Tyler Reddick finally reaches Cup Victory Lane with Wisconsin win

All three NASCAR Cup Series road course races so far in 2022 have seen a driver score their maiden top series win. In Road America‘s case, that honour belongs to Tyler Reddick whose long overdue first victory came after beating Chase Elliott for the lead on the final cycle of pit stops halfway through the last stage.

Reddick is the forty-first driver to win a race in all three NASCAR national series—Cup, Xfinity, Truck—and the nineteenth to have his first Cup win come on a road course. Fellow Chevrolet drivers Ross Chastain and Daniel Suárez respectively claimed their first triumphs at Circuit of the Americas and Sonoma earlier in the year. Although the win is his first on a road course and he is typically not regarded as one of the best drivers on such tracks, Reddick admitted he believed “that’s where the first one would come. I thought last year it would come here.”

“You look back over the history of time and ten years ago, you would say road course ringers come in here like A.J. (Allmendinger), like Marcos Ambrose, Juan Pablo Montoya, they come in here and just make us look like fools. I think that’s because as drivers when we only had two of these races a year, we weren’t really maximising, we’s just kind of get to the road courses, kind of like I was a couple years ago, ‘Oh, we’ll get through it.’

“You still see it to a point. A lot of the drivers have really done a great job of really figuring out road course racing and maximising the whole lap and figuring out the braking zones, what they need in their car. But still to a degree, when you see a guy like Daniel go out there and win at Sonoma, you can still just find a whole new level, if you will, in your car and as a driver. If you’re on it one day, you’re just going to be on it that day. Seeing him go out and win Sonoma the way he did, it wasn’t surprising because I know that he’s capable of that. That team is capable of that. But over the last couple years, the drivers, the teams have really been honing in on it, but you still see days where someone just hits it, hits it really good, doesn’t make the mistakes, executes their strategy and they win.”

The win ends a long, three-year and ninety-two-start wait for the 26-year-old, who recently confirmed he will return to Richard Childress Racing‘s #8 for the 2023 season but has been a hot topic on the free agent market. He is the first RCR driver to win a Cup road race since Kevin Harvick at Watkins Glen in 2006, and the #8 last visited Victory Lane that year as a Dale Earnhardt, Inc. entry driven by Dale Earnhardt Jr. at Richmond.

Elliott, the active series leader in road course wins and 2021 Road America Cup champion, was the obvious favourite as he started from the pole and led thirty-six of sixty-two laps. However, the win got away when Reddick beat him off pit road and held him off for the remaining twenty laps. Despite Reddick’s team-mate Austin Dillon suffering a flat tyre late, NASCAR elected not to wave the caution and allow the race to finish under green, sealing Elliott’s fate of a runner-up finish.

“It was super difficult to get to somebody to pass them,” said Elliott. “It was impressive he was able to get up there and capitalise on my mistakes. Happy for those guys. Appreciate the effort out of our team. Wish I could have done a better job there. I felt like we probably needed a little bit, but I think we were good enough to win, so those always hurt.”

No natural cautions (for on-track incidents) occurred for the first time in 2022.

Race results

Finish	Start	Number	Driver	Team	Manufacturer	Laps	Status
1	4	8	Tyler Reddick	Richard Childress Racing	Chevrolet	62	Running
2	1	9	Chase Elliott	Hendrick Motorsports	Chevrolet	62	Running
3	3	5	Kyle Larson	Hendrick Motorsports	Chevrolet	62	Running
4	12	1	Ross Chastain	Trackhouse Racing Team	Chevrolet	62	Running
5	17	99	Daniel Suárez	Trackhouse Racing Team	Chevrolet	62	Running
6	7	17	Chris Buescher	RFK Racing	Ford	62	Running
7	5	2	Austin Cindric	Team Penske	Ford	62	Running
8	6	34	Michael McDowell	Front Row Motorsports	Ford	62	Running
9	21	16	A.J. Allmendinger*	Kaulig Racing	Chevrolet	62	Running
10	28	4	Kevin Harvick	Stewart-Haas Racing	Ford	62	Running
11	19	12	Ryan Blaney	Team Penske	Ford	62	Running
12	8	48	Alex Bowman	Hendrick Motorsports	Chevrolet	62	Running
13	15	19	Martin Truex Jr.	Joe Gibbs Racing	Toyota	62	Running
14	2	14	Chase Briscoe	Stewart-Haas Racing	Ford	62	Running
15	10	41	Cole Custer	Stewart-Haas Racing	Ford	62	Running
16	29	24	William Byron	Hendrick Motorsports	Chevrolet	62	Running
17	14	11	Denny Hamlin	Joe Gibbs Racing	Toyota	62	Running
18	16	20	Christopher Bell	Joe Gibbs Racing	Toyota	62	Running
19	33	47	Ricky Stenhouse Jr.	JTG Daugherty Racing	Chevrolet	62	Running
20	30	42	Ty Dillon	Petty GMS Motorsports	Chevrolet	62	Running
21	9	15	Joey Hand	Rick Ware Racing	Ford	62	Running
22	23	21	Harrison Burton	Wood Brothers Racing	Ford	62	Running
23	22	45	Kurt Busch	23XI Racing	Toyota	62	Running
24	34	31	Justin Haley	Kaulig Racing	Chevrolet	62	Running
25	32	38	Todd Gilliland	Front Row Motorsports	Ford	62	Running
26	27	43	Erik Jones	Petty GMS Motorsports	Chevrolet	62	Running
27	18	22	Joey Logano	Team Penske	Ford	62	Running
28	24	10	Aric Almirola	Stewart-Haas Racing	Ford	62	Running
29	13	18	Kyle Busch	Joe Gibbs Racing	Toyota	62	Running
30	37	78	Kyle Tilley	Live Fast Motorsports	Ford	61	Running
31	20	3	Austin Dillon	Richard Childress Racing	Chevrolet	60	Brakes
32	31	51	Cody Ware	Rick Ware Racing	Ford	59	Running
33	11	6	Brad Keselowski	RFK Racing	Ford	58	Running
34	35	7	Corey LaJoie	Spire Motorsports	Chevrolet	57	Running
35	25	23	Bubba Wallace	23XI Racing	Toyota	54	Brakes
36	26	77	Josh Bilicki*	Spire Motorsports	Chevrolet	52	Running
37	36	27	Loris Hezemans*	Team Hezeberg	Ford	9	Fuel Pump

Italics – Competing for Rookie of the Year
* – Ineligible for points