Despite winning five of the first nine races of the 2026 NASCAR Cup Series season, it took Tyler Reddick 24 races to get his sixth of the year at Phoenix Raceway on Sunday (Oct. 18).
Reddick led just 18 laps, but they all came in the final 18 laps of the race after using two fresh tires to pass Chase Briscoe for the lead. He had to hold off a late charge from Ryan Blaney, who ultimately finished second. Chase Elliott finished third, with Christopher Bell and Corey Heim rounding out the top five. Heim was one of only two non-Chase drivers to finish in the top 10, with the other being Ross Chastain in ninth.
Reddick’s win came on a day where Chase leader Kyle Larson had a bad day to cap off a bad weekend. Larson started 22nd on the afternoon, but gathered no stage points and ran midpack for most of the day. The day finally came apart for the No. 5 team on lap 284 when Larson lost a tire and hit the turn 1 wall. The crash relegated Larson to a 34th-place finish, scoring just three points on the afternoon.
As such, the field capitalized, including Reddick, who now sits in seventh in the points standings, just 56 points outside of the lead.
One driver who was thankful for a bad Larson finish was Denny Hamlin. Despite stage finishes of second and eighth, the No. 11 team finished a dismal 28th after a flat tire forced him to pit under green and caused him to lose a lap just before a caution came out. However, Hamlin was caught speeding on pit road, which made him ineligible for the wavearound. Hamlin was unable to get the lap back for the rest of the day, resulting in the sub-top-25 afternoon.
Even still, Hamlin’s haul of stage points offset the bad finish and allowed him to gain 18 points on Larson.
Hamlin and Larson weren’t the only drivers to suffer from a tire issue. Several drivers had tires go down throughout the afternoon, including both Legacy Motor Club drivers of Erik Jones and John Hunter Nemechek, as well as Ty Dillon and several more. Austin Dillon brought out a caution on lap 157 after blowing a right rear tire and spinning into the wall, ending his day. Cody Ware also brought out the caution that came mere seconds after Hamlin’s tire issue. Like everyone else, Ware’s crash was also a tire issue.
The end of the race also came down to tires, as Goodyear brought a compound that saw major falloff. Larson’s crash came about 20 laps after a round of green-flag pit stops. Most drivers came in for two or four tires, while some stayed out, including Chase Briscoe, who inherited the lead. Briscoe was one of the last to pit in the green flag cycle, and the No. 19 team gambled that their tires could hold off the slightly fresher two tires.
They could not. Briscoe fell way back through the field after he lost the lead to Reddick, who put two tires on and sailed away with the win.
After the major shakeup in the points, as things stand, the top seven drivers in the Chase standings are now separated by just 56 points with three races to go in the season. Larson is still the points leader, but holds only a five-point lead over second-place Bell.
None of the 16 Chase drivers have been mathematically eliminated from contention yet, as the maximum amount of points a driver can get in a race is 76, and 16th-place Ryan Preece sits 211 points back with a maximum of 228 points left to gain in the season, barring penalties.
It’s an important figure to keep in mind as the field heads to Talladega Superspeedway next week, where anything can happen and anyone can win. Just ask Carson Hocevar, who managed his first career Cup Series win there in the spring. Hocevar, who sits 11th in points, 158 back from Larson, could springboard a late championship challenge if he has a day like he did in the spring at NASCAR’s largest track.
Coverage for the YellaWood 500 begins at approximately 2 p.m. ET on Sunday, Oct. 25, with NBC carrying the television broadcast (check your local listings) and the Motor Racing Network and Sirius XM NASCAR Radio, Channel 90 carrying the radio broadcast.
Featured photo: NASCAR on Twitter/X.
