HOMESTEAD, Fla. — Tyler Reddick has a favorite track and favorite corner on the NASCAR Cup Series circuit.
Homestead-Miami Speedway.
Turns 3 and 4.
“It just feels like you can drive a lot deeper in there than you should,” Reddick explained. “I’ve always felt that way about that corner.
“Just feels like you can, when the moment is right, do some pretty crazy stuff over there.”
Reddick loves “stepping over the edge. This place seems to reward that to some degree.”
One of those moments came on the final lap of Sunday’s (Oct. 27) NASCAR Cup Series playoff race, with Reddick in a position he and others were surprised he was even in.
Having a shot at the win.
Fifteen laps earlier, Kyle Larson had put his No. 5 Chevrolet into a hole that closed too fast and brought out the caution flag.
Moments earlier, Reddick had left pit road with four fresh tires, which is usually a good thing.
Instead, Reddick had felt “backed into a corner.”
The 23XI Racing driver had to pit after running extra long in the lead during green flag pit stops, hoping to catch a caution that would help keep his playoffs hopes alive.
Now everyone would get to pit for fresh tires.
Reddick was told by his spotter “we’re going to stay out.”
“Oh, s–t, we’re going to stay out?” Reddick thought. “We’re going to figure this out.”
Being at a tire disadvantage at Homestead, a track known for tire wear, is usually a “death sentence,” Reddick said.
And if you’re the leader and out front on older tires, it’s expected the leader will “get taken advantage of,” said Reddick’s crew chief, Billy Scott.
“People put them in a bad spot,” Scott continued. “Every corner that goes by, it gets closer and closer to being equal. The biggest advantage with those on stickers is the very first corner.”
Reddick remembered an earlier restart when multiple cars on slightly older tires stayed out and had “their doors blown off.”
And “turn 1 went about as good as I thought it could have went,” said Reddick, who was quickly overtaken on the outside by his 23XI team owner Denny Hamlin when the race resumed with seven laps to go.
“That wasn’t great,” Reddick admitted. “We settled in there. I didn’t know how bad we were going to bleed.
“I drove into turn 3 kind of, I don’t know, out of desperation, I kind of…
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