Reddick Takes Second Career Win at Indianapolis

Photo Credit to Justin Casterline/Getty Images for NASCAR

NASCAR

Tyler Reddick Takes Win Number Two From Indianapolis Road Course

SPEEDWAY, Ind. – For the last two road course races now, Tyler Reddick has ended up in victory lane. After a few clutch late restarts, the 8 held off every challenge, taking his second career victory. Reddick was the class of the field all day, winning as the fastest man in town. Is Reddick the new king of the road courses? He’s the only repeat road course winner so far in 2022.

Starting on pole, Reddick took off early. The 8 had a multi-second lead by lap five, only to short-pit Stage 1. This handed the opening Stage win to Chase Briscoe.

Ryan Blaney inherited the lead to start Stage 2, and took off on this restart. Much like with Reddick though in Stage 1, Blaney chose to pit early from the lead. Stage 2’s win went to Christopher Bell.

Once the final Stage started, the race for the right pit strategy was on. Bell initially took off, but everyone still had to make one more pit stop. Bell would lose the lead to Reddick, then they both pitted just outside of 30 to go.

Reddick would initially beat Bell off pit road, but Ryan Blaney made a daring fuel-only stop from the lead with 30 to go. The 12 would come out between both Reddick and Bell, setting up a great three-way battle for the win.

The first caution for an on-track incident occurred on lap 62, when Kyle Larson lost his brakes. Going uncontrollably into turn one, the 5 took out the 42 of Ty Dillon at full speed. Thankfully both drivers walked away after this scary incident.

On the restart, Reddick held the lead but Blaney took second over Bell. On older tires though, Blaney eventually fell back, as Chase Elliott took second away with nine laps left.

With six to go, Christopher Bell blew a tire and shed debris, triggering another caution. On the restart, Chase Elliott got spun from second in turn two. Austin Dillon eventually getting stuck in the gravel would bring out another immediate caution. Joey Logano also made a daring move into turn one, triggering the initial chaos.

On the overtime restart, Ross Chastain went straight through the access road, initially drawing even with Reddick for the lead. However, Chastain would be later penalized for cutting the course, giving Reddick the victory over now-second place Austin Cindric. The penalty did not change the victor though, as Reddick muscled his way back by Chastain coming to the white flag.

“I couldn’t believe he got ahead of me,” Reddick said of Chastain’s move. “I was kind of waiting to see if he was going to have a penalty because I didn’t want to move him out of the way and make his race worse than what it was. Yeah, I was really surprised by that; but hey, we made it work. Hats off to Ross (Chastain) for trying to do that, but really glad it didn’t end up working out because I’d have been pretty pissed off.”

“We just know what we’re capable of, and we did that at Road America. Certainly it was a little bump in the road, but we went out and won a race fair and square a couple weeks ago. And if we change nothing, we keep working really, really hard, we find a way back to Victory Lane.”

“Just really glad to be able to do it here in Indianapolis. This is one really special place to race, and really excited to kiss the bricks here in a little bit and really excited we got 3CHI their win in their hometown.”

Behind Reddick in the top five were three rookies: Austin Cindric, Harrison Burton, and Todd Gilliland, then Bubba Wallace in fifth. Joey Logano, AJ Allmendinger, Michael McDowell, Cole Custer, and Chris Buescher were the top 10. While Chastain took the checkers second, his course-cutting move relegated him to 27th.

With his second win in just five weeks, Tyler Reddick officially locks the Richard Childress Racing No. 8 team into the Playoffs. Behind him, the cut line gap only grew, as Kevin Harvick had an early retirement. See below for the provisional Playoff standings with four regular season races left.

The next stop for the NASCAR Cup Series will be Michigan International Speedway. The high speed two-mile oval will be one driver’s chance at a Playoff berth, or all-important bonus points. Coverage of the FireKeepers Casino 400 is Sunday at 3:00 p.m. ET on USA Network, MRN, and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio Channel 90. Last year’s Michigan winner Ryan Blaney is still winless in 2022, so the 12 is hoping for a repeat performance.

Written by Peter Stratta

Be sure to follow us on Twitter

Be sure to follow the writer on Twitter

Photo Credit to Justin Casterline/Getty Images for NASCAR