Tyler Reddick is the #45 driver but lately, he has been loving the number 4! No, he doesn’t have plans to change his car number; he is just stuck finishing fourth consecutively. We saw this in Coca-Cola 600 and we saw it play out again in Illinois 300 at Gateway too.

Ahead of the Coke 600 race, an inspection found unapproved adjustments which lead to dire consequences. And at the Gateway, he had a pit mishap that caused him to fight right from the beginning. He lost his chance to win and instead, Austin Cendric stole the show! After the race in Gateway, he revealed his disappointment with how everything went down to Defined Fate.

Tyler Reddick: Master of saves

Tyler Reddick, the #45 driver, finished just two positions behind his team owner, Denny Hamlin. But he isn’t happy! He actually had a stony start to the race with a lot of bouncing and handling all day long and in Reddick’s own words to media post-race, “it was a tough day for us at SeriesXM Toyota Camry.” 

However, his effort wasn’t wasted as he finished fourth position. But that’s not to say he didn’t have potholes along the way. He noted that the bounce was disconnected, making it difficult to run multiple lanes. Coming to pit road eighth, he slid a bit too deep and got hung up, rejoining the race in the twenty-eighth position before battling back to finish fourth. Quite a save isn’t it? He thanked his team for the outcome.

He said, “So just took all day to fight back through it. But hats off to this whole forty-five team pit crew, the road crew, Billy Scott. We all worked really, really hard to overcome the last track position we had on the first stop.

He added, “And I mean, that was kind of the name of the thing of our day, man. I mean, we just it took us all race long to get back to the front, unfortunately, but really happy that we were able to pull fourth place out of what was going to be a pretty interesting day.” Even at the Coca-Cola race, an unapproved adjustment was found that had him serve a penalty.

Reddick navigating through unexpected potholes!

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Reddick was seemingly disappointed after the Gateway race. While he had an awesome finish, he might have still not gotten over what happened ahead of the Coca-Cola race. While Coca-Cola too turned out okay for Reddi​​ck with him finishing fourth, it was not easy to get there.

He traveled a long road to victory in NASCAR’s longest race. Just ahead of the race, NASCAR found that an adjustment had been made, an unapproved adjustment! The #45 23XI Racing team had adjusted the underwing of the Toyota Camry. This was found ahead of the practice on Saturday afternoon. 

Hence Reddick had to drop to the rear of the field before the green flag. NASCAR doesn’t take such instances lightly and hence there were more consequences. His car chief was ejected, and the team lost out on their pit selection which is crucial for race strategy. The #45 team had to make a qualifying run to scuff up their tires, preventing them from having the advantage of an extra set of fresh tires at the beginning of the 600-mile endurance race. 

Seems like the 45 team has been having quite a few issues recently. What do you think? What’s wrong? Is it just their poor luck or is it poor strategy?