KANSAS CITY, Kan. — We’ve all heard the expression, “I’d rather be lucky than good.”
“Why not both?” Tyler Reddick could have asked on Sunday afternoon.
To be sure, it takes consummate skill and excellent equipment to win five of the first nine races in a NASCAR Cup Series season. After all, no other driver had accomplished that feat since NASCAR Hall of Famer Dale Earnhardt won six of the first nine events in 1987.
It took an 11th-hour twist of fate, however, for Reddick to win the AdventHealth 400 at Kansas Speedway.
Enter Cody Ware. In the closing laps, as Reddick was chasing Denny Hamlin, who co-owns the 23XI Racing cars Reddick drives, Ware was trying to nurse his No. 51 Chevrolet to the finish line on tires that were more than 60 laps old—well beyond their useful life at Kansas.
Ware already had scraped the outside wall, but he soldiered on as Reddick caught and passed Hamlin for the lead on Lap 258 and held the top spot for seven laps.Re
Inexplicably, Reddick’s No. 45 Toyota sputtered, though crew chief Billy Scott asserted later that the car was not out of fuel. Confused by the momentary loss of fuel pickup, Reddick switched to a secondary pump.
“I lost focus, unfortunately, and drove it right into the fence,” Reddick said.
The burp in the fuel system and contact with the outside wall slowed Reddick and allowed Hamlin to regain the lead on Lap 265 of 267, but before Hamlin could take the white flag, Ware’s Camaro spun in Turn 4 to cause the only caution of the race for an on-track incident.
Deprived of the chance to win in regulation, Hamlin pitted for new right-side tires before overtime. Reddick did the same, and so did Kyle Larson, the two-time defending winner of the spring race at Kansas.
Moments after Hamlin led the field to green for the two-lap overtime shootout, Larson steered to the bottom of the track, put Hamlin three-wide in the middle and took the lead in what looked like a done deal for the reigning series champion.
But Reddick’s car handled better than Larson’s on two new tires, and after bouncing off the Toyota of Christopher Bell, Reddick pursued Larson and passed him through the final two turns for the win.
Let’s back up for a moment. As Reddick was chasing Hamlin in the closing laps of regulation, as luck would have it, Hamlin approached the lapped car of Kyle Busch. Earlier in the week, Busch had taken umbrage at comments Hamlin had made on his podcast “Actions Detrimental.”
The day before the race, Busch had commented, “He can bash me all he wants, and I can make his life hell.” As Hamlin approached Busch’s Chevrolet on the 1.5-mile track, Busch tried to do just that, making his car as difficult to pass as possible. Hamlin lost a half-second to Reddick in the process.
“When the 8 (Busch) was in front of him, I just had a feeling that was how it was going to go down,” said Reddick, who had a front-row seat for the action. “It certainly helped us catch the 11 (Hamlin) faster.”
Nevertheless, when Reddick had his fuel issue and scraped the wall, Hamlin regained control and was headed for victory until Ware spun.
Reddick’s good fortune, however, has a converse, and Hamlin seemingly has been star-crossed since last November, when he dominated the Cup Series Championship Race at Phoenix, only to be foiled by a caution with three laps left.
At Martinsville on March 29, Hamlin led 292 of 400 laps in the fastest car but was snookered when Chase Elliott short-pitted to gain the lead. On Sunday at Kansas, the car Hamlin drives was beaten by a car he owns, thanks to the ill-timed caution.
Hamlin’s friend and 23XI Racing co-owner Michael Jordan didn’t lighten Hamlin’s mood after the race.
“Look, I’m racing against Denny,” said the NBA Hall of Famer. “I really wanted to beat him, because I know we’re going to talk a lot of trash a little bit later.”
On pit road, Jordan gave Hamlin a hug, ruffled his baseball cap and pretended to choke Hamlin’s neck.
The score so far this year? Reddick: five wins to one for Hamlin and two for Joe Gibbs Racing (Hamlin and Ty Gibbs).
Perhaps it was because he was runner-up, perhaps because he had somewhere else to be, but Hamlin didn’t appear for a post-race press conference as car owner after a Reddick victory for the first time this season. Team president Steve Lauletta did the honors.
There is a place of solace for the bad luck that has followed Hamlin and the No. 11 team—victory lane. For his sake, that’s a visit that should come sooner rather than later.
