Tyler Reddick’s ‘Michael Jordan Moment’ In NASCAR’s Playoffs

At the time, NASCAR Regular Season Champion Tyler Reddick was in serious danger of elimination from the NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs and had to come up with a clutch performance.

The man sitting on top of Reddick’s timing stand made a career out of clutch performances in a different sport – basketball Hall of Famer Michael Jordan, considered by many the greatest athlete of all-time.

It was Lap 30 of the Bank of America Roval 400 at Charlotte Motor Speedway and Reddick’s No. 45 23XI Toyota and Austin Dillon’s No. 3 Chevrolet were involved in a crash in the redesigned Turn 7. Also involved was Reddick’s team co-owner, Denny Hamlin in the No. 11 Toyota for Joe Gibbs Racing.

Reddick’s car sustained rear suspension damage. He drove it to pit road for repairs. A few laps later, another caution opened pit road and Reddick’s team had more time to assess the damage and make repairs. They were still working on the car when the blinking lights went off on the pace car as the field headed for a restart on Lap 38.

Reddick returned to the track in 35^th place. He entered the race 14 points above the cutline and wasn’t considered to be a Playoff driver in jeopardy of missing the cut in the elimination race that whittled the field from 12 drivers to eight.

Reddick was faced with a dire situation. He had to pass as many cars as possible and hope the other drivers at or near the cutline finished low in the field.

What Reddick did is what racer’s dream of by racing his car fast and fearless and hope for the best.

When the checked flag waved, Kyle Larson of Hendrick Motorsports won the race and celebrated by lighting up his rear tires with an impressive burnout. Reddick finished 11^th, but that, combined with Team Penske’s Joey Logano finishing eighth, was just enough to advance to the Round of Eight in NASCAR’s Playoffs.

At that time, Reddick was in and Logano was out of the playoffs. But a few hours later, another driver who appeared to advance into the Round of Eight, Alex Bowman, was disqualified when his No. 48 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet failed technical inspection by NASCAR. Bowman was credited with a 38^th-place finish after the car did not meet the minimum weight.

Bowman, who was safely in the Round of Eight, will not advance. Logano was given the news that his championship bid would continue three hours after the race concluded when he was reinstated into the eight drivers still battling for the 2024 NASCAR Cup Series title.

Hendrick Motorsports announced an appeal into Bowman’s infraction.

But in no way should that diminish what Reddick did on October 13 by pulling a “Michael Jordan” in a race car and not on the basketball court.

Because there are four races left in NASCAR’s Playoffs, this wasn’t as much a “Game Seven Moment” as a “Survive and Advance” scenario.

It wasn’t Jordan nailing a championship-clinching jump shot over Byron Russell of the Utah Jazz in Game 6 of the 1998 NBA Finals.

This was more like Jordan hitting “The Shot” over Craig Ehlo of the Cleveland Cavaliers in Game 5 of the NBA Eastern Conference First Round on May 7, 1989.

“The Shot” was one of the more iconic moments in Jordan’s NBA career.

While Jordan’s heroics on a basketball court remain legendary, Reddick’s clutch effort on Sunday moves Jordan’s 23XI NASCAR Cup Series team into the Round of Eight for the second straight season.

“We did it last year,” Reddick said of advancing. “I don’t know if we caught people off guard or not, but we got it in last year and this year obviously I think it was expected of us.

“At times it wasn’t looking good but it’s good to be back for the second year in a row.”

Jordan could appreciate the competitive fire of his driver who overcame adversity by making up 26 positions on the race track.

At the time, that all mattered, because nobody knew that Bowman’s car would fail technical inspection three hours after the race.

As the laps wound down, the driver on the cutline was Logano, who was under attack by several drivers in a battle for position. Each car that passed Logano’s No. 22 Ford, combined with each car Reddick was able to pass, was crucial for the presumptive final transfer position.

Reddick raced hard, at one point late in the race, coming out of Turn 7, rear wheels sliding, and into Daniel Hemric’s No. 31 Chevrolet, sending it spinning. Reddick was able to continue as Hemric’s car kept the No. 45 from spinning.

“I needed to go, and we raced through there pretty tight,” Reddick recalled. “I was trying to stay online, and he was trying to run close to me.

“I went down into first gear, and wheel hopped a little bit, the back kicked out, and I spun him out. So, it’s just what happens. I had to go, I had to race, I had to make the pass.

“You never want that to happen, but I had to pass cars. I had to go.”

Reddick was locked in with the mentality that he had to race as hard as possible while keeping the car under control to pass as many cars as he could.

“It’s fun,” Reddick admitted. “These are moments you live for. The part that’s not fun, as you were talking about 31, that’s not exactly the plan of getting back to the front, is getting together with fellow drivers or people you care about, but it’s racing.

