by Reid Scearce
Tyler Reddick has had a tumultuous summer in NASCAR’s 2026 season. The stretch has been characterized by a lack of late-race execution, mechanical failures, and on-track incidents that have severely limited the number of points Reddick has collected. It’s also a stretch in which Reddick’s 97-point advantage over second-place Denny Hamlin in the Regular Season Championship was completely erased in a matter of weeks.
Tyler Reddick, driver of the 23XI Racing No. 45 Toyota Camry, got off to a historically hot start, becoming the first driver in NASCAR history to earn victories in the first three races of a season. Those wins included his first Daytona 500, with victories at EchoPark Speedway and Circuit of the Americas. He then added two more wins at Darlington and Kansas, giving him five victories through the first nine races. Since then, however, it’s been an uphill climb for the California native.
Michigan
As June rolled in, the No. 45 team saw their dominant spring campaign start to unravel. It started at Michigan during what had been a stage-winning and competitive day for Reddick, when Carson Hocevar triggered a large accident on a Stage 2 restart, collecting multiple drivers, with Reddick as one of them, and giving him his first DNF of the 2026 season.
Pocono and San Diego
A second-place finish at Pocono the next week looked like a quick recovery, but it seemed to be a flash in the pan for the No. 45 team, which would continue to struggle. The following week, at NASCAR’s inaugural race weekend at Naval Base Coronado in San Diego, Reddick would find himself battling for the win in the closing laps against his part-time teammate Corey Heim, despite struggling with pace for almost the entire day. However, a flat tire would take him out of contention and cause him to finish 25th.
Sonoma
The following race at Sonoma Raceway would prove to be no different. While running inside the top 15, Reddick’s race was derailed by a power steering failure that forced him behind the wall for extended repairs. While he would come back out on track to run the fastest lap, he’d end up finishing 36th. Reddick would now exit the race a single point behind his car owner, Denny Hamlin.
Chicagoland
This past weekend was yet again another dismal finish for the driver of the No. 45. Going into the eero 400 at Chicagoland Speedway with only one point separating him from Denny Hamlin, Reddick and his team would attempt to reclaim the top spot in the regular-season championship standings. The night, however, took a turn for the worse when the car started leaking fluid on the windshield. Over the radio, Reddick stated that he was barely able to see the entrance to pit road. The team was immediately able to diagnose the mechanical failure as a catastrophic loss of the radiator and the oil cooler. Crew members were once again forced to push the car behind the wall.
“Temperatures did not exceed normal. Temperatures were fine. It was just oil pressure,” Reddick later explained after climbing from the car, taking blame for not noticing the issue sooner. “I’m sorry. I never heard anything. I never saw anything.”
While the 23XI crew managed to repair the car and send Reddick back out on track to salvage microscopic fractions of points through attrition, he finished 36th for the second straight week.
Hamlin Gains Ground
Meanwhile, Hamlin used the opportunity to finish in third place at Chicagoland, putting a 44-point gap between himself and Reddick. Over the span of one month, Hamlin went from 97 points behind Reddick to 44 points ahead, in a 131-point swing.
Reddick Loses Ground
First 15 Races
Wins: 5
Average Finish: 6.67
Last 5 Races
Wins: 0
Average Finish: 26,8
Chase Outlook
With five wins already locked in, Reddick’s spot in the postseason is entirely secure. Not even Denny Hamlin can strip away the history he made in February and March. However, the padding of his regular-season point buffer is officially gone, and with it, the crucial 100 postseason points awarded to the regular-season champion is no longer his.
Luckily for Reddick, NASCAR will be in Atlanta this weekend for EchoPark Speedway’s second date of the season. Reddick won the event earlier in the spring, making this weekend an important opportunity for 23XI Racing to determine whether this summer slump is merely a temporary string of bad luck or a deeper structural leak in their championship boat.
