Crash landing
Collision doesn’t keep Reddick out of playoffs
DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. — Tyler Reddick parked his taped-together Chevrolet on the back stretch of Daytona International Speedway, far from everyone else and quite possibly in the way of track workers trying to clean up a crash. He could smell burning oil and see smoke coming from under the hood.
Alone with his thoughts and genuinely concerned with his chances of making the playoffs, those few minutes of isolation could have been troubling for a 25-year-old driver with so little NASCAR experience.
Instead, Reddick turned them into a positive.
“It was nice in a way to sit back there and kind of reset on what we had to do,” he said.
Reddick checked off a lengthy to-do list after that red-flag stoppage — most of it involving making sure his damaged No. 8 was in working order — and drove his way into the Cup Series playoffs. Reddick finished fifth in the regular-season finale Saturday night and secured the final spot in the 16-car postseason field.
He entered the weekend in the best position to earn that last berth. But more than a dozen other drivers, including Richard Childress Racing teammate Austin Dillon, could have ruined his season.
Several of them had a chance after the final restart. Ryan Blaney, though, who had already clinched a playoff spot, beat everyone to the checkered flag and lifted Reddick into the postseason.
“It would have been a real tough pill to swallow walking out of this place, out of the playoffs after the turnaround we’ve had and running the way we were,” Reddick said. “It would have been a hard one to walk away from.”
Standing on pit road after a mild celebration with his RCR crew and his sponsors, Reddick looked up at the scoreboard and rattled off several drivers who could have changed his fortune: Chris Buescher (who was later disqualified), Bubba Wallace, Ryan Newman and Ryan Preece.
“A lot happened in a matter of
30 minutes,” Reddick said. “Kind of emotionally just spent.”
Nonetheless, he reflected on everything that nearly went wrong in the 400-mile superspeedway race, none of it more heart stopping than running into the back of Martin Truex Jr. late in the race and having to deal with damage the rest of the way.
“Going through this tonight is going to make us tougher, and it’s going to make the challenge and the next bump in the road seem less small,” Reddick said.
He could have said the same about his season. Reddick improved 17 spots, from 28th to 11th, in points after a lackluster start to his second full-time Cup Series season. Now, though, he has five top-10 finishes in the past eight races.
“I feel like this was the huge mountain we had to get over to kind of being in the valley of the playoffs for a while,” Reddick said. “I’m just more excited than anything for this challenge ahead.”
F1 endures soaked Sunday
SPA-FRANCORCHAMPS, Belgium — Max Verstappen won a rain-soaked Belgian Grand Prix on Sunday when the Formula One event was finally called shortly after it restarted under a safety car — and nearly three hours later than its scheduled time.
The race was shortened to last one hour, with only half points awarded to the winner, who needed to complete only two laps to earn points. Verstappen was leading on the fourth lap when the restarted race ended after roughly 10 minutes of driving with rain still lashing down.
“Now, in hindsight, it was important to get the pole position,” Verstappen said. “But it was a shame not to do proper laps.”
Verstappen’s sixth win of the season was the 16th of his F1 career and stopped rival Lewis Hamilton earning a record-extending 100th career win, and it also trimmed Hamilton’s lead in the season standings from eight points to three. Hamilton is seeking a record-breaking seventh series championship.
Verstappen collected 12.5 points instead of 25, with second-place George Russell getting nine in the second podium finish of his career and Hamilton picking up 7.5.