A winless stretch, early race chaos, and a string of frustrating results—Tyler Reddick openly admitted things weren’t clicking this season. But when the playoff picture began to tighten, something shifted. The Daytona cutoff race saw him survive a near-disastrous lap 18 collision, claw his way back, and snag the final postseason berth. And when the playoffs roared to life at Darlington, Reddick didn’t just find pace but unleashed it. Locked in a fierce chase with Chase Briscoe, he came up just 0.4 seconds short of victory, but the message was clear: the No. 45 is done playing catch-up. With Gateway just hours away, could he etch a different finish?

But hang on, let’s rewind a bit. On the first lap of the Southern 500 at Darlington Raceway, Josh Berry clipped the No. 45 Toyota, sending it dangerously close to the wall. Somehow, the 29-year-old gathered it up, kept his composure, and turned what could have been a disaster into one of his strongest runs of the season. From there, the 23XI Racing driver put on a charge, showcasing blistering speed and keeping himself in the fight for his first-ever crown jewel win. But under the final green flag run, he couldn’t find a way around a near-perfect Chase Briscoe, who led more than 300 laps and refused to give him an opening. And as the dust settles on Darlington, Reddick has done some introspection about his race.

Speaking to FOX’s Bob Pockrass, the 23XI Racing ace said, “It’s pretty equal, yeah. I mean, the goal going into the, the, the, the playoff goal, if you will, going into that race was to. Try to score the most amount of points. Obviously, the 19 (Chase Briscoe), that group did score more than we did. But aside from him, you know, we did score a bunch of points and move ourselves from below to above the cut. So that was what we needed to do for sure. Umm, more selfishly, I guess, for myself as a driver, yeah, the goal this past trip to Darlington was to win, and we were in a position to capitalize. On some of the others, misfortune, you know, it just essentially came down to, you know, a combination of just not getting by the 19 on that last restart, and then just the track was a little tricky to keep up with towards the end, and we just missed the balance. ” 

Climbing out of his car after a gritty second-place finish, Reddick knew how close he had come to locking himself into the Round of 12. From the get-go in stage one, Reddick clawed his way to second behind Chase Briscoe. And he didn’t ease off; stage two was more of the same, with him once again clutching P2, building momentum and playoff points while staying close to Briscoe’s tail. He left Darlington fourth in the playoff standings with a healthy 35-point cushion over the cut line, a solid safety net heading into World Wide Technology Raceway and Bristol Motor Speedway, where a couple of clean, consistent runs could seal his advancement.

The No. 45 driver added, “It was really the first time all night I think we that we missed it that far so. No one is that close. Umm, and not be able to capitalize dusting, but umm, you know, it’s done. It’s in the past. We move on to Gateway, and now, you know, the tension is shifted to trying to score, you know, 30-40 points somewhere. And I think we’ll pretty much not have to worry about Bristol. I can go in there and try and figure out. We have a good weekend, at Gateway, what we’ve been missing in Bristol, not have the pressure of having score points would be great, so we can really try to nail down whatever it is we’ve been missing there over the last couple of years.”

Tyler Reddick’s run at Gateway hasn’t exactly been a smooth boulevard. Across three career Cup Series starts at the 1.25-mile Missouri oval, he hasn’t visited victory lane, though he has snagged one top-five and one top-20 finish. His average finish of 18.3 ranks among the tougher stretches on his NASCAR map. Still, the forecast isn’t all gray—Reddick has posted consistent results in recent races at the track, finishing 12th or better in six of his last 10 starts overall.

But amid the looming pressure and his team undergoing one of the nastiest lawsuit battles, Kevin Harvick believes that it serves as a distraction for the 23XI Racing driver.

Kevin Harvick sounds off on the impact of the lawsuit on Tyler Reddick and teammates’ performance

For Tyler Reddick and Bubba Wallace, the grind of racing has come with a side dish they never ordered: a storm of off-track drama. While the two wheelmen have been chasing speed and consistency, their team has been making headlines for reasons far removed from lap times.

Co-owners Denny Hamlin and Michael Jordan are leading a high-profile lawsuit accusing NASCAR of running a monopoly, and even though the drivers aren’t directly involved, they have been forced into the conversation. And NASCAR veteran Kevin Harvick sees it for what it is  — an unwelcome distraction. Speaking on his Happy Hour podcast, the 2014 Cup champion said:

“I don’t know the conversations behind closed doors that they’re having, but they (Tyler Reddick and Bubba Wallace) don’t have the same motivation that Denny Hamlin has to fight this fight in the middle of everything with everything that’s going on. They want to do their job because they signed up, and they’re taking another year out of their career to go out and drive the car and try to perform and try to win a championship. I have to imagine it’s somewhat annoying, but when your cars run like they did this weekend, that’s all you care about.”

But if there is any frustration bubbling under the surface, Darlington didn’t show it. With that kind of pace, 23XI Racing looks primed for a long postseason push, legal noise or not.