TALLADEGA, Ala. – After a myriad of issues threatened to take him out of contention in Saturday’s MoneyLion 300, Tyler Reddick rose above the chaos and claimed a thrilling victory at Talladega Superspeedway.
Reddick, who won the first 25-lap stage but got busted for speeding during the stage break, had to rally back through the field and even survived contact with the outside wall in the late laps of stage two.
He finally worked his way back inside the top 10 inside of 25 to go and found himself in position on a restart with 13 laps left, when Christopher Bell got a shove to the race lead from Austin Cindric.
The next time around, Reddick knifed his way to the inside of Chase Briscoe to take second, one lap before he pulled a similar maneuver on Bell to wrest the top spot away from the field for good.
After that, Reddick was a master of blocking, swinging from top to bottom with the guidance of spotter Derek Kneeland and holding off a furious last-lap charge from Gray Gaulding to collect the victory.
Reddick crossed under the checkered flag in front by .127 seconds for his fourth career Xfinity Series win, first of the season and first at the 2.66-mile Alabama oval.
By virtue of his win, Reddick became the third Dash 4 Cash contender in as many races to collect the $100,000 bonus check in victory lane.
“Derek did a hell of a job for me there at the end,” Reddick said. “I tried to take us out of this race so many times, and somehow, we got back in the mix and got back to the lead. What a day.”
Reddick noted that the two turning points in the race for him were on lap 66, when a timely debris caution spared him just as he was about to go a lap down, and with 19 to go when he snaked through a seven-car crash at the end of the backstretch that could have just as easily ended his afternoon.
“It was just a wild day. We had a great car and the day started off great,” Reddick said. “Then it started to unravel there for a while, but when I missed the wreck where the 00 (Cole Custer) and the 1 (Michael Annett) got caught up and I somehow got through … I knew there had to be a reason I hadn’t wrecked.
“It was just a lot of fun to work back to the front, and when we finally broke out where we needed to, we were able to go get it and park in victory lane at the end of the day.”
After Reddick took command, a debris caution – followed by a second seven-car crash on the backstretch that was sparked by a four-wide situation gone wrong – set up a two-lap sprint to the finish in regulation.
Reddick got a huge shove to the race lead by fellow Dash 4 Cash contender Austin Cindric on the final restart, but was quickly hounded by Briscoe down the backstretch for the lead and the win.
Though Reddick saw off that charge at the white flag, Briscoe was swallowed up by Virginia young gun Gray Gaulding in turns one and two as Gaulding slipped past and looked to write a potential underdog story for Bobby Dotter’s SS Green Light Racing on the final lap.
However, Briscoe swung up to stall Gaulding’s momentum, allowing Reddick to cruise home to the win.
The runner-up performance was still a career-best for Gaulding, however, and a watershed moment for the 21-year-old in his NASCAR career.
“That was awesome,” Gaulding told SPEED SPORT. “I tried every single trick in the handbook to try and get it done, but the 98 (Briscoe) got a huge run, went up to block me and it just killed my momentum, man. It was close; I think I could have gotten to Tyler … maybe, but this is still an incredible day for us.
“This is Talladega. This is what every driver dreams of. We had a shot to win and I drove my heart out.”
After being passed by Reddick for the final lead change of the day, Bell finished third ahead of the Fords of Briscoe and Cindric.
John Hunter Nemechek, Justin Haley, Josh Williams, Landon Cassill and Chris Cockrum completed the top 10.
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