Kyle Larson cruised to victory at the Charlotte Motor Speedway Roval as Tyler Reddick charged into the eighth and final spot in the third round of the NASCAR Cup Series playoffs.
On the brink of elimination for much of the race after a Stage 2 incident, Reddick finished 11th by gaining 15 spots over the final 30 laps. Reddick edged Joey Logano by four points to advance to the next round and got congratulatory hugs 23XI Racing co-owners Michael Jordan and Denny Hamlin after exiting his No. 45 Toyota.
“It’s tough, but I mean, you just got to stay calm,” Reddick told NBC Sports’ Dave Burns. “You got to stay focused in those moments, man. It’s so easy to lose track of what you can control. And either way, I was going to drive the car as fast as I could. And it just worked out for us. This thing was able to get up back up through the field and get us to the good side of the cutline.”
#NASCAR … Denny Hamlin and Michael Jordan celebrate with Tyler Reddick after Reddick advanced pic.twitter.com/hJhOiCfhlW
— Dustin Long (@dustinlong) October 13, 2024
Logano was eliminated after the Round of 12 with Chase Briscoe, Austin Cindric and Daniel Suarez — the same foursome who started the Round of 12 road course finale below the cutline.
Christopher Bell finished second by nearly 2 seconds, followed by William Byron, Cindric and Chase Elliott. A.J. Allmendinger, pole-sitter Shane van Gisbergen, Logano, Bubba Wallace and Ryan Blaney rounded out the top 10.
Larson led a race-high 63 of 109 laps for his series-leading sixth victory of the 2024 season and the 29th of his career. It’s the second victory at the Roval for Larson, who won on the road course during his 2021 championship season.
“Yeah, it’s really the first time in my playoff career I’ve not been close to the cutline, so it was good to kind of have a little bit of stress free of a weekend,” Larson told NBC Sports’ Marty Snider. “And I think the first time I’ve been here without crashing besides the other time I won. Good weekend.
“Thanks to Chevrolet and GM, too. It’s known that I don’t really use the (simulator) much, and I was in the sim this week. So huge thank you to you guys there. It really, really helped me get into a rhythm early on and help us kind of fine tune our car, too. So hats off to everybody there.”
In addition to the Hendrick Motorsports star, the other seven who advanced to the three-race round that will determine the four-driver field for the championship race in Phoenix: Byron, Bell, Blaney, Chase Elliott, Alex Bowman, Hamlin and Reddick, who turned in one of the most inspired drivers of the 2024 season.
The regular-season champion was 26th on a restart with 26 laps remaining and trailed Logano by 12 points for the final spot despite having won the first stage after qualifying second.
The regular-season Cup champion suffered suspension damage in a violent collision with Denny Hamlin early in the second stage.
Mired deep in traffic early in Stage 2, Reddick’s Camry briefly went airborne from the contact with Hamlin, the co-owner of Reddick’s car who was caught in a stackup after Austin Dillon spun.
“Yeah I thought I was going to flip,” Reddick told Burns. “I saw (Dillon spin), and everybody on the binders coming to a stop, and of course, all that happens me and my boss get together. I mean this thing was absolutely destroyed.”
Reddick’s 23XI Racing team made eight pit stops over the course of the race while repairing the damage, including replacing a bent toe link. His car came to life on the final run, and Reddick made several sublime passes in heavy traffic after a final four-tire stop.
“Just real hats off to everybody on Camry,” he said. “This thing couldn’t go within four seconds of what the pace was, and we just kept working on it, and we made it a lot better for Stage 3, so this is how this place can be sometimes but it’s really nice to pull this off.”
As Reddick zoomed through the field, Logano lost four positions (in part because he was off strategy on older tires) and finished eighth. He had entered the cutoff race trailing eighth place by 13 points.
“Yeah, I mean we fought hard for sure, and I think (crew chief) Paul (Wolfe) and the guys had a good job executing the strategy of what we need to do today,” Logano told NBC Sports’ Kim Coon. “Just didn’t get quite enough there at the end. Fell off a little bit too much that last run and honestly the 45 and Tyler and those guys had a good job driving up through the field and scored more points.”
In a consolation prize, Logano’s No. 22 Ford advanced to the third round in the car owner points standings and remains eligible for a championship that would deliver a hefty paycheck for Team Penske. Logano was left lamenting the final lap at Richmond Raceway when he was wrecked from the lead by Austin Dillon, losing five playoff points that would have made the difference of advancing at the Roval.
“It’s hard to think about Richmond a little bit right now, but I guess the positive of it is we’re in the owners championship so we can confuse all the fans from here out about drivers and owners championship,” Logano said. “The money’s in the owners so we’ll keep fighting for the money.”
Briscoe was the first playoff driver eliminated from contention when his No. 14 Ford encountered a mechanical problem during Stage 2. Briscoe retired after
41 laps, snuffing Stewart-Haas Racing’s last hope of winning a championship in its final season. It capped a hectic week for Briscoe, whose wife suffered complications after giving birth to twins.
“It’s tough to have all that momentum that we had and have it come to an end like it did was unfortunate,” Briscoe told NBC Sports’ Kim Coon. “We knew as a team going into it this was going to be the one (difficult) round. We felt if we could get through it, we could get to the final four. Now we’ll focus on trying to win a race. Obviously, we wish we were racing for a championship, but it’s kind of one of those days and honestly one of those weeks.”
Stage 1 winner: Reddick
Stage 2 winner: Bowman
Next: The third round will begin Sunday, Oct. 20 at Las Vegas Motor Speedway (2:30 p.m. ET on NBC)