{"id":86439,"date":"2022-07-06T13:44:10","date_gmt":"2022-07-06T20:44:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/?p=86439"},"modified":"2022-07-08T06:44:12","modified_gmt":"2022-07-08T13:44:12","slug":"riddick-earns-first-nascar-cup-series-win-at-road-america","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/riddick-earns-first-nascar-cup-series-win-at-road-america\/","title":{"rendered":"Reddick Earns First NASCAR Cup Series Win at Road America"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Tyler<\/a>
Photo: Courtesy of Getty Images<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Star power and and ambition drive Tyler Reddick as he achieves his first NASCAR Cup Series win at Road America.<\/p>\n

Some NASCAR Cup Series drivers never get there. Never have the chance to go to the start\/finish line, pick up that checkered flag and exalt the crowd with their winner\u2019s desecration of Goodyear rubber. NASCAR, with its large fields and definite us vs them mentality, has a few teams that seem to collect trophies on a regular basis. But even then, the ones that win change as the tides of teams ebb and flow.<\/p>\n

So it\u2019s been with Richard Childress Racing (RCR). After losing Dale Earnhardt 21 years ago, that team has had a few drivers capable of bringing home the bacon on a regular basis, but even then, guys like Kevin Harvick and Kurt Busch change teams and go elsewhere. Family driver Austin Dillon has seen some checkers for his grandfather, notably his 2018 Daytona 500 win.<\/p>\n

Lately, Dillon\u2019s teammate Tyler Reddick has shown the kind of star power that\u2019s eluded RCR the past decade or so. Driving the No. 8 3CHI Chevrolet Camaro ZL1, Reddick has been knocking on victory\u2019s door throughout this 2022 NASCAR Cup Series season. He finally broke through on the Road America road course on July 3rd, winning the Kwik Trip 250 over polesitter and 2020 Cup Series champion Chase Elliott, who drives for Hendrick Motorsports.<\/p>\n

\"Tyler<\/a>
Photo: Courtesy of Getty Images<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Reddick\u2019s first career Cup Series victory came in his 92nd start – and gave Richard Childress his 110th series victory. It was Team Chevy\u2019s ninth-straight NASCAR Cup Series road course win, a streak that started in May of 2021 with Elliott\u2019s victory at Circuit of the Americas. Reddick became the 13th different Cup Series winner thus far in the season (seventh Chevy driver).<\/p>\n

The two-time NASCAR Xfinity Series titleholder, 26, received congratulations from nearly every other driver in the race last Sunday – including Brad Keselowski, now with RFK (Roush Fenway Keselowski) but formerly Reddick\u2019s Xfinity team owner.<\/p>\n

Reddick acknowledged his first victory came from a good starting position (fourth), great pit strategy and excellent track position on the front row as the third and final stage of the race began. Reddick took the lead with the 47th lap and never relinquished the top spot en route to the checkers 16 laps later. Not only was this Reddick\u2019s first victory in NASCAR\u2019s premier class; winning crew chief Randall Burnett celebrated his maiden win as well.<\/p>\n

\u201cEveryone on this team at Richard Childress Racing has believed in me,\u201d the overcome winner said. \u201cI\u2019ve made a lot of mistakes along the way, but man, this year has been one step, one mistake away from greatness all year long. We finally did it today. It feels good,\u201d Reddick said. While teammate Dillon had a mechanical issue, the team kept Reddick in the dark.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m glad it didn\u2019t bring a caution out, for sure, but those last five laps were pretty nice. I was kind of searching within myself what I needed to be doing and that was probably the most stressful part, because I could kind of get away (from Elliott), [but] he would close back in and I was kind of worried about my brakes fading late in a tire run.<\/p>\n

\u201cBeing in front I kind of was playing it a little too safe, honestly, and I realized that my brakes and my car was good and I could push a little harder in the braking zones again, and that allowed me to get out to a comfortable distance,\u201d Reddick confirmed. \u201cThe last five laps were pretty stress free\u201d on a track where he felt he had good speed throughout the 4.048-mile, 14-turn road course.<\/p>\n

Reddick led a five-driver squad of Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 race cars to the checkered flags: behind the first-time winner and Chase Elliott were 2021 champion Kyle Larson, also racing for Hendrick Motorsports, and Trackhouse Racing\u2019s Ross Chastain and Daniel Suarez, all five of them 2022 NASCAR Cup Series winners.<\/p>\n

Reddick has only a week to bask in his first victory before the Cup Series alights to Atlanta Motor Speedway and the Quaker State 400 presented by Walmart. Live coverage of that race is available on USA Network.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Star power and and ambition were both driving forces for Tyler Reddick as he earned his first NASCAR Cup Series win at Road America.<\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":65,"featured_media":86440,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3424,3470,5029,22],"tags":[127,4437,352,2953],"class_list":["post-86439","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nascar","category-news","category-racing","category-event-coverage","tag-nascar","tag-nascar-cup-series","tag-road-america","tag-tyler-reddick"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/GettyImages-1406595649-min.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p42YSK-mub","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86439","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/65"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=86439"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86439\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":86461,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86439\/revisions\/86461"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/86440"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=86439"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=86439"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=86439"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}