Folks, Dale Earnhardt Jr. jinxed it. “If you go to Martinsville with the Cup car and you don’t come out of there with at least one feud, it was not a good race.” This is what Junior said after the Martinsville Cup race was too clean. Well, next up was Darlington. And the ‘track too tough to tame’ did not disappoint. To be fair, it was pretty much clean, but only until it was four laps to go in the race. That’s when the drama started; NASCAR fans even called out 23XI Racing for race manipulation. However, Tyler Reddick has acquitted himself of it.
Look, Tyler Reddick was never being considered as the top runner to win Darlington. He got a decent qualifying, starting the race in P7. Ended stage one in P5, stage two in P9. Reddick had his ups and downs at Darlington. He even found himself outside the top 10 on a few laps. However, when it mattered the most, Reddick was leading the race, but even then, it did not seem like he would take the checkered flag. The #45 car just kept slipping and sliding as Reddick rode the wall. Well, there is speculation that the race leader might have ended outside the top 5 had a late race caution not come at the right time!
Did Tyler Reddick benefit because of Bubba Wallace’s move?
So, here’s what happened. With four laps to go in the Goodyear 400, Tyler Reddick was leading the race, but he did not have the fastest car. And Ryan Blaney was quite literally breathing down on him. Eventually, the #12 car took the bottom line and passed #45 for the lead. But at that very moment, a caution flag was thrown. When the cars pitted, Denny Hamlin’s guys were the quickest, and he came out first, taking the lead. Finally, Hamlin won Darlington, and Blaney ended up in P5, that too behind Tyler Reddick in P4. And this had many fans call this a product of race manipulation by the 23XI Racing team.
The caution that came when Blaney took the lead was when Bubba Wallace spun Kyle Larson, who was 167 laps down. While this caution helped Hamlin take his second win of the season, it also got Reddick newer tires, helping him end his run in the top 5. In the post-race interview, he was also asked about it: “Tyler, did you think the caution at the end there might have helped you put on a new set of tires as you were fading there at the end or…?” This is basically asking if you were in on it, too! To which Tyler Reddick replied, “No, I mean I was going to finish second. So, I mean, I don’t know. I don’t know where the 11 [Denny Hamlin] was. Maybe not. But, not really sure.”
Well, we aren’t so sure he would have ended up in P2. He did not have the speed or the control at the end. Even Reddick admitted to it! “I mean, we never really had fantastic fire-up speed all day, but, yeah, the car just wasn’t turning great. I definitely think the contact I had with the wall in the closing laps trying to stay ahead of the 12 really hurt our chances to be able to hang on to that front row.” So, technically, the #45 team did benefit from that caution.
And it was his lack of control that caused the caution in the first place. After Blaney shot past him, Reddick got into the wall, and this caught the #5 off guard. Larson slowed down a bit suddenly, and Bubba got into him, causing the whole drama. So, we don’t know if this can be called race manipulation. Even the #5’s crew chief confirmed the events that unfolded, calling the contact Larson’s fault. And thanks to Cliff Daniels, 23XI might be off the hook now.
It wasn’t race manipulation after all!
Yes. We feel it for Ryan Blaney, too. This could have been his first win of the season. This could have been Team Penske’s first win of the season. But it’s unfortunate how things went down. However, that’s just part and parcel of racing. And if you feel bad for Blaney, remember, William Byron led all the laps in the first two stages. Had the pole start but still came short of the win. The point is, these things happen. Luck is a big factor in racing, and Denny Hamlin pretty much had all of it. However, Blaney was not convinced by the antics at the end and even confronted Michael Jordan on Wallace’s actions after the race. But a post race, all the confusion was cleared up by Kyle Larson’s team
NASCAR Journalist Jeff Gluck reported on X, “Cliff Daniels said Kyle told him he felt bad about being part of the last caution. They were trying to stay out of the way of the leaders and stay low, and Larson checked up early to make sure he didn’t get into Reddick, but Bubba didn’t know Larson was going to slow down that much.” And even if you see Larson’s in-car camera view, he got wrecked the moment Tyler Reddick bounced off the wall. So it does seem like a domino effect to the #45’s incident.
Even Larson’s radio conversation confirms this. About that moment, he said, “I was checking up, so that’s embarrassing.” So, this is basically enough to rule out race manipulation. And so does Bubba Wallace’s version of it! NASCAR Journalist Jeff Gluck had a chat with Wallace post-race. He revealed all the details in his X post. Gluck wrote, “Bubba Wallace told me he didn’t think it was warranted for Larson to check up as much as he did after Reddick hit the wall but apologized for ruining Blaney’s day. He came up and whispered something in Blaney’s ear on pit road, and Blaney declined to say what it was.”
And to make things foolproof, ‘Auto Racing Analytics’ looked at the data from the race, and it shows how Larson braked when Reddick was into the wall, causing Wallace to misjudge and dive into him. Their X post on this read, “For those saying Bubba Wallace intentionally wrecked Kyle Larson. Data shows that Larson hit the brakes right before contact with Wallace. The previous lap, Larson didn’t use the brake there.”
Overall, it was a good race. And it won’t be wrong to laud NASCAR for being on a streak of good racing. First Homestead, then Martinsville, and now Darlington. What do you think, folks? Share your thoughts with us in the comments below.
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