INDIANAPOLIS – It was another wild and confusing finish for the NASCAR Cup Series at the end of Sunday’s Verizon 200 at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.
But after the chaos, it was Tyler Reddick who celebrated his second career NASCAR Cup Series race.
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It was a restart that started overtime where chaos ensued. Ross Chastain was on the outside lane as the field sped into a right-hander in turn 1 and blew by the turn.
Chastain took the access road to rejoin the race and pulled alongside the leader, Reddick.
Reddick was able to keep his lead despite a fierce battle from Chastain’s Chevrolet with Austin Cindric’s Ford in third.
As the trio headed toward the checkered flag, NASCAR Race Control ruled that Chastain’s move was not legal and that’s how the race finished, with Reddick’s Chevrolet ahead of Cindric’s No. 2 Team Penske Ford.
Harrison Burton was third in the Wood Brothers No. 21 Ford followed by the Front Row Motorsports Ford driven by Todd Gilliland.
Bubba Wallace finished fifth in a Toyota followed by Joey Logano’s Ford. Defending winner A.J. Allmendinger was in a great position to win this race for the second year in a row and sweep both NASCAR contests this weekend. But his cool suit failed late in the race and Allmendinger began to feel the heat.
He “fell out of his seat” at the end of the race and had to be tended to by his wife and crew after the race. They put wet towels and gave water and Gatorade to the exhausted driver on pit road.
Reddick, who announced earlier this year he would be leaving Richard Childress Racing to join 23XI Racing after the 2023 season, was able to celebrate a very hard-fought victory.
“I was like, uh-oh,” Reddick said. “But that was a scenario that had been talked about. If you get bottled up, what do you do? Take the access road.
“I couldn’t believe he got ahead of me. I was kind of waiting to see if he was going to have a penalty because I didn’t want to move him out of the way and make his race worse than what it was. Yeah, I was really surprised by that, but hey, we made it work. Hats off to Ross (Chastain) for trying to do that, but really glad it didn’t end up working out because I’d have been pretty pissed off.
“We just know what we’re capable of, and we did that at Road America. Certainly, it was a little bump in the road, but we went out and won a race fair and square a couple weeks ago and if we change nothing, we keep working really, really hard, we find a way back to Victory Lane.
“I’m just really glad to be able to do it here in Indianapolis. This is one really special place to race, and really excited to kiss the bricks here in a little bit and really excited we got 3CHI their win in their hometown.”
Chastain said his decision to use the access road was a “natural reaction.”
“I was just trying not to be in the corners there in turn 1,” Chastain explained. “I thought we were four wide, and couldn’t go any farther right, and decided to take the NASCAR access lane out there.
“It was just pure reaction there, for our Worldwide Express Chevy. I took it in practice on exit, overshooting turn 1, and you know where they’re at, and in 12 you have to go around the loop there, and there is around the pole. Yeah, just wanted to not get hit, and merged back on where I merged.”
Despite having a driver who has announced he will leave the team after next season; it was another trip to victory lane at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway for car owner Richard Childress.
“This is our fourth win, we’ve won with Dale Earnhardt, Kevin Harvick, Paul Menard and now Tyler Reddick,” team owner Richard Childress said. “I congratulated the whole team; he did a great job. It always means a lot when you win at Indy.”
Reddick led the race three times for 38 laps in the 86-lap contest. Blaney led twice for 17 laps and Christopher Bell led one time for 17 laps.
There was a major crash on lap 61 when Kyle Larson lost his brakes on his No. 5 Chevrolet and slammed hard into the side of Ty Dillon’s Chevrolet. Larson climbed out of the car and ran over to apologize to Dillon, whose car took a very hard hit and was destroyed.
Both drivers were treated and released after a trip to the IU Health Infield Care Center in the Indianapolis Motor Speedway infield.
Briscoe won Stage 1 and Bell was the winner of Stage 2.
Blaney is in 15th position in the battle for the final two playoff spots and is up 121 points from the cutoff position. Martin Truex Jr. is 16th, up 96 points from the cutoff.
Kevin Harvick is 17th, 96 points out.
The next NASCAR Cup Series race is next Sunday at Michigan International Speedway.