Tyler Reddick, No. 45 team missed Kansas setup 'by a mile'

It's now or never for Tyler Reddick to get back into contention for the 2026 NASCAR Cup Series championship, and it's looking more like never. 

Sunday's race at Kansas, where Reddick won on April 19, was a golden opportunity for the No. 45 team to get back in the championship hunt. Instead, the No. 45 23XI Racing Toyota dropped like a rock early in the Hollywood Casino 400, which left Reddick devoid of stage points. 

What followed was a remarkable drive back to the top five by Reddick that was stunted by a bad pit stop. Reddick recovered to finish 11th, but the damage was done — he's now seventh in the standings and 111 points back of leader Kyle Larson with just six races left in the season. 

What went wrong for Tyler Reddick at Kansas?

"Spent the day trying to figure out where our weekend went wrong," Reddick said Monday on SiriusXM NASCAR Radio. "Try and apply some lessons going into Vegas. It's going to be really important to figure it out, or we're going to have another really, really rough weekend."

Reddick must find a way to make up a chunk of points at Las Vegas on Oct. 4 if he is to remain a title contender. After winning five of the first nine races, Reddick is winless since that aforementioned Kansas win and has mostly been in a rut since a June 7 crash at Michigan. 

"We definitely missed it by a mile, for sure," Reddick said. "Everyone here knows that. Certainly, I think, considering how well we ran in the spring, to miss is that bad is really disappointing. Vegas earlier this year, we were able to learn some things from that that we rolled into the next mile-and-a-half races we had on the schedule like Kansas, for example. 

"It's going to be important for us to figure out how we got to that place. We've been trying to get to the bottom of it today."