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.

“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

POS	CAR	DRIVER	MAKE	BEHIND	LAPS
1	8	Tyler Reddick		—	86
2	2	Austin Cindric #		1.065	86
3	21	Harrison Burton #		2.388	86
4	38	Todd Gilliland #		3.337	86
5	23	Bubba Wallace		4.422	86
6	22	Joey Logano		4.938	86
7	16	AJ Allmendinger(i)		5.069	86
8	34	Michael McDowell		5.681	86
9	41	Cole Custer		6.183	86
10	17	Chris Buescher		6.207	86
11	18	Kyle Busch		6.439	86
12	20	Christopher Bell		6.545	86
13	47	Ricky Stenhouse Jr.		7.467	86
14	11	Denny Hamlin		7.510	86
15	43	Erik Jones		7.886	86
16	9	Chase Elliott		8.356	86
17	45	Ty Gibbs(i)		8.907	86
18	7	Corey LaJoie		9.426	86
19	31	Justin Haley		10.328	86
20	6	Brad Keselowski		10.493	86
21	19	Martin Truex Jr.		10.521	86
22	77	Josh Bilicki(i)		12.308	86
23	14	Chase Briscoe		12.440	86
24	51	Cody Ware		13.341	86
25	78	Josh Williams(i)		17.383	86
26	12	Ryan Blaney		22.133	86
27	1	Ross Chastain		86.658	86
28	99	Daniel Suarez		86.659	86
29	15	Joey Hand		-1	85
30	3	Austin Dillon		-1	85
31	24	William Byron		-7	79
32	48	Alex Bowman		-21	65
33	4	Kevin Harvick		-22	64
34	42	Ty Dillon		-26	60
35	5	Kyle Larson		-29	57
36	26	* Daniil Kvyat		-43	43
37	27	* Loris Hezemans(i)		-52	34
38	10	Aric Almirola		-62	24