Reddick looking to regain ground as Hamlin chips away at championship lead

Tyler Reddick is no longer in a position to be satisfied with a top-five result in a NASCAR Cup Series race, as was the case Sunday at Pocono Raceway.

“I wish it was a nice back in the top five day, but all things considered, still lost a good amount of ground again,” Reddick said after finishing second. “There were a couple of areas of the race where things didn’t go the way we wanted them to, and I think that certainly played a role in the outcome. But in some ways, it was really nice for us to do the strategy the way that we did, we passed a lot of cars in the end, but when you get that close …

“We’ve got good speed in our Supply House Toyota Camry; just didn’t really get an opportunity to show it until the end of the race.”

The 23XI Racing driver came up short against the one competitor he could not afford to see in front of him, Denny Hamlin. Reddick was also outscored by Hamlin during the race.

Hamlin won the race and scored a total of 67 points. Reddick scored 35 points in his second-place finish.

But Reddick did not score any stage points.

In the last three races, all won by Hamlin, the lead has been cut down by over 100 points. Reddick led Hamlin by 122 going into Nashville Superspeedway, the first race of the stretch that Hamlin is now on.

The gap between Reddick and Hamlin leaving Pocono is 19 points.

“Yeah, it is,” said Reddick of the pressure on him and his team. “It was nice while it lasted, I guess, to be in that spot where we didn’t have to hurt ourselves in the following stage by going for the stage points. We’ll see how it plays out at San Diego and Sonoma. Billy [Scott] and (everyone) are going to have some tough decisions to make when it comes to strategy at the stage ends, who is going to go for what.

“We’ll see how it goes. If we do a good job of bringing good speed to San Diego, like we bring to the Chicago street course, we should put ourselves in position to hopefully net even or gain a little bit of ground.”