Tyler Reddick Finishes His First Daytona 500 with Runner-Up Result

By Luis Torres, Staff Writer/Photographer

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. – The Daytona 500 is the one race everyone wants to win, but there can only be one victor. As the old saying goes, nobody will ultimately remember who finished second in Sunday’s edition of “The Great American Race.”

The man who ended up finishing second in the 67th edition of the race was 23XI Racing’s Tyler Reddick, a man who has never seemed to catch a break at Daytona over the years.

Entering Sunday, Reddick had finished no better than 27th in six previous 500s as wrecks have been the bane of his existence at Daytona International Speedway.

It wasn’t the case in the 200-lap race that started past 2 p.m. and ended just before 10 p.m. as luck seemed to go Reddick’s way as he avoided every wreck. At the same time, luck still didn’t fully grant the driver of the No. 45 Toyota as he ended up finishing a spot behind William Byron, who has now won the last two straight Daytona 500s.

Coming to the white flag, Reddick was nowhere near the front of the pack as he was inside the top-15. In typical superspeedway fashion, chaos wreaked havoc as every man is making one last desperate moves to be the one lifting the Harley J. Earl Trophy.

As the field entered the backstretch, Reddick was moving up the field and cracked the top-10 and was at the top line led by his boss Denny Hamlin. Moves were then made with Cole Custer breaking up the line and creating one on his own, but suddenly contact was made that collected multiple cars.

The wreck collected Hamlin who was out of control and in the path of Byron and Reddick, whom barely escaped getting collected in the wreck.

Hamlin collided with Reddick that sent him into the wall but kept powering through. While all of that happened, the caution didn’t come out, so the race was still up for grabs.

The contact resulted in lost ground for Reddick, who would still attempt to catch Byron, but the damage was already done. Finishing in second-place, Reddick will have to wait another year to have a shot at a Daytona 500 victory.

“I knew that me and (Byron) had a good run and they were throwing big blocks,” said Reddick. “When they started spinning on the inside and I had a run on the 24.

“I thought, ‘If I can just make it through on (Hamlin) and not scrub my speed, I would have had at least an opportunity to do something.”

Despite the runner-up finish, Reddick found some optimism of having a Daytona 500 where he actually completing an entire race.

“All in all, I never really finished a race here unless it was 40 laps down, so I’ll take second,” said Reddick. “We wanted to get a good start to the year, and we scored a lot of points today. So, I’m really happy with everyone’s effort on this No. 45 Nasty Beast Toyota Camry.”

Reddick will look to carry that momentum into Atlanta Motor Speedway, a venue where his best finish is fifth in March 23.