Tyler Reddick survives COTA marathon

Sunday was an emotional afternoon for Kurt Busch as he watched the NASCAR Cup Series‘ EchoPark Automotive Grand Prix at Circuit of the Americas from the FOX booth. Unable to continue his driving career on a regular basis due to concussions, he still got to visit Victory Lane as Tyler Reddick, his successor in the #45 23XI Racing Toyota, dominated for his first win with the outfit.

“It’s amazing—23XI—how fast we’re growing and how much we’re doing together. It’s forward together on this programe,” said Busch on the broadcast during the final lap. “It brings me a little too choked up. I was hoping to be back in that car but it’s in good hands.”

Reddick and William Byron respectively qualified second and first and established themselves as the top names for the day as they combined to lead all but four of the seventy-five laps run. Still, it was not just cruising for either of them especially Reddick, who led forty-one laps, as he found himself having to hold on to first place amid three overtime restarts.

The race had been a rather clean affair early on with just two cautions across the first forty-one laps, but debris from crashes—especially in the esses following the turn one hairpin—strewn across various points of the track prompted NASCAR to pause six more times, a process that was exacerbated by the track’s 5.51-kilometre length. As a result, the race lasted over three and a half hours, the longest Cup race since the 1976 Winston Western 500 at Riverside, which was naturally 502 kilometres long versus COTA’s 374.92 km without overtime.

As the cautions bunched the field back up, Reddick faced multiple challenges from defending winner Ross Chastain, Busch’s brother Kyle Busch, and perennial COTA frontrunner Alex Bowman. When the third overtime finally stayed green, Reddick found an opportunity to put distance between him and Busch to secure his fourth career win. All but one of his victories have come on road courses.

“I honestly wasn’t doing the best job on those restarts,” Reddick commented in his post-race press conference. “Few of the times giving up one, two spots. All but that very last one, I’m having to battle for position down into the esses, which is a very tricky area of the race track considering track limits, all those things. One bump, one thing goes wrong, you might be getting penalised. Definitely putting ourselves at risk there. […]

“There were a lot of cautions at the end. The way that things kind of have progressed, the front and rear bumpers of this car are really resilient. You can really hit someone pretty hard without knocking the nose of your car out. The rear bumpers are really tough, too. We saw that at the Clash, people being able to lean on each other front to rear. It kind of brings that to light at the end of these races.

“You look at turn one here, turn one at Indy road course, they’re very inviting corners with a lot of room. It’s just a product of restarts and the nature of NASCAR racing and how aggressive all the drivers are. Someone’s going to be on the short end.”

Despite the carnage, he was hesitant to support modifying or removing overtime, which would allow the race to end under caution regardless of when a wreck occurs in the closing laps. Overtime, also known as green-white-checkered and a break from other major disciplines, has drawn mixed reception since its introduction as a means to ensure a race end under green even if it runs past the advertised distance.

“We’d be robbing the fans of a finish,” continued Reddick. “That’s what they deserve. They deserve a good finish to the end. They deserve to see us make it back to the white flag. Whatever happens after that, yeah. I think the rule the way it is is the way it should be. The fans pay a lot of good money to come out here, watch a good race, a good finish. Deserve to put that product out there for the fans.”

While Reddick argued fans wanted a good finish, his peers failed to honour the requests as they placed themselves in compromising positions with their driving. Ryan Preece, who was among those taken out in the late melees, described the other drivers as “a bunch of hacks” while Bowman called their conduct “embarrassing”. Jimmie Johnson, whom Bowman replaced following the former’s retirement from full-time NASCAR competition, could not even complete a lap before being taken out in a wreck with Ty Dillon.

Bowman had also been hit from behind by Daniel Suárez, who knocked aside his Trackhouse team-mate Ross Chastain to get to him, as they entered pit road at the end of the race, likely in response to earlier contact between the group that dropped Suárez from the top five to twenty-seventh. Suárez and Chastain later had a dialogue upon exiting their cars but ended somewhat amicably.

2009 Formula One World Champion Jenson Button was the highest finisher of the one-off entries, finishing his NASAR début in eighteenth after a tumultuous day dubiously highlighted by contact with 2007 F1 champion Kimi Räikkönen. The latter fell to twenty-ninth after an overtime spin and thirty-second penalty for cutting the esses.

