Tyler Reddick Details Career Before Joining Michael Jordan’s NASCAR Project

Starting from the 2023 season Tyler Reddick joined the 23XI Racing Team alongside Bubba Wallace. This opportunity opened up for him a year before his actual scheduled contract after Kurt Busch announced his retirement following a head injury.

Prior to joining the Michael Jordan and Denny Hamlin-owned Cup Series team, he used to race for Richard Childress Racing. But after he announced his intention to move out and head to 23XI Racing from the 2024 season, the team decided to pull veteran Kyle Busch into his seat.

During his time with RCR, he did exceptionally well with three race wins and several top-10 finishes. But before his Cup Series foray, Reddick had also been a two-time Xfinity Series champion. Recently, while speaking in an interview with NASCAR, Reddick opened up and shared the first time when he thought racing in the Cup Series would become a possibility for him.

Tyler Reddick explains at what point he believed he’d get into the Cup Series

During the one-on-one interview, Reddick was asked about the point in his career when he recognized his potential to become a Cup driver and race on Sundays. Subsequently, Reddick responded, “Winning the first Xfinity Series championship made me think it was a possibility.”

“Going out there and winning that second Xfinity Series championship the way we did. Being able to switch teams like that and go out and win a second championship made me feel like that it was gonna happen at some point. It went down the way that it did and I ended up moving into the #8 car the next year,” Reddick added.

Even after leaving RCR, he has been pretty consistent and interesting to witness on the race track with 23XI Racing. This season marked the first time that both cars for the team made it into the playoffs with Wallace getting his first shot at the postseason. However, after the conclusion of the round of 12, Wallace was eventually knocked out. Moving forward, Reddick remains in the round of eight with two races remaining before the championship finale at Phoenix.

Reddick elaborates on his first Cup Series win against Chase Elliott

Further into the interview, Reddick also recalled details about the first win in the Cup Series at Road America with the #8 car in 2022.

“The race kind of played out in the way that I feel like a veteran would kind of win a Cup race. Nothing too crazy. Just hang around methodically, you got one car, I feel like every restart…”

“On that last stage we were, we were behind the nine (Chase Elliott) and we needed to close the gap a little bit and we were just a little bit better than he was. I thought he was gonna kind of pull away. But he started to lose a little bit of security in the braking zone. And I knew I had a little bit of room to gain on him there. So it just came together,” he added.

Reddick concluded that his win against Hendrick Motorsports’ Chase Elliott was nothing out of the ordinary, neither did it involve any special “crazy moves” to complete the overtake. Instead, it had just been a smooth and methodical race for him.