Tyler Reddick sure knows how to make a comeback. Only a week ago, the regular season champ sent his #45 Jordan Brand Toyota airborne and flipping on the infield grass at Vegas. This week at Homestead, he will lead the field to green for the second race of the Round of 8. The regular season champ will look to redeem himself after an average playoff run so far.

Thanks to NASCAR’s evolutionary safety mandates, stock car racing’s finest can take chances and push past the limit. But with incidents like Reddick’s, this sport keeps reminding us that even the best drivers must know when to hold back. Then again, the question remains: can a prime championship contender like Tyler Reddick truly hold back, with only two races left to make the final 4?

Las Vegas wake-up call fuels Tyler Reddick’s Round of 8 ambitions

Since his younger days, Reddick has been one of the most humanly relatable off-track personalities in stock car racing. But on it, there are very few people in this world who would dare to do what he does, in the manner that he does it. You see, in all nineteen of his wins across the top 3 National Touring Series, never has Tyler Reddick been afraid to go the extra mile. The 23XI wheelman does not hesitate to go wheel-to-wheel with the strongest of his rivals.

And he’s been consistent in harnessing that driving style. Some might call it aggressive. But when things go right, most think it’s just hard racing. Unfazed, Reddick keeps reeling in those results. And his spot in the Round of 8 right now, thanks to two race wins, is just evidence that his methods, albeit a little over the edge, clearly work out for his advances. Remember that Talladega race when Michael McDowell crashed out from the lead in front of him on the last lap? Reddick did not flinch. He drove straight through the prospective damage and beat Brad Keselowski by bare inches. That’s the type of moxie Tyler Reddick possesses.

However, after that nasty flip in Michigan, which left him unharmed but 30 points below the cutline, Tyler Reddick might have a newer perspective on racing. When Jared Haas of Frontstretch asked Reddick if drivers had to take more of a “risk” in the Playoff format, he had quite the revealing reply. “I think you have to take some risk for sure. But there’s a line, right? There’s always a line,” asserted Reddick quite seriously.

“In my case, Vegas, that was a situation where you know I think, having the chance to understand what Denny (Hamlin) had to say, looking at the situation play out again, you know, I learned something from it.” Earlier on Actions Detrimental, his car owner, Denny Hamlin, felt that Tyler Reddick rushed into that open lane on the outside too late, coming through Turn 3, before wrecking. “But yeah, maybe 4 out of 10 times that move works out,” reflected Tyler Reddick. “I would say maybe it could be even less odds.”

However, the #45 driver remained realistic enough to note his lessons from the incident. “It didn’t work out obviously. If anything, as a driver, you try to learn from it, right? Is there anything I can learn that can keep me from being on my lid again? So, I just try to have that approach with anything honestly…” He concluded, “To pass with a car like that… all that stuff, it’s a balancing act for sure.” Fortunately, 23XI Racing has prepared another “BEAST Toyota,” for Tyler Reddick this weekend. Running an average speed of 167.42 mph, he won the ninth pole of his NASCAR career, with a 0.077-second margin over Kyle Larson.

Above all, he seems confident about putting up better performances at Homestead. And why wouldn’t he be? Considering Reddick has won twice already at the 1.5-mile Miami intermediate.

Will the #45  help Toyota snatch a high-speed heist at Homestead?

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Both times Tyler Reddick won the Xfinity championships (2018 & 2019), he capped it off with a season-ending victory at the Homestead-Miami Speedway. With an average finish of 11.0 in four premier-series starts, and a 96.3 driver rating, he ranks sixth-best among all active Cup drivers at the racetrack. Ironically, Reddick is also in the sixth Playoff position, thirty points separated from the transfer spot. And that must provide him with extra motivation.

Besides, the 23XI Racing wheelman’s days as a promising road course driver are now over. These days, he is the entire package. Reddick runs well everywhere. He’s won on street circuits, superspeedways, and intermediates. However, short tracks have often been the bane of Reddick’s near-spotless career. In his 29 NASCAR Cup Series appearances on tracks under a mile, he’s never won a single race and finished in the top-5 only twice. Hence, if he has to win to lock in that coveted Championship 4 spot, his best chance is at Homestead, another intermediate like Vegas, not at the shortest track of the Cup Series calendar next weekend—Martinsville Speedway.

And he seems prepared to make it happen on Sunday, starting from the pole position. After the #45 team received the honors of selecting the first pit box at Homestead for the Straight Talk Wireless 400, Reddick spoke about his “advantage,” especially since he believes that “Given equal tires, the 5 (Kyle Larson) would’ve probably been a little faster on Saturday.” As he praised his front-row partner in front of the media during his post-race press conference, he also revealed some interesting insights into his own mindset, “It’s nice to be able to come to a track like this where myself as a driver, I feel like I have an advantage, but to also be in a Camry and to have the speed across the board it seems like we do here.” noted Reddick

Regardless, he’s solely focused on looking forward to Sunday. It surely feels like the guy is a little more vigilant this weekend, and it’s probably for the best. If his newfound edge can push him to the Phoenix finale with a debut Cup win in Miami, it would be the first time he ever made the Championship 4. Now, a thought like that is bound to make anyone tense.