Jordan Taylor, another NASCAR newcomer and IMSA star, qualified fourth and impressed in relief duty for Chase Elliott before the final restart dropped him from tenth to twenty-fourth.

“We had great speed all weekend, it’s just too bad our end result won’t reflect that,” wrote Taylor on Monday. “I was a little too cautious to begin with and had a couple little mistakes that set us back early on. I thought protecting the car was the right thing to do, but I found out pretty quickly that you have to brace for impact on restarts and hope you somehow come out in one piece driving the right direction. Leaving disappointed with the result, but I’m proud of our effort. We were the highest qualifying first time starter since 1999, we showed good pace in clean air, made clean passes, and had clean pit stops all day. Checked off a lot of boxes this weekend.”

Race results

Finish	Start	Number	Driver	Team	Manufacturer	Laps	Status
1	2	45	Tyler Reddick	23XI Racing	Toyota	75	Running
2	9	8	Kyle Busch	Richard Childress Racing	Chevrolet	75	Running
3	6	48	Alex Bowman	Hendrick Motorsports	Chevrolet	75	Running
4	12	1	Ross Chastain	Trackhouse Racing Team	Chevrolet	75	Running
5	1	24	William Byron	Hendrick Motorsports	Chevrolet	75	Running
6	3	2	Austin Cindric	Team Penske	Ford	75	Running
7	18	47	Ricky Stenhouse Jr.	JTG Daugherty Racing	Chevrolet	75	Running
8	32	17	Chris Buescher	RFK Racing	Ford	75	Running
9	17	54	Ty Gibbs	Joe Gibbs Racing	Toyota	75	Running
10	36	38	Todd Gilliland	Front Row Motorsports	Ford	75	Running
11	27	7	Corey LaJoie	Spire Motorsports	Chevrolet	75	Running
12	20	34	Michael McDowell	Front Row Motorsports	Ford	75	Running
13	29	4	Kevin Harvick	Stewart-Haas Racing	Ford	75	Running
14	13	5	Kyle Larson	Hendrick Motorsports	Chevrolet	75	Running
15	19	14	Chase Briscoe	Stewart-Haas Racing	Ford	75	Running
16	21	11	Denny Hamlin	Joe Gibbs Racing	Toyota	75	Running
17	25	19	Martin Truex Jr.	Joe Gibbs Racing	Toyota	75	Running
18	24	15	Jenson Button	Rick Ware Racing	Ford	75	Running
19	23	31	Justin Haley	Kaulig Racing	Chevrolet	75	Running
20	10	42	Noah Gragson	Legacy Motor Club	Chevrolet	75	Running
21	38	12	Ryan Blaney	Team Penske	Ford	75	Running
22	16	21	Harrison Burton	Wood Brothers Racing	Ford	75	Running
23	8	43	Erik Jones	Legacy Motor Club	Chevrolet	75	Running
24	4	9	Jordan Taylor	Hendrick Motorsports	Chevrolet	75	Running
25	37	51	Cody Ware	Rick Ware Racing	Ford	75	Running
26	33	78	Josh Bilicki*	Live Fast Motorsports	Chevrolet	75	Running
27	5	99	Daniel Suárez	Trackhouse Racing Team	Chevrolet	75	Running
28	15	22	Joey Logano	Team Penske	Ford	75	Running
29	22	91	Kimi Räikkönen	Trackhouse Racing Team	Chevrolet	75	Running
30	39	10	Aric Almirola	Stewart-Haas Racing	Ford	74	Running
31	14	20	Christopher Bell	Joe Gibbs Racing	Toyota	73	Accident
32	26	41	Ryan Preece	Stewart-Haas Racing	Ford	68	Accident
33	28	3	Austin Dillon	Richard Childress Racing	Chevrolet	62	Accident
34	7	16	A.J. Allmendinger	Kaulig Racing	Chevrolet	60	Accident
35	30	6	Brad Keselowski	RFK Racing	Ford	56	Driveshaft
36	35	50	Conor Daly	The Money Team Racing	Chevrolet	16	Transmission
37	11	23	Bubba Wallace	23XI Racing	Toyota	10	Accident
38	31	84	Jimmie Johnson	Legacy Motor Club	Chevrolet	0	DVP
39	34	77	Ty Dillon	Spire Motorsports	Chevrolet	0	Accident

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