“It’s a cut-off race. You have to make aggressive moves, and you got to go for it. We had to get those spots. So, I tried to do it as cleanly as possible, and fortunately, yeah, me and the 31 came together.

“It was definitely a mistake. It doesn’t change the fact that it happened. It did, but we had to pass some cars, so I’ll talk to him about it. I don’t get back the day he was having, racing me like this.”

While he was passing cars, Reddick was getting information over the team’s radio on Logano’s status.

When former Team Penske driver AJ Allmendinger, who at one time drove the No. 22 for Team Penske, passed Logano’s No. 22 Ford, it put Reddick in position to transfer if they maintained those positions for the remaining laps.

“We knew we were closing in, and we knew he (Logano) was kind of falling off,” Reddick recalled. “We knew we had time, but I’ve seen it so many times with this car where you think you have time, and your tires kind of equalize to the cars you’re racing around, and then you can’t pass them.

“You want to be patient, but I’ve definitely been in a spot — not here, but other places where you’re kind of just stuck.”

Back on pit road, Jordan sat on the top of the timing stand intently watching the end of the race play out. Larson took the checkered flag and was followed by the remaining cars in the race.

When Reddick’s No. 45 took the checkered flag in 11^th place, a huge smile appeared on Jordan’s face. He slapped hands with friends and fellow crew members as he climbed down the timing stand to celebrate with his driver.

As Reddick climbed out of car on pit road to collect himself before an interview with NBC Sports, Jordan came up to the diminutive driver and gave him a huge hug.

According to Reddick, Jordan told him, “Just great job and proud of the effort. We had to really fight today for it. And yeah, just proud of the effort we gave.”

Jordan then walked up pit road, stopping to talk to the team’s other driver, Bubba Wallace. As Jordan continued to walk down pit lane, he was congratulated by another legend, four-time NASCAR Cup Series Champion Jeff Gordon, now Vice Chairman of Hendrick Motorsports.

“They did a good job,” Jordan could be overheard telling Gordon about Reddick’s crew. “They had a good game plan. I’ll see you out in Vegas (site of NASCAR’s Playoff race on Sunday).”

He then congratulated his partner in the team, Hamlin, for also advancing in the playoffs with a 14^th place finish.

“Denny is a road racer now,” Jordan told Hamlin.

Back at Reddick’s car, the driver tried to explain how his day went from seemingly safe in the playoffs, to having to fight for every position he could get just to advance.

“I could see the apex of the corner, the 3 (Dillon) spun around and everybody was on the brakes stopping,” Reddick explained of the initial incident. “You’re expecting everyone to take that corner somewhat normal, but as soon as I could see what was happening ahead everyone was trying to hit the brakes and stop and avoid a spin.

“I was just so I just in the wrong place at the wrong time for us.”

Rather than play it safe, and settle in for position, Reddick had to use all of his talent as a racer to literally drive the wheels off his Toyota.

“It can all seem really complex from the outside looking in, but it’s pretty simple for me,” Reddick said. “I just asked how many cars I need to pass, where I was to the cut line, and I just focused on running the best laps possible and trying to be aggressive and timing the passes.

“At one point we passed enough cars we had plenty of time to get the last couple and then the 22 started losing some spots so it was coming to us there but there was a moment where there were a bunch of us stacked together. If I was I efficient there, I could get them all pretty quickly and maybe run down the next group.

“It didn’t quite go perfectly but we made passes, we avoided the calamity and got through it.”

The difference for Reddick may have come in the Labor Day Weekend Southern 500 at Darlington Raceway. He was very sick in the race and at one point was considering getting out for a relief driver.

But Reddick was able to overcome the illness and clinch the NASCAR Regular Season title over Larson by just one point.

The points he accumulated for that effort helped him advance on October 13.

“Those 15 points certainly got us through this,” Reddick said. “I’ll almost argue, it got us through the first round, too. At some point, we’ve got to get back to the speed and performance that got us every other season championship.

“But we got three more shots to have that kind of a day.”

The next round of the 2024 NASCAR Cup Series Championship begins October 20 at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, continues to Homestead-Miami Speedway on October 27 and culminates with the XFINITY 500 at Martinsville Speedway on November 3.

Four drivers from the current eight that remain eligible with advance into the NASCAR Cup Series Championship Race in this round either through a victory in one of the three races, or by points.

Those four drivers will battle it out for the championship at Phoenix Raceway on November 10.

Reddick has a chance to win a championship by wanting to be like Jordan, one of the greatest clutch athletes of all-time.

“I just have to step up and do the same stuff,” Reddick said of Jordan. “Try my best, anyways.”