Tyler Reddick has ice in his veins as he enters his first Cup Series championship 4. The California native is only in his second full season with the young 23XI Racing team, but he has already given them a regular-season championship, going head-to-head with NASCAR giants like Hendrick Motorsports, Joe Gibbs Racing, and Team Penske. And now when many veterans and former cup champions have failed, the #45 sits strong in the championship 4, eying his and 23XI Racing’s first title.

Naturally, since it’s his first final-four appearance, the nerves are expected to be all over the place, but the 28-year-old is having none of that. Ahead of what is probably the biggest race of his career yet, Reddick feels relaxed, as if he’s been here before. Well, hasn’t he? After all, Tyler Reddick is a multiple-time Xfinity Series champion and plans to use the same mantra he did prepping for his Xfinity finals.

How is Tyler Reddick so calm ahead of his first Cup title race?

Reddick has risen through the ranks in NASCAR, debuting in the ARCA Menards Series in 2012 to running his first Truck Series race in 2013. He was quick to adapt, finishing 2nd in only his second full season in the 2015 Truck Series season. In 2017, Reddick was promoted to the Xfinity Series, running a few races. And he became the champion in the only two full seasons that he ran (2018, 2019). In fact, in 2019, he dominated it all, with 6 wins, 24 top 5s, and 27 top 10s, he first won the regular season championship and then also the title.

Fast forward to 2024, he’s already the regular season champion and is now in the finale and in strong contention to bag a title. According to him, his Xfinity championship 4 days have prepped him on how to remain calm. Tyler Reddick, in a conversation at SiriusXM NASCAR Radio, was asked how he pretends that the Phoenix race is just another day.

To this, he said, “I don’t pretend that it doesn’t mean something. The meaningfulness of the moment of this whole path to get here to justify your hard work and everything that you have done. Yet it’s important when you wake up on race day to not be caught up in that moment too much. And I feel like when I have done this in my Xfinity days. I remember waking up feeling good not thinking about a whole lot. Just going through the day and getting in the car and getting to work.”

Reddick is going up against former Cup champions Joey Logano (2018, 2022) and also defending champion Ryan Blaney. Even William Byron is a seasoned veteran, having been in the championship 4 only last year. Despite Reddick being the only one who’s doing this for the first time, he seems to have his plan sorted. “I feel like all the taking in would somewhat be done by Saturday night. I feel like when I wake up on Sunday, I don’t think there will be much on my mind when I wake up on Sunday. It’s going to be what’s in hand, thinking about lot of things but that point I feel like it would be time to go. Go out there and do what we need to do.”

It’s a bit surprising to see the #45 this calm since the Phoenix Raceway hasn’t been one of his stronger tracks.

How does Tyler Reddick fare at Phoenix?

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Reddick in the 9 races that he’s run here in the Cup Series, only twice has he finished in the top 5 and only thrice in the top 10. His spring race this year ended in a P10 finish but he did lead 68 laps. Except these, the 23XI driver has always finished 19th or worse on this track. His average finish is 17.9 on the track and what’s not motivating is that it’s the lowest amongst all his title rivals. Blaney is at 10.9, Byron is at 11.8 and lastly, Joey Logano has an average finish of 13.5 in Phoenix.

Speaking on his past performances here, Reddick said, “Yeah, I feel like in the past we’ve come to this weekend, I guess Cup, this has been the championship weekend. In the other years, the season is just getting rolling, you come in here, you go with what you know. I feel like I’ve ran well. When come back here for championship weekend when we haven’t been a part of it, it’s our opportunity to learn something, try something, take risks with strategy, It’s not always guaranteed to work out.”

However, even if we see his Xfinity stats, he’s never won here. In the four races he ran in the Xfinity Series, his best finish was 3rd place, the same as the Cup Series. However, the 2023 season finale has shown that you don’t need to win the Phoenix race to win the championship as Ryan Blaney finished in P2, yet it was better than the other 4, giving him the championship. But Reddick is confident that this time is different from his last ones. After all, this is the first time he is fighting for a title at Phoenix.

“It’s been hit-and-miss from that aspect. Certainly, when the car has been very capable, I’ve been able to find a way to get a little bit of speed out of it, get the speed that the car has out of it, have potentially good weekends. Even my first Cup race here, we wrecked out, had a part failure. Those things happen, but it’s nice to know when we really focus on this weekend, bringing what we know is going to work good, we’ve had speed,” he added. 

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