Tyler Reddick Lets Go of His Frustration as Talladega Victory Settles the Score for Last Year’s Heartbreak

A race win has been a long time coming for 23XI Racing driver Tyler Reddick and he achieved that goal at Talladega on Sunday. The 28-year-old had been in good form for the majority of this season so far, but the lack of a race victory to go with it must have been massively frustrating. After taking the checkered flag at the superspeedway, Reddick was relieved, and he expressed that in a recent interview on SiriusXM Radio.

Last year, he went deep into the playoffs but failed to make it to the championship race and that’s something he would be desperate to change this time.

Tyler Reddick rues missed opportunities despite Talladega glory

The 23XI Racing driver has come close to winning races earlier this season but for one reason or the other, has fallen short. So this was an important result to get in the bag. Speaking in the interview on SiriusXM Radio, Reddick mentioned all of the races where he believed they had a real chance of winning this year, but just could not. Turns out that the driver of the #45 car saw himself as a potential race winner in almost half the races so far this year.

“It’s just nice to steal one. Not each race has been this way but certainly we’ve let them steal a few from us so it’s nice to be on the other end of that and steal one back. Texas last week was tough. We rebounded, recovered from the mistakes, got the lead back, made a mistake on the restart, and gave away what should have been a pretty highly probable win,” he said.

Of late, Tyler Reddick has been unfortunate in a number of races. Last week in Texas, the driver of the #45 car came plenty close to taking the checkered flag, but a poor pitstop completely ruined his chances. The 23XI Racing driver had a good chance to win in Las Vegas earlier this year as well. However, Kyle Larson’s controversial air blocking prevented that from happening. All these incidents had left the 28-year-old quite upset. “We’ve had the potential to go to victory lane, it hasn’t worked out, that’s been frustrating,” he added.

It has not always been Tyler Reddick’s mistake in the aforementioned races that cost him. Oftentimes, 23XI Racing’s crew members were the ones making the errors in the past. Thankfully, nothing like that happened this time around. However, it must be mentioned that despite battling shortcomings, the team has been on a fairly consistent run of late.

Can 23XI Racing become a championship contender this season?

Tyler Reddick might not have clinched a victory till last weekend, but his performances were promising for sure. Evidently, the #45 car ended up in the top 10 in each of the last five races. Race win or not, that’s a fantastic achievement. 23XI Racing seems to be getting better every year and Tyler Reddick is at the forefront of that. The goal for him now is to earn as many stage points as possible to qualify for the playoffs and, who knows, maybe even become a championship contender in November.

And even Tyler Reddick seems to be aware of how well his team has done when it comes to consistency. Dissecting his own performance, the driver mentioned how they’ve come a long way since the extreme tire-wear race at Bristol. “Since Bristol, we’ve done a good job of eliminating the bad days. The positives in all of this, we were on 4 straight top 10 finishes. That’s the best for me, that’s helping our points situation, and to continue that with a win, we’ve 5 now in a row (top 10s)…we’re definitely good enough as a team to compete for the regular season championship and go far in the playoffs so we need to win races and get playoff points.,” the driver of the #45 car added.

It will be interesting to see how the 28-year-old performs in the rest of the regular season now that his playoff spot is locked in. How many races do you think Reddick will win this season? Let us know your thoughts.