Reddick brought back down to earth with eighth place finish at Phoenix

Tyler Reddick is no longer undefeated in the NASCAR Cup Series, and he’s OK with that.

Reddick had his three-race winning streak come to an end Sunday at Phoenix Raceway with a quiet but solid eighth-place result. It was where he started the afternoon, and he averaged a sixth-place running position, but he never led a lap and didn’t have the car to challenge for his fourth straight victory.

“We just kind of fought handling a little bit,” Reddick said. “It seemed like our Jordan Brand Toyota Camry had good speed; it was just kind of back and forth about which direction we thought we needed to go, and so we kind of just hovered around fifth all day. We took those two tires there, and it got a little tight on us at the end.”

The two-tire call from his 23XI Racing team came under caution with 25 laps to go. It propelled Reddick off pit road in the fourth position. There was another caution shortly after the race restarted with 19 laps to go, and Reddick chose to restart in the fifth position.

The final run to the finish was 12 laps.

“All in all, yeah, it would have been nice to make it four, but looking at the board over here, we scored the fourth most amount of points on the day,” Reddick said. “That’s what we need to keep doing all year to keep the lead that we have and try to hang on to it. A solid day. If we’re not going to win, these are the days we need to have and glad to get out of here with some points.”

It was a 39-point haul for Reddick and his group. He remains the Cup Series points leader.

On the downside, Reddick’s average finish dropped from 1.0 to 2.8.