Dillon, Reddick give RCR 1-2 finish at Texas

[July 20, 2020]  The salad days of challenging for NASCAR Cup Series championships and logging multiple victories per season are long gone at Richard Childress Racing.

But on Sunday at Texas Motor Speedway, the good times made a return as RCR drivers Austin Dillon and Tyler Reddick finished first and second respectively in the O'Reilly Auto Parts 500.

The victory was the first for Dillon since 2018 and just the third of his 247-race career. It ended an 88-race winless streak.

"Not bad for a silver spoon kid," said Dillon, who is the grandson of Childress, the team owner. "I'll take that."

The win puts Dillon into the playoffs. He started the day 16th in points and held the lead through three late restarts. Up front with him on the restarts was Reddick.

"Tyler Reddick raced me clean," Dillon said. "One-two for RCR. "This has been coming. We've had good cars all year."

The runner-up finish was a career best for Reddick, who has been a pleasant surprise in his rookie season of 2020.

Reddick, who finished .149 seconds behind his teammate, appeared very capable of becoming the second rookie to win in the last two races. Cole Custer of Stewart-Haas Racing won at Kentucky last weekend.

"It was about strategy." Reddick said. "We just couldn't get our Camaro back in contention after we took right side (tires). It really shifted the balance of our Camaro. It just put us behind.

"We had to catch a few breaks. Some cars got collected in carnage we avoided. Can't ask for much more than what we got there. Me and my teammate on the front row there the last couple of restarts."

How close was Reddick to winning? Very, he said.

"There was one restart where I could have went to his (Dillon's) right side," Reddick said. "I just wanted it to be between us. I didn't want to bring other cars into it."

The 1-2 finish was the first in nine years for RCR, the team for which Dale Earnhardt Sr. won six of his seven championships.

It all came courtesy of a series of late race wrecks and cautions at steaming hot TMS, as several drivers who led large hunks of laps got caught in unplanned pitting sequences.

Among those drivers were Ryan Blaney and Denny Hamlin, who each managed big leads during the day.

Joey Logano of Team Penske, Kyle Busch of Joe Gibbs Racing and Kevin Harvick of Stewart-Haas Racing - all of whom appeared to have cars strong enough to win - wound up third through fifth respectively.

Seven-time champion Jimmie Johnson has dominated at TMS with seven wins - four more than anybody else in the field - but on Sunday, the track dominated Johnson and his Hendrick Motorsports team. He had a fast car but pit penalties, a brush with the wall and a third-stage wreck, negated impressive drives up through the field. He finished 26th, 12 laps off the pace.

Chase Elliott, who won the NASCAR All-Star Race at Bristol Motor Speedway last Wednesday evening, twice failed pre-race inspection and was sent to the rear of the field for the start. He had originally drawn the eighth starting position. But he steadily battled back, spent most of the race among the leaders and finished 12th.

--Field Level Media

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