LAS VEGAS — When Tyler Reddick exited Kansas Speedway in mid-April, he was sitting atop the NASCAR world, having won five of the first nine races of the 2026 season. Five months later, the No. 45 team departed the same intermediate track in a vastly different position, searching for answers as the season winds toward its conclusion.
Upon exiting his No. 45 Toyota following an 11th-place finish, Reddick was disgruntled. In the opening laps of last weekend’s Hollywood Casino 400, he plummeted from 15th to 34th, hanging on to the lead lap by the skin of his teeth when a Lap 35 competition caution was displayed. The Billy Scott-led bunch powered on, constantly improving and cycled to the top five, only to drop to 11th after a late pit-road miscue.
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“I mean, running [11th] on an intermediate race track isn’t really anything we should be proud of, honestly,” Reddick said following the race. “I mean, we fought to get back up in there, but we still just didn’t have the speed we need to have at these intermediate tracks here.”
“We got big problems. We’ve just got to figure our own (expletive) out right now and just not even be worried about that.”
With practice getting washed out at Kansas, the No. 45 team showed up off the hauler with the wrong balance. Tough conversations were had at 23XI Racing this week, as this year’s Daytona 500 winner looks to turn his four months of misfortune around, dating back to Michigan International Speedway in early June.
“I think everybody on our side at 23XI, we’re not happy with where our balances were,” Reddick said on Saturday at Las Vegas Motor Speedway. “We definitely missed it [at Kansas] the most of our cars, finding that tight balance. We were able to have some takeaways from it.
“Certainly, it was very obvious at the start of the race how off we were. In some ways, it was nice that we were able to get within reason at the end of the race. We’ve been trying to understand how we can get that far off and make those adjustments to not show up the same.”
Reddick has slipped to a season-low seventh in the championship standings after three consecutive finishes outside the top 10. He now trails Kyle Larson by 111 points, with Larson gaining 50 points on the No. 45 team during his dominant Kansas outing.
Reddick refuses to give up on the 2026 season. He led the points after each of the first 17 races and knows the No. 45 team has the potential to catch fire at any moment. With consecutive races at intermediate tracks ahead, Reddick has an opportunity to chip away at the deficit, starting with Sunday’s South Point 400 (5:30 p.m. ET, USA Network, HBO Max, PRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio). He believes he still has an outside shot of making a championship push in The Chase presented by Mobil 1.
“It is still possible, but we’ve got to run extraordinary and have things go our way, too, which you never want to be in that spot,” Reddick admitted. “For us, one race at a time to see if we can get our pace back to where we want to be on these intermediate tracks. If we get back on track, it’s a good way for us to end out the year. That’s what we’re focused on. If we run good, it will close back in; all the things we’re wanting will happen. But what starts all that is this weekend and this race and how well we perform.”
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The weekend began with Reddick stopping on track in practice due to a flat left-rear tire after having the best 15- and 20-lap averages in practice. The No. 45 car will take the green flag from fifth position.