot in the standings and trails Larson by five points, having trimmed 46 points from his previous deficit to the driver of the No. 5 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet.
“We’re right there in it,” said Bell, who led a race-high 85 laps and finished third in each of the first two stages. “Really proud of our team. They’ve been doing a really good job of bringing fast race cars, executing races. We’ve been able to qualify well and run up front in stages.
“I felt like our performance probably tapered off a little bit as the day went on. We had the strategy to put tires there at the end, had good restarts to get some track position. We’re in the hunt.”
Briscoe is 24 points back in third place, followed by Hamlin, who fell from second to fourth but gained 18 points to 31 back, despite a blown tire that relegated him to 28th at the finish.
“The beginning was not great, and once we got back in traffic, I thought the second half of the race we were really strong,” said Hamlin, who was trapped a lap down after pitting with a shredded tire on Lap 221 and incurring a speeding penalty.
“Could contend for the win. Just right there with the 19 (Briscoe) when the tire blew (while battling) for third.”
Blaney, the pole winner, is 40 points in arrears, followed by Team Penske teammate Joey Logano, who swept the first two stages of Sunday’s race and is 44 points behind Larson after a sixth-place run.
“It was good and bad, I guess,” said Logano, who led 84 laps but lost track position on pit road. “The good part is that we were fast and led a bunch of laps and won two stages.
“The bad part is we gave away a win. That part hurts a little bit, but I guess we made up close to 50 points to the leader, so you can’t be too mad about it. I wish we had it back.”
After qualifying 22nd Larson struggled from the outset in a car that lacked speed. Despite a two-tire call that vaulted him temporarily to fifth, Larson remained 22nd at the end of Stage 1. From that point, his race went from bad to worse.
On Lap 283 Larson blew a tire in Turn 1, slammed the outside wall and retired from the event, scoring just three points for his efforts, compared with Reddick, who notched 61.
“We never found the improvements we needed, so that was a bummer,” Larson said. “I didn’t expect to be good, but I didn’t expect to be that bad either. It wasn’t a lot of fun today, but we were just trying to salvage what we could of the day.
“We’ll go to Talladega and try to forget about today and get back after it. We’ve done well at the superspeedways, so hopefully we can execute, get some points and keep ourselves in the hunt.”
The only saving grace for Larson was that Reddick’s win kept him in the series lead. Either Bell, Briscoe or Hamlin could have taken the top spot in the Chase with a victory.
Larson’s teammate, Chase Elliott finished third but remains 149 points out of the Chase lead. Reddick’s teammate, Bubba Wallace, led 52 laps and had control of the race in the final stage before a pit road speeding penalty under caution for Larson’s accident knocked him back to 17th at the finish.
Corey Heim came home fifth, followed by Logano, Daniel Suarez, Briscoe, Ross Chastain and Ty Gibbs.
All told, there were six cautions for 43 laps and 21 lead changes among 10 drivers. Reddick led the only the final 18 laps after a lane opened up for him soon after the final restart.
“Yeah, just got really fortunate,” Reddick said. “I didn’t have a good launch. There was a hole. I was able to get through it. I thought the 19 (Briscoe) was going to be able to cover the move into (Turn) 3.
“I got him loose. We checked out.”
The NASCAR Cup Chase continues next Sunday with the YellaWood 500 at Talladega Superspeedway (2 p.m. ET on NBC, MRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).
— NASCAR News Wire —
See race details at: Race Results, Driver Points Standings, Owner Points Standings, Cumulative Report, Infraction Report.
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