DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. — The celebration of 23XI Racing’s first Daytona 500 win was a star-studded Sunday soirée, one missing only the velvet ropes.
NBA legend Michael Jordan held court in the center of Victory Lane, embracing the team members he’s helped bring together in the relatively short time since the organization launched for the 2021 season. NFL standout Puka Nacua, who soaked in a weekend-long immersion into the NASCAR world, jumped into the middle of the jubilation photos. The team cheered the Los Angeles Rams wideout’s arrival and promptly beered him, and the bottom of their 12-ounce cans went skyward in a hurry. Hall of Famer Kurt Busch, the No. 45 team’s first driver, dropped in to pay his respects to the organization that gave him his final ride.
There was plenty of “man of the hour” billing to go around, but Tyler Reddick, who wheeled his way to the biggest victory of his career, wore it as well as anyone.
Reddick savored an improbable Daytona 500 victory Sunday, cutting through all the chaos that thinned the field of pre-race favorites. He led only the last lap, steering clear of two crashes and converting a final-stretch maneuver past Chase Elliott to win it, helping to turn back the disappointment of a winless 2025.
His hoisting of the Harley J. Earl Trophy was a height-difference alley-oop with Jordan, who has cradled a few of the NBA’s Larry O’Briens in his day.
“It’s like winning a championship, like a huge championship,” Jordan said as he was whisked from Victory Lane. “Unbelievable.”
Reddick shared in that disbelief, asking his team multiple times to assure him he’d won. When that confirmation came, he slid the No. 45 Toyota through the infield grass in a fit of joy.
That swoop helped to soothe a year of personal and professional heartache for the 30-year-old driver. Reddick’s youngest son, Rookie, had surgery last October to treat a kidney tumor, an ailment that added family stress to an already difficult NASCAR Cup Series season — his first without a win since 2021. Sunday, Reddick was happy to report that Rookie was much-improved and present with his older brother, Beau, for the Victory Lane festivities. The win puts his professional career back in order, too.
“To have last year play out the way that it did was — it was rough,” Reddick said. “Obviously, everything else happening outside of the race track was not easy to manage, as well, with my son. So to get through all that, and here we go, it’s 2026, and go race, I definitely worked really hard in the offseason, but it’s tough when you don’t win. You’ve got all these expectations to win multiple races, for championships, and we didn’t really live up to those last year. …
“To be able to do it the way that we did and just be in the mix at the end is everything we could have asked for. I’m just really proud of how honest everyone at 23XI on my team and in the organization was with each other, having the tough conversations to kind of work this stuff out so that when we get into 2026, we’re not trying to fix 2025 into 2026. We’re reset, we’re ready to go. It’s one race, certainly, but do it the way that we did today, with the day that we kind of had, it says a lot about the work we put in in the offseason.”
If the strife of the season took its toll on the No. 45 team and its driver, crew chief Billy Scott was intent on not letting it carry over. Reddick was one spot shy of winning the “Great American Race” last year, and his total of seven top-five finishes included several instances where the win column seemed within reach.
Sunday’s effort, Scott said, helped to turn the page.
“From my side and the things we worked on, certainly frustrated, certainly disappointed, as all of us were. We had expectations and do have expectations way higher than that,” Scott said. “But it was never a frustration of discouragement or disappointment or blame or anything else. It was collectively, how do we get better, how do we work on the things that we can improve ourselves. And (Reddick) has been all in on everything that’s come up, from ownership, from within our team, and he’s entered the season with a new, I think, rejuvenated outlook on things. I think we’ve all felt that internally, and tonight it shows.”
“This puts them in a great spot, and it certainly takes a lot of pressure off the shoulders,” said team co-owner Hamlin, a three-time 500 champ as a driver and a first-timer on the executive side. “Certainly last year that we didn’t have the performance that we wanted. You know, we’re not happy with top 10 in the final standings. That’s not where we’re building this team to be, but they were consistent, just never could quite get that win. But now this allows them to just, in my opinion, just race a little freer.”
Hamlin said that a 23XI team meeting a few weeks ago served as a reminder to its four drivers, stressing how important the Daytona 500 was to its famous team co-owner. The emphasis was clear, that the responsibility rested with the four drivers carrying the 23XI banner. “Do you guys understand the responsibilities that you have, that you have the power to bring joy to Michael Jordan?” Hamlin recalled saying. “Like, you have that power, and nobody else can do it. There’s nothing else that can bring him the joy that seeing what his team can do, and they took it to heart today.”
The celebration was reminiscent of Jordan’s delight in a 2024 victory at Talladega Superspeedway, where all the right moves in the final laps produced Reddick’s first win on a drafting-style track. Jordan carried Beau Reddick to Victory Lane, and his Jordan Brand was featured prominently with a bespoke sneaker design in the No. 45’s paint scheme.
But what’s it like to win a championship for Michael Jordan? Billy Scott, the No. 45 team’s veteran crew chief, said he has trouble grasping it.
“Like Denny said, it’s just cool to see him get the joy out of that,” Scott said. “I can’t imagine what it’s like playing at the level he did and accomplishing the things he did and then just walking away from it and going back to the things that the rest of us experience in daily life. This is a huge day for us and a big celebration, but I can’t even imagine how it compares to the things he’s accomplished. But to watch him genuinely be excited and the celebration that he has is a lot of what drives us. I think Denny has always commented that we really celebrate when we get a win, and part of that is feeding off of that. I remember Talladega, and today was much the same, of the level of excitement he has is unmatched.”
If anyone came close to equaling the elation, it was Reddick. Shortly after he arrived for his post-race press conference, Reddick was introduced as the latest Daytona 500 winner. “Champion,” he quickly but gently corrected the moderator with a smile.
However he’s introduced from now on, that label will stick.
“It’s the stuff you dream of as a kid,” Reddick said. “I definitely didn’t look in the future and know that I’d be driving for Michael Jordan in a Cup car. But to be able to have someone like Michael Jordan believe in me enough to want me to drive here, someone like Denny Hamlin to believe in me enough to want me to drive here, and then deliver in these clutch moments like I’ve been able to do over the last couple years — 2025 I didn’t, obviously — but to bounce back from that rough year we had last year and just try and do my best to deliver on the promises that I made to them and vice versa, just to be able to do these great things for Michael, someone who loves racing as much as he does and is passionate about winning as much as I am or Denny is, to be able to come through on those promises and meet those expectations is the type of stuff that you just love to be able to do.”