The driver that impressed the most in the 2024 regular season has to be Tyler Reddick. Currently, only in his fifth full-time NASCAR Cup season, Reddick bagged the regular season championship. A first for him as well as the young 23XI racing team. This made the #45 a championship favorite in the 2024 season.

However, since the playoffs commenced, everything started going downhill. Other than a P6 in Atlanta, Reddick has mostly stayed out of the top 15. Out of the seven playoff races so far, Reddick has finished five races in the 20th or worse position. However, owing to his regular season consistency, the #45 driver made it to the top 8, only to find himself in the elimination zone with 2 races to go before Phoenix. Despite this, the California native remains positive about his championship journey.

Tyler Reddick remains hopeful of progressing to the final 4

At the Las Vegas race, Reddick looked like he was on a comeback journey. After winning stage one, he tried to go past Chase Elliott and Martin Truex Jr in a three-wide move. However, Elliott got loose and made contact with the #45. This led to both spinning and also roping in Brad Keselowski. Reddick’s car, after spinning on the infield grass, flipped several times before landing upright. He was unharmed, but the car was beyond repairable.

This has Reddick in the elimination zone with -30 points below the cut-line. Yet the 23XI driver is hopeful of a strong performance in the next two races and making it to Phoenix. Reddick, ahead of the Homestead Miami race, said, ” I mean if we have pretty calm races from here to the last lap of Martinsville I would say it’s probably a too great a deficit. But I feel like every freaking race in this playoffs something crazy’s happened. So I wouldn’t rule it out but I think for us to advance uh today we have to run top three and score a lot of points. And if we want to win this race, we got to do the same thing, so yeah, it’ll hopefully, we get some things to go our way along the way, but we got to focus on just going into this weekend with winning.”

Well, the Homestead week is off to a good start as Tyler Reddick took the pole position in qualifying. However, Miami is a tricky race, with a lot of it happening close to the wall. A minor mistake can prove to be detrimental! However, the two-time Xfinity Series champion has loved racing in Homestead. In the second-tier series, he won twice there. While he’s been winless in the Cup, out of his four races so far, three have been top 5s, the most recent being a P3 last year.

Reddick believes that the #45 car has the potential to win like they did thrice in the regular season. “For us I feel like our finish was good our speed was good considering what we were fighting. So I feel like if we bring a really, really good race car, we should be able to contend for the win,” Reddick added. However, if he fails to capitalize in Homestead, it might be game over for the #45 team, as Martinsville Speedway isn’t exactly his strong suit. Recently, NASCAR insiders weighed in on Reddick’s chances in the next two races.

NASCAR insiders give their verdict on Tyler Reddick

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As opposed to Homestead, Martinsville hasn’t been kind to the 23XI driver. In the 9 races he’s driven there, the #45 hasn’t managed a single top 5, let alone a win. Barring the P7 finish in the spring race this year, Reddick only has one other top 10 in Martinsville. On the other 7 occasions, Reddick has finished 16th or worse. These are some damning stats if things don’t go to plan at Homestead.

Recently, NASCAR journalist Jordan Bianchi, on the recent episode of the teardown, said, “It’s must-win honestly, and I feel that if I’m Tyler Reddick, I think if you don’t win at Homestead, I think your playoffs over. I don’t know if Reddick can go to Martinsville and win that race. I don’t see that happening and so to me, if Tyler Reddick leaves Homestead without a win, at -30 points, he’s out of playoffs. The regular season champion is not gonna make the Championship 4.”

Reddick’s average finish at Martinsville is 19.3, which is one of his worst on any Cup track so far. There is something off with Reddick and short tracks. Where he’s gotten an 18.2 average finish on all the short tracks combined in the Cup. Also toping his worst finishing tracks is Bristol, where he has an average finish of 20.4 so far in NASCAR’s top series. Matter of fact, he’s never won a short-track race in the Cup!

Even NASCAR journalist Jeff Gluck echoed Bianchi’s thoughts when he said, “It’s not a must-win, but you’re talking about the chance to capitalize on a track that you’re really good at. I don’t want to go to Martinsville, trying to make up points if you’re Reddick. So, I don’t know, I think that’s the guy to watch in a lot of cases.” 

Only time will tell how he’ll do in the next two races. Do you think Tyler Reddick would make it to the championship 4? Share your thoughts with us in the comments below.