Homestead-Miami high line could lead to glory again for Larson, Reddick

HOMESTEAD, Fla. -- The unique teal walls of Homestead-Miami Speedway are usually dotted with black paint scrapes by the end of a NASCAR race weekend. Don't expect anything different after Sunday's NASCAR Cup Series race at the 1.5-mile South Floridian oval. The highest racing line up against the SAFER barrier is a tool drivers have found to build significant speed, most times inches away from contact -- and sometimes those drivers overstep it. MORE: Homestead schedule | Starting lineup Kyle Larson and Tyler Reddick have built quite the reputations for themselves as elite wall riders, most notably with Larson dominating the 2022 event to lead 199 of 267 laps en route to his first Homestead victory. Reddick ripped the fence on his way to two championships in the NASCAR Xfinity Series when the title was decided in Homestead. "It seems to be how I’ve figured out how to go fast here," Larson said Saturday. "You have to be comfortable against the wall and I know there’s a lot of drivers that aren’t that comfortable against it. So that gives guys like myself and (Tyler) Reddick an advantage when we come here." Reddick got the edge on Larson in qualifying, placing his No. 45 Toyota third on the starting grid ahead of Larson's No. 5 Chevrolet in fifth. In a Tuesday teleconference, Reddick explained that test sessions around the track, when he was competing in the NASCAR Xfinity Series, offered more learning moments, helping him excel at the asphalt's outer limits. "Obviously, I ran trucks a couple of years and always ran good at Homestead in a truck. So it already seemed like we were in a pretty good spot," Reddick said. "I could kind of run the fence, but certainly when I was a rookie in the Xfinity Series and you would get that one or two tests, I think I got to test there and it was a big deal. It made me a lot better as a driver. Especially with the composite body coming in, I just got to go up there and wear the wall out and get a good read on what it can handle and what it can't." [caption id="attachment_411018" align="aligncenter" width="640"]Alejandro Alvarez | NASCAR Studios[/caption] That experience has paid off at the Cup level. He has two top-five finishes in three Cup starts but crashed out of last year's event, the first in a Next Gen car. "I think we were probably going to run fourth or fifth. But I could not run the wall very good," Reddick said. "I think that was more of just product of where our car was on that day. Unfortunately, the closer I got to the wall, the worse it handled." Like Reddick, lessons learned from early Homestead-Miami visits guided Larson to the high ground -- and some of those lessons were taught from a competitor. "I remember when I ran the truck race here in 2012, that was my first time here," Larson recalled. "We had a really good race and led some of it. I got to battle with Kyle Busch for a while. I was running fairly high and then he passed me and stuck his hand out the window and told me to get higher, so I just started running as high as I could. "There were points in the corner where I’d get really close to the wall and once you do that a few times, you can feel the effect that the right side of the car has against the wall. So then over time, you start pushing it -- entering higher and you start getting to the wall at an earlier point in the corner and eventually, you just end up running up next to the wall the whole lap." Needless to say, their modern-day opponents have taken note of what Larson and Reddick have been able to do around the top of the race track. Ryan Blaney, a fellow competitor in the Round of 8 in the NASCAR Playoffs, admires their capabilities but also cautioned the wall may not be the end-all, be-all toward checkered-flag glory. “This is a place where you are going to have two or three guys that are super good at it," Blaney said. "Larson is ridiculous here at it. Reddick runs really good here at it. Then you will have one or two other guys that kind of pop in and can rip the fence pretty good right on it. But you have to make it work off the fence too. I think it depends on what your car is doing and a lot of it is confidence in how well you can run it. "I think Larson runs it no matter what his car is doing just because he is really good at doing it. I like to think that I am pretty decent at it. I am not Larson level -- not even close. Nobody is. I am fairly confident, though, and I am more about getting my car working to what I need it to do to run up on that fence." Reddick drives for 23XI Racing, co-owned by fellow competitor Denny Hamlin, who is also a good friend of Larson's. Hamlin has found his fair share of success against the wall with three Homestead wins and four at Darlington Raceway. “Certainly, the closer you can get with a certain amount of speed is advantageous," Hamlin said. "There’s a little bit of a buffer there with the amount of air between the car and wall to stay there, but then that bubble can burst, and it can go wrong, going into the wall. It’s a very fine line and a lot of the time, it’s also dependent on the body of the car. Some bodies are better off doing that than others because of how aerodynamics wrap around the car." Larson is already locked into the Championship 4 via last week's victory at Las Vegas Motor Speedway. But Reddick and the six other Round of 8 competitors will look to ride the Homestead high line into the title race on Sunday afternoon (2:30 p.m. ET, NBC, MRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).