Reddick needs 5 overtimes to win Xfinity opener
DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. — Tyler Reddick needed five overtimes, a brief red flag and the closest finish in NASCAR history to take Dale Earnhardt Jr. to Victory Lane.
Reddick won the Xfinity Series’ season-opening race by beating JR Motorsports teammate Elliott Sadler in a photo finish. The margin of victory was 0.000 seconds, breaking the mark set by Butch Miller when he beat Mike Skinner by 0.001 seconds to win the Truck Series race July 15, 1995 at Colorado National Speedway.
“How do I protest that? It’s a tie, and it should go to the elder,” joked the veteran Sadler of the victory that went to the 22-yearold Reddick.
It was a nail-biting and tense opener at Daytona International Speedway for NASCAR’s second-tier series, which celebrated its 100th race sponsored by Xfinity on Saturday.
The victory came in Reddick’s debut race for JR Motorsports, the team in part owned by Earnhardt Jr. This is Earnhardt’s first season in retirement from full-time racing.
JR Motorsports has won five of the last nine Xfinity Series races at Daytona, and Reddick’s victory led a 1-2 sweep for the company.
Sadler finished second in the 2002 Daytona 500 and was passed for the lead right before the rain came in the abbreviated 2009 race. His best finish in all three of NASCAR’s national series at Daytona is second.
For Reddick, it was his second Xfinity victory and in the biggest race to date of his career. He won once last year driving a partial schedule for Chip Ganassi and then moved to Earnhardt’s team this season.
Ryan Reed was third, and Kaz Grala took fourth in Fords.
Wallace paces field in practice
The first black driver to start the Daytona 500 since 1969 continues to blaze a trail at Speedweeks.
Darrell Wallace Jr. turned heads again Saturday at Daytona International Speedway and topped the speed chart in the final practice for NASCAR’s season opener.
“A lot of stories, a lot of headlines being talked about,” Wallace said.
Wallace sparked plenty of his own.
He went 196.954 mph in the No. 43 Chevrolet for Richard Petty Motorsports — one more astounding moment in a week where he finished third in a Daytona 500 qualifying race and earned a seventh-place start on Sunday.
There is only one box left to check on his list.
“To win something is good,” Wallace said.
Wallace is one of at least eight black drivers in NASCAR’s 70-year history who reached the Cup level — Elias Bowie, Charlie Scott, George Wiltshire, Randy Bethea, Willy T. Ribbs and Bill Lester. Wendell Scott, who made the last start for a black driver in the Daytona 500, is the only one to win a Cup race on Dec. 1, 1963. The next win at a NASCAR national event by a black driver came in 2013 when Wallace took the Camping World Truck Series checkered flag at Martinsville.
He won six times in 45 starts in the Truck Series, went 0-for-85 in the second-level Xfinity Series and improved each race (26th-19th-15th-11th) in Cup when he raced for the injured Aric Almirola. When Almirola left for Stewart-Haas Racing, Wallace got the call from The King to drive for RPM.
From wire reports