NASCAR News: Reddick wins another NASCAR wreckfest at EchoPark

Despite having no right front fender after an earlier incident, Tyler Reddick took his second consecutive victory to open the NASCAR Cup Series season in second overtime Sunday at EchoPark Speedway in Atlanta, Georgia in what can only be described as your typical NASCAR superspeedway wreckfest

–by Mark Cipolloni–

Reddick pushed the No. 45 23XI Racing Toyota to a 0.164-second margin of victory, leading a race-high 53 of the 271 laps in the Autotrader 400. His first win at the 1.54-mile Atlanta-area track was the 10th of his Cup Series career, coming on the heels of his Daytona 500 triumph last weekend. He becomes the first driver since Matt Kenseth in 2009 to win the opening two races of a campaign.

“That’s crazy, how about that EchoPark Speedway?’’ the 30-year old Californian yelled to the packed grandstands. “This place over the years it just puts on some amazing racing. Handling matters here, but I don’t know, I guess determination outweighs handling.”

Team owner Michael Jordan was on hand to watch his driver win for the 2nd weekend in a row and now his two drivers, Reddick and Bubba Wallace are 1-2 in the point standings.

“Tyler did an unbelievable job, both teams did an unbelievable job’’ Jordan said, also referring to Wallace, who led  46 laps but finished eighth in the final all-out push to the checkers.

“I wanted one of them to win, I feel bad for Bubba because he had an unbelievable day, but Tyler drove his ass off,’’ Jordan continued. “I’m very happy for Tyler and very happy for 23XI.

“The guys worked hard all summer, and they never gave up. This is the fruit of their labor and for us to come out and win the first two races says a lot about our team.’’

Reddick’s crew chief Billy Scott revealed post-race that the temperatures were so cold – 39 degrees at the checkered flag – that it was difficult to fully repair the car after the accident and had to resort to heavy tape on the front end of Reddick’s damaged Camry. Team co-owner, Joe Gibbs Racing driver Denny Hamlin said of Reddick’s car, “It looked like carnage city.’’

With his Atlanta win, Reddick now leads his teammate Wallace by 40 points atop the championship standings.

“It’s really fun to be a part of 23XI right now,’’ Jordan said grinning.

TYLER REDDICK GOES BACK-TO-BACK!! pic.twitter.com/7Z1EN3e3wK

— NASCAR (@NASCAR) February 23, 2026

Chase Briscoe drove home as the runner-up in the Joe Gibbs Racing No. 19 Toyota. Trackhouse’s Ross Chastain finished third, with Spire Motorsports teammates Carson Hocevar fourth and Daniel Suárez fifth.

Despite almost being taken out of the race by an overrated Kyle Larson, Shane Van Gisbergen had his best superspeedway results with a 6th place finish even after the former Australian Supercars Series champion was caught up in three of the yellow flag incidents on the day.

Front Row Motorsports’ Zane Smith, Wallace, Roush-Fenway-Keselowski’s Ryan Preece and Team Penske’s Ryan Blaney rounded out the top-10 in a race where the top 12 cars finished within a second of the race winner. Nine of the race’s 14 leaders led double-digit laps.

William Byron slowed dramatically after a wall scrape with three laps left in the scheduled 260-lap distance, and his contact with Austin Cindric and others triggered an 11-car wreck at the end of the backstretch. The crash forced a red flag for clean-up and sent the event into overtime.

Reddick, who started from the pole position after a rainout of Saturday’s qualifying, forged on after one of the race’s handful of multicar crashes. His No. 45 Toyota was caught in a stack-up exiting Turn 4 with 37 laps in regulation that included Denny Hamlin, AJ Allmendinger, Chris Buescher, Joey Logano, William Byron, Alex Bowman, Michael McDowell and rookie Connor Zilisch.

Defending Cup Series champion Kyle Larson is a complete wanker on Superpseedway, always crashing. This time Larson made contact with Shane van Gisbergen on the final lap of Stage 2. Larson took the blame for the incident after his No. 5 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet veered into van Gisbergen’s path, then made a heavy hit with the outside retaining wall.

“I just messed up. I knew the No. 45 (Tyler Reddick) was inside of me at one point of the corner, but I got clear of him. I didn’t quite realize that the No. 97 (Shane van Gisbergen) had gotten inside of him. So once I was clear, I just wanted to cut distance and short-cut my way to the stage finish. The No. 97 was out of my mirror. I just hung a quick left and ran right into him. There was nothing anyone else did wrong, it was all on me.

I hate it for this No. 5 HendrickCars.com Chevrolet team. We had a great Chevy. I felt like up until that point, I was doing a pretty good job. As always, we’re just trying to build our notebook up on these places. I know we crashed, but I feel like we are still getting better and better when we come to drafting tracks, especially here at Atlanta.”

The Cup Series’ next race is scheduled Sunday, March 1, at Circuit of The Americas (3:30 p.m. ET, FOX, HBO Max, PRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio), marking the series’ first road-course event of the year.

More to follow…….

2026 Autotrader 400 Results

Average Speed of Race Winner:  117.865 mph.

Time of Race:  3 Hrs, 32 Mins, 27 Secs. Margin of Victory:  0.164 Seconds.

Caution Flags:  10 for 67 laps.

Lead Changes:  57 among 14 drivers.

Lap Leaders:   T. Reddick 0;J. Logano 1;T. Reddick 2;J. Logano 3;T. Reddick 4-5;J. Logano 6-18;T. Reddick 19-23;B. Keselowski 24-28;T. Reddick 29;C. Elliott 30;B. Keselowski 31-33;T. Reddick 34;J. Logano 35-45;C. Elliott 46-53;K. Larson 54;C. Elliott 55-56;K. Larson 57;B. Wallace 58-59;A. Cindric 60-63;B. Keselowski 64;K. Larson 65-71;B. Wallace 72-79;K. Larson 80-87;S. Van Gisbergen 88;K. Larson 89-100;B. Wallace 101-102;T. Reddick 103-109;B. Wallace 110;T. Reddick 111-121;B. Wallace 122;T. Reddick 123-130;B. Wallace 131;T. Reddick 132-133;K. Larson 134-142;B. Wallace 143;K. Larson 144-149;C. Briscoe 150-155;K. Larson 156-159;B. Wallace 160-164;C. Hocevar 165;R. Blaney 166-169;Z. Smith 170;B. Keselowski 171;D. Hamlin 172-176;C. Briscoe 177-196;R. Blaney 197;C. Briscoe 198;B. Wallace 199-200;C. Hocevar 201;D. Hamlin 202-204;T. Reddick 205-206;D. Hamlin 207-208;T. Reddick 209-219;R. Blaney 220;A. Cindric 221-237;C. Bell 238-246;B. Wallace 247-269;T. Reddick 270-271.

Leaders Summary (Driver, Times Lead, Laps Led):  Tyler Reddick 12 times for 53 laps; Kyle Larson 8 times for 48 laps; Bubba Wallace 10 times for 46 laps; Chase Briscoe 3 times for 27 laps; Joey Logano 4 times for 26 laps; Austin Cindric 2 times for 21 laps; Chase Elliott 3 times for 11 laps; Denny Hamlin 3 times for 10 laps; Brad Keselowski 4 times for 10 laps; Christopher Bell 1 time for 9 laps; Ryan Blaney 3 times for 6 laps; Carson Hocevar 2 times for 2 laps; Shane Van Gisbergen 1 time for 1 lap; Zane Smith 1 time for 1 lap.

Stage #1 Top Ten: 2,23,5,24,9,45,8,22,88,12

Stage #2 Top Ten: 23,24,19,45,9,77,60,12,6,97