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 |
* – Ineligible for points