It takes a village to raise a child, and in NASCAR, that village packs up and spends most of its time on the road. From February through November, the calendar runs for 38 weeks, and the grind does not let up. Add children to the whole situation, and the load doubles back on itself. In most cases, the burden falls on the driver’s spouse, who either holds the fort at home or brings the children along from track to track. Alexa Reddick, raising two sons, knows that drill all too well.
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Life on the circuit means living out of motorhomes or hotels, with a new city on the schedule each week. Routine does not come easy in that setting. It has to be built, piece by piece, often by one parent while the other chases laps. Wives handle the day-to-day, from home-schooling to meals to the small tasks that keep a household running, stepping into the role of a single parent for race weekends while the driver keeps his head down at work.
In that world, the track becomes a second home, and the pull of racing seeps in early. Alexa laid it bare when she spoke about the hold the sport can have, in an interview with Samantha Busch.
“I think I think being a race car driver is a disease. Okay. It’s like a mental It’s like a mental disease,” she said. And that exposure often gets the children to crave the same thrill their fathers get while driving the race cars.
“And I think that raising these kids at a racetrack and then being like, ‘Do you want to race?’ It’s being like, ‘Here’s a really like hard addictive drug. We’re going to give it to a child. Do you like that? Do you want to do that again? Is this something you want to keep doing?’ And they’re like, because they’re also adrenaline addicts because of DNA,” Alexa continued.
For the children, race day is more than another Sunday, as it hits close to home. Wins carry weight that goes beyond the trophy. Alexa recalled a moment after Tyler Reddick’s win at COTA, when their son Beau could not hold back. Tyler stayed by the window of the car, but Beau, now six, climbed onto the roof, taking over the scene and sharing the spotlight in his own way.
Moments like that are how families make up for lost time. The schedule leaves little room to spare, and as children grow, school and routine begin to pull in the other direction. That push and pull forces families to find a middle ground, with drivers often traveling back and forth between home and track, while at other times the family joins the road.
