CHICAGO — Dashing through the downtown streets, Tyler Reddick and his crew chief Billy Scott made a heads-up call in the final nine laps to try and put themselves in position to win.
What changed the game for Reddick and Scott was a Lap 62 pit stop before the final two restarts. Though they’d lost track position and were forced to restart 13th the very next lap, the advantage on fresh tires allowed the No. 45 driver to navigate rush-hour traffic easily.
“When you have a tire advantage, you have a lot of options,” Reddick said after the race. “As long as you can get within one or two car lengths, you have many opportunities, many choices. I kind of experienced it with other cars coming through the field. If they choose to block, then they’re kind of opening the door for you to be aggressive and then use them up as well.”
Being a top-10 car for most of the 75-lapper, Reddick’s charge from the middle of the pack with fewer than 10 to go forced him to deal with a host of slower cars essentially for the first time of the afternoon. They were no match for the grip of the No. 45 machine, however.
“The second-to-last restart, that first restart there, we put those tires on. We got through Turn 1 OK, but the 2 [Austin Cindric] and 17 [Chris Buescher], some other cars had damage. Someone got spun around and on the driver’s left of Turn 2, and got some toe-link damage or something on the left rear. So lost some braking ability, and then that’s when we lost our track position, too, like the 19 [Chase Briscoe], the 42 [John Hunter Nemechek]."
“Some of those other cars that were on the same tire strategy as us, we had to work our way back through them. There were other cars throughout the field on the way up that were difficult.”
Reddick could’ve had a shot to challenge eventual winner Shane van Gisbergen when Cody Ware went nose-first into the Turn 6 tire barrier on the second-to-last lap. However, the caution flew after SVG had taken the white flag, signaling an end to the event and leaving the No. 45 thinking: what if?
“I saw what Shane was willing to do to win at the race on Saturday. And, you know, for us needing a win to lock ourselves into the playoffs. You know, I would have raced really hard because I think he would have done the same, but it didn’t happen. But we can all dream and speculate what it could have been."
“(A caution) could (have) totally changed the outcome for the top 10, the top 20 in the race. … I think it definitely would have opened up Pandora’s box if you will, and, you know, drivers 10th on back would have been really aggressive for two laps, us on our fresher tires. We would have been able to be very aggressive as well in those two laps, so it’s just a tough deal. You know, it’s racing, sometimes that’s how it goes.”
The call for fresh tires was another master stroke for Scott atop the pit box, who stuck with a fuel-milage gamble to score back-to-back third-place finishes in the first two stages.
“The yellow came out at a fairly opportune time. We knew we were already pretty tight on fuel and having to work on saving toward the end, and we already had more laps than a lot of those guys we were racing.”
Scott told NASCAR.com.
“So you know, having already fallen back to third, we took the opportunity to get tires and make another shot at the win."
“I think we could have got second if it stayed green. Yes, we really knew we needed, from early on, the yellow to come out to have another shot at another restart, to really contend for the win.”
Reddick remains 13th on the playoff bubble after a third-place finish in Chicago, sitting 143 points to the good and keeping his $1 million hopes alive in the In-Season Challenge. But with another road course on deck next week at Sonoma Raceway, it presents a shot for the No. 45 not to have to worry about stacking more points and just winning his way into the playoffs.