Reddick wins at Indy to ‘close’ best month of NASCAR career

Allmendinger comes up just short in bid for sweep

INDIANAPOLIS, Aug 1, (AP): Tyler Reddick this month already grabbed his first Cup career victory, qualified for NASCAR’s playoffs and signed a big contract with a new team.

Now he’s got a victory at Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

Reddick closed the best month of his career with an overtime win Sunday on the road course at Indy to give him two victories in the last five Cup races.

Reddick broke through for his first career victory on July 3 at Road America in Wisconsin, then announced nine days later he was leaving Richard Childress Racing in 2024 to drive for 23XI, the team owned by Denny Hamlin and Michael Jordan.

Win No. 2 seemed to be easily within reach as Reddick was comfortably out front for 15 late laps when debris from Christopher Bell’s car brought out the fourth caution of the race with only six to go.

It set up a restart with three laps remaining and Reddick lined up alongside road course ace Chase Elliott, who briefly got past Reddick for the lead until he was spun for another caution that sent the race into overtime.

Reddick on the next restart had to hold off defending race winner AJ Allmendinger.

CAR RACING

Allmendinger’s shot at an Indianapolis sweep was derailed Sunday by a double whammy.

First, he struggled with such searing heat inside the car he needed a post-race trip to the track’s infield care center. Then, on the final restart, the natural chaotic pushing and shoving of an overtime scramble to the finish took him out of contention on the Brickyard’s road course.

But it was the failure of his personal cooling shirt throughout the entire race that was most troublesome: Allmendinger seemed to fall out of his car after the race and rushed to lean over an interior wall, where his wife and other team members draped him in wet towels and doused him with cold water.

He was shirtless and covered in a towel when he went to Indy’s medical center for about 30 minutes of treatment.

A much cooler and healthier-looking Allmendinger emerged in street clothes and walked to his golf cart.

It wasn’t how the 40-year-old Californian envisioned ending what started as such a promising weekend. He won the Xfinity Series race on the road course on Saturday, was the defending Cup winner and in second on the final restart with a chance to sweep the weekend.

Allmendinger collapsed when he climbed from his car. His wife and team personnel were seen draping his head in wet towels and dumping water over him before Allmendinger was taken to the care center.

So it was Ross Chastain who made Reddick claw his way to the Yard of Bricks.

Chastain missed the first turn completely and used the access road to return to the racing course ahead of Reddick and the apparent new leader. Reddick chased him for an entire lap around the 2.439-mile course and finally reclaimed the lead in time to lead the entire final lap.

NASCAR after the race penalized Chastain for using the access road, which dropped him to 27th.

Reddick’s win made him the first RCR driver since Kevin Harvick in 2013 to win multiple races in a season, and multiple victories for RCR in a season for the first time since 2017.

It was RCR’s fourth win at Indianapolis

as Reddick joined Dale Earnhardt, Kevin Harvick and Paul Menard as Indy winners for Richard Childress. The previous three wins were on the Brickyard’s oval.

But Childress still seemed chapped by Reddick’s early decision to leave in 18 months, specifically citing his cordial split with Harvick at the end of the 2013 season.

But the owner said he’d still celebrate with Reddick and his sponsors, and he later was alongside Reddick for the customary celebration of kissing the yard of bricks.