Daytona delivers the most meaningful of moments with Reddick's victory

Sunday night was the best of what the Daytona 500 has to offer.

It delivered a race winner in Tyler Reddick, a man who spent much of 2025 as committed to his job as he could be while his infant son, Rookie, battled significant health issues. For the longest time, it was a battle the public never knew about, not until the season wound down, and things became even more serious. Only then was it revealed that Rookie, who was born in May, had to undergo surgery for a tumor in his chest.

The surgery took place in October. Rookie didn’t come home from the hospital until a week before the end of the season, and the Reddick family has tried to get back to some semblance of normalcy since then.

Along with Reddick came winning co-owners Denny Hamlin and Michael Jordan. Hamlin came into the season off an emotional championship defeat and grieving the loss of his father, Dennis, in a December house fire. Jordan, meanwhile, a North Carolinian, living a dream by being involved in a sport he watched as a child.

The victors, of course, hail from 23XI Racing – one of the teams that had dominated not just the NASCAR headlines, but mainstream media since October 2024 after filing an antitrust lawsuit against NASCAR. A lawsuit settled on December 11.

Now, in the first race of the season, the sport’s biggest race, they are the winners. And they capped off a weekend in which Front Row Motorsports, who joined them in the lawsuit, won the Friday night Craftsman Truck Series race and Richard Childress Racing, owned by the man who was insulted by former NASCAR commissioner Steve Phelps via text message as revealed during the trial, won the Saturday night O’Reilly Auto Parts Series race.

Because, of course they are. It was just bound to happen that way, right?

“All we do is win,” cracked Hamlin in the media center as the winning car owner representative.

In that sense, much is likely to be made this week about the fact that NASCAR’s most recent adversary is now its biggest winner. It does make a great story and it is, if nothing else, a bit funny.

Reddick's family: happy, healthy, and together to celebrate the crowning point of his Cup Series career. Chris Graythen/Getty Images

The sport is not unfamiliar with things working themselves out that way. It's the same as two drivers who disagreed about being in the same pre-race parade truck one week, but in different trucks the next. Or parked next to each other in the garage.

But it would be a shame to turn the triumph of Sunday night into just a story about 23XI Racing and NASCAR. Daytona, when at its best, delivers a moment in time for some of those who need it most. A winner or story emerges that will live on for decades, as the magic of the race and what it means shines through in full force.

It’s what happened with Reddick and company.

Reddick celebrated what is thus far the crowning achievement of his Cup Series career. A race he admitted he never knew if he would win. One that came with his family, Alex, Rookie and Beau, all there, happy and healthy.

“The emotion I shared with my wife, my sons, it’s more reflecting on the personal things we’ve gone through, the struggles, the hard times, the uncertainties of knowing what’s going on with Rookie,” said Reddick. “Is Rookie going to be OK? What’s going on there? So, for us, to have this moment in this race, again, everything we went through at the tail end of last year and through the offseason getting back on our feet has its own place.

“Then over on the other side with Denny and Michael and my team, for my team, we worked really hard on all these things in the offseason to improve and come out of the gate strong, and well, we did. We won the first points-paying race. Then with Denny and Michael, those two have believed in me for years, they wanted me to be a part of 23XI and so it’s a mix of coming through on the promises that I made for them, and they made for me, type of thing.

“They believed in me a lot and they wanted me to be here, be a part of 23XI, really badly, and made it all work. And these are the types of moments that I’m supposed to deliver on them for, and it’s nice to be able to do that.”

Kismet. Coincidence. Fitting.

There will be many ways to look at who won the 68th edition of the Daytona 500. In this case, perhaps the simplest answer is correct: everything happens for a reason, and that’s what Daytona is all about.