Tyler Reddick works OT in Texas, gets first win of season
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[March 27, 2023]
Tyler Reddick's road-racing prowess grew even bigger in Texas
on Sunday afternoon.
Reddick passed William Byron with five laps to go, withstood a
charge by Kyle Busch in three NASCAR overtimes and won the EchoPark
Automotive Grand Prix road course race in Austin.
After passing Byron's No. 24 Chevrolet in Turn 11 with five circuits
remaining, Reddick's No. 45 Toyota led the field and beat Busch's
No. 8 Chevy in three green-white-checker finishes for his first
victory this season.
In winning the Cup Series' third annual event at the 3.41-mile,
20-turn Circuit of the Americas, Reddick recorded his fourth career
victory -- three coming on road courses (Road America, Indianapolis
Road Course).
"This means the world. This whole 23XI team has been working so
long, all winter long, to make the road-course program better. I'm
out of gas," a visibly exhausted Reddick said.
Busch came in second. He was followed by Alex Bowman, Ross Chastain
and Byron to complete the top five.
In his first season at Richard Childress Racing, Busch is competing
in the car driven by Reddick in 2022.
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"I don't know that we could have (passed), even on equal tires,"
said Busch, who scored his second top-five finish so far. "When we
tested here, they were lights out. They had us beat on the front
side of runs. We needed longer runs.
"But even today, for some reason, we didn't have great long-run
speed. ... Tyler's obviously a really good road racer. He proved it
driving this car (Busch's No. 8) here last year."
Sports car specialist Jordan Taylor started the No. 9 Hendrick
Motorsports Chevy in place of an injured Chase Elliott and finished
24th.
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Mar 26, 2023; Austin, Texas, USA; NASCAR
Cup Series driver Tyler Reddick (45) is introduced at Circuit of the
Americas. Mandatory Credit: Daniel Dunn-USA TODAY Sports
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Former Formula 1 champions Jenson Button (18th
place) and Kimi Raikkonen (29th) made their season debuts.
In his 400th career start, A.J. Allmendinger brought his No. 16
Chevy home in 34th. Road racer Conor Daly finished 36th.
By earning his ninth career top qualifying spot, Hendrick
Motorsports' Byron paced the 39-car field to the start of the 68-lap
race, which was debuting the use of NASCAR's new low-downforce
package on a road course.
After an incident on Lap 11 involving Bubba Wallace, Kyle Larson and
Denny Hamlin, Byron took the lead during the race's first caution
period.
With NASCAR's new road-racing rule of not having cautions at its
stages, Byron restarted at the point and earned the first segment's
bonus points -- his fourth stage win thus far -- as the race
restarted.
Reddick put his Camry back on the point as pit service cycled around
and won Stage 2 by nearly eight seconds over Austin Dillon.
--Field Level Media
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