NASCAR: Tyler Reddick wins Verizon 200 at IMS

Before a sparse crowd of 60,000 at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway road course, Tyler Reddick in the #8 Chevy won his 2nd NASCAR Cup race in the ‘Verizon 200 at the Brickyard.’

Reddick also won on the road course at Road America.

Ross Chastain finished 2nd on the road, but NASCAR took it away because he passed on the access road, which moved Austin Cindric up to 2nd.  Chastain was relegated to a 27th-place finish, the final car on the lead lap.

It was the 2nd win of the year for Reddick.

Reddick had the quickest car all weekend. The third-year driver capitalized with it.

Tyler Reddick, driver of the #8 3CHI Chevrolet, leads the field to the green flag to start the NASCAR Cup Series Verizon 200 at the Brickyard at Indianapolis Motor Speedway on July 31, 2022 in Indianapolis, Indiana. (Photo by Justin Casterline/Getty Images)

“Certainly, it was a little bump in the road, but we’ve gone out and won a race fair and square a couple weeks ago,” Reddick said of his announcement to leave RCR. “If we changed nothing and we keep working really, really hard, we’d find our way back to Victory Lane.

“Just really glad to be able to do it here in Indianapolis. This is one really special place to race. Really excited to kiss the bricks here in a little bit.”

Reddick led three times for 38 laps in a race slowed by cautions only for the end of Stage 1 and Stage 2 before the first incident-related caution on Lap 62. Teams attempted various tire strategies in the first half of the race to try and gain track position during a caution flag that never flew.

Multiple late-race cautions brought his fate into question, but Reddick was not denied and scored his second career NASCAR Cup Series victory in overtime Sunday at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway Road Course, leading 38 of 86 laps en route to the win after starting the Verizon 200 at The Brickyard from the pole.

The caution flew at Lap 77 after the right-front fender of Christopher Bell’s No. 20 Toyota ripped apart on the front straightaway after the right-front tire failed. That set up a restart with three laps remaining in regulation.

The ensuing restart brought chaos with it. Chase Elliott spun from second at the exit of Turn 1 and collected Hendrick Motorsports teammate William Byron. In the same corner, Chase Briscoe and Kyle Busch collided and spun through the left side of the Turn 1 grass. Three corners later, Erik Jones, Martin Truex Jr. and Austin Dillon collided in Turn 4, resulting in the No. 3 Chevrolet sitting stuck in the gravel, necessitating a caution flag and overtime period.

In overtime, Reddick restarted on the front row alongside AJ Allmendinger, last year’s winner of the inaugural Indy Road Course race and Saturday’s Xfinity race. Ross Chastain bolted ahead of the field using an access road to get around Turns 1 and 2, forcing Reddick to run him back down. Reddick passed Chastain around the outside in Turn 13 to set sail and take the checkered flag first.

Reddick was one of few cars to avoid calamity around the 2.439-mile course in Speedway, Indiana. More than half of the 38-car field was involved in some on-track scuffle.

The most serious of the day came at Lap 61, when Kyle Larson lost his brakes at the end of the front stretch. He pitched his No. 5 Chevrolet sideways but thundered into the right-front corner of Ty Dillon’s car in Turn 1, sending both cars careening into the outside grass. Both drivers were OK, but their respective vehicles were destroyed.

Following Chastain’s penalty, Austin Cindric is scored second with rookies Harrison Burton and Todd Gilliland scoring career-best finishes in third and fourth, respectively. Bubba Wallace rounded out the top five.

Joey Logano, Allmendinger, Michael McDowell, Cole Custer and Chris Buescher completed the top 10.

Race Results

# DENOTES ROOKIE
(i) NOT ELIGIBLE FOR POINTS
(*) REQUIRED TO QUALIFY ON TIME

 

Social Media Auto Publish Powered By : XYZScripts.com