Tyler Reddick missed the NASCAR Cup Series playoffs’ Round of 12 by just two points. Had he made up those points, he would already be locked into the Round of 8 after winning at Texas Motor Speedway on Sunday.
Reddick led the final fifty laps to secure his third career win and extend the streak of non-playoff drivers winning in the postseason to four. He is the first Richard Childress Racing driver to win thrice in a season since Kevin Harvick won four times in 2013.
However, Reddick’s win was overshadowed by a plethora of Goodyear tyre failures. By the end, excluding the two stage breaks, fourteen cautions were called, nearly all of which were for single-car accidents stemming from blown tyres. While Goodyear has regularly warned teams against running lower air pressures than recommended, they faced a barrage of criticism from fans and drivers alike for the situation.
“If your thinking that maybe NASCAR will look into someone else for tires, keep dreaming. GY pays them a fat check so they are allowed to gouge the teams each week,” tweeted Denny Hamlin.
“Goodyear is working with the teams on their setups and everything else to try to mitigate the problems that we’re certainly seeing,” commented NASCAR senior vice president of competition Scott Miller. “We’re all learning about the setups, the tyres. Goodyear is learning about the construction, the new wheel. It’s an unfortunate part of a learning process.
“The ones that didn’t have any problems admitted to being on the conservative side with all the things that are difficult on tyres. They make speed, but they’re difficult on tyres.”
Reddick recalled, “At the end of practice, we were one of a few that had some issues with the right-front tyre. So we knew we had some work to do, there were things we needed to change, go up on some air pressure, that sort of thing.
“It wasn’t like an unknown. Certainly with the way the practice is set up, you take a chance of not running enough laps, if you’re working on your car a lot, to really get a read on if you’re too low on air pressure or too aggressive on one thing or another. In our case, we ran enough laps, were able to see that we had been too aggressive on our right-front tyre. So we made some adjustments going into the race, thankfully.”
Other concerns surrounded the Next Gen car’s safety after Cody Ware‘s crash on lap 169 shot him into the pit wall and resulted in a lengthy stay at the infield care centre before being released, continuing an increasing wave of concerns in recent weeks, and an incident between Hamlin and William Byron in which the latter spun Hamlin under caution. The caution arose after Martin Truex Jr. spun but Byron was not penalised for the contact, which NASCAR conceded they had been distracted by the Truex wreck. Nevertheless, the sanctioning body intends to investigate the matter.
“The cameras and the monitors that we’ve got, we dedicate them mostly to officiating, seeing our safety vehicles, how to dispatch them, all that,” commented Miller. “By the time we put all those cameras up, we don’t have room for all of the in-car cameras to be monitored.
“If we would have had immediate access to the #24 [Byron] in-car camera, that would have helped us a lot with being able to find that quickly. That’s definitely one of the things that we’re looking at.”
Race results
| Finish | Start | Number | Driver | Team | Manufacturer | Laps | Status |
| 1 | 4 | 8 | Tyler Reddick | Richard Childress Racing | Chevrolet | 334 | Running |
| 2 | 2 | 22 | Joey Logano | Team Penske | Ford | 334 | Running |
| 3 | 31 | 31 | Justin Haley | Kaulig Racing | Chevrolet | 334 | Running |
| 4 | 14 | 12 | Ryan Blaney | Team Penske | Ford | 334 | Running |
| 5 | 30 | 14 | Chase Briscoe | Stewart-Haas Racing | Ford | 334 | Running |
| 6 | 27 | 43 | Erik Jones | Petty GMS Motorsports | Chevrolet | 334 | Running |
| 7 | 3 | 24 | William Byron | Hendrick Motorsports | Chevrolet | 334 | Running |
| 8 | 1 | 6 | Brad Keselowski | RFK Racing | Chevrolet | 334 | Running |
| 9 | 9 | 5 | Kyle Larson | Hendrick Motorsports | Chevrolet | 334 | Running |
| 10 | 8 | 11 | Denny Hamlin | Joe Gibbs Racing | Toyota | 334 | Running |
| 11 | 5 | 34 | Michael McDowell | Front Row Motorsports | Ford | 334 | Running |
| 12 | 10 | 99 | Daniel Suárez | Trackhouse Racing Team | Chevrolet | 334 | Running |
| 13 | 12 | 1 | Ross Chastain | Trackhouse Racing Team | Chevrolet | 334 | Running |
| 14 | 29 | 7 | Corey LaJoie | Spire Motorsports | Chevrolet | 334 | Running |
| 15 | 11 | 2 | Austin Cindric | Team Penske | Ford | 334 | Running |
| 16 | 32 | 42 | Ty Dillon | Petty GMS Motorsports | Chevrolet | 334 | Running |
| 17 | 7 | 3 | Austin Dillon | Richard Childress Racing | Chevrolet | 334 | Running |
| 18 | 20 | 21 | Harrison Burton | Wood Brothers Racing | Ford | 334 | Running |
| 19 | 23 | 4 | Kevin Harvick | Stewart-Haas Racing | Ford | 334 | Running |
| 20 | 16 | 23 | Ty Gibbs* | 23XI Racing | Toyota | 334 | Running |
| 21 | 26 | 16 | Noah Gragson* | Kaulig Racing | Chevrolet | 334 | Running |
| 22 | 35 | 77 | Landon Cassill* | Spire Motorsports | Chevrolet | 334 | Running |
| 23 | 33 | 15 | Garrett Smithley* | Rick Ware Racing | Ford | 334 | Running |
| 24 | 25 | 10 | Aric Almirola | Stewart-Haas Racing | Ford | 334 | Running |
| 25 | 19 | 45 | Bubba Wallace^ | 23XI Racing | Toyota | 334 | Running |
| 26 | 34 | 78 | B.J. McLeod* | Live Fast Motorsports | Ford | 333 | Running |
| 27 | 21 | 47 | Ricky Stenhouse Jr. | JTG Daugherty Racing | Chevrolet | 333 | Running |
| 28 | 28 | 38 | Todd Gilliland | Front Row Motorsports | Ford | 333 | Running |
| 29 | 17 | 48 | Alex Bowman | Hendrick Motorsports | Chevrolet | 329 | Running |
| 30 | 13 | 17 | Chris Buescher | RFK Racing | Ford | 270 | Accident |
| 31 | 15 | 19 | Martin Truex Jr. | Joe Gibbs Racing | Toyota | 267 | Accident |
| 32 | 6 | 9 | Chase Elliott | Hendrick Motorsports | Chevrolet | 184 | Accident |
| 33 | 36 | 51 | Cody Ware | Rick Ware Racing | Ford | 166 | Accident |
| 34 | 22 | 20 | Christopher Bell | Joe Gibbs Racing | Toyota | 136 | DVP |
| 35 | 24 | 41 | Cole Custer | Stewart-Haas Racing | Ford | 77 | Accident |
| 36 | 18 | 18 | Kyle Busch | Joe Gibbs Racing | Toyota | 48 | Accident |
^ – Currently in owner playoffs
Italics – Competing for Rookie of the Year
* – Ineligible for points