Reddick’s rocky summer continues with Iowa DNF

A rocky summer continued Sunday as Tyler Reddick exited the NASCAR Cup Series race at Iowa Speedway before completing five laps.

Reddick lost control of his 23XI Racing Camry in Turn 1 on the fourth lap. In the process, he collected fellow Toyota teammate Erik Jones, both of whom had significant contact with the outside wall. It was a head-on collision for Reddick.

The incident eliminated both drivers from the race. Reddick’s team discovered a hole in the radiator that could not be fixed.

“It was a bit uncharacteristic for sure,” Reddick said. “First off, I obviously hate it for my team, but Erik Jones and everybody at Legacy – they needed a strong day, and it’s not ideal. If I’m going to take myself out, that’s one thing, but I took out a fellow Toyota teammate that needed to have a good day. So, 100% it’s on me.

“It’s something I normally don’t do, normally don’t make those kinds of mistakes, so very disappointed, obviously. We had signs of that in run one in practice out of our SupplyHouse Camry, and in run two, qualifying, our car was much better. It’s gut-wrenching on a lot of levels; I thought we kind of figured out what we needed to do for the race today and made a killer mistake early.”

Reddick had qualified fifth. He was battling Jones for seventh when the crash occurred.

A last-place finish (36th) will result in one point earned for Reddick. It is his second DNF of the season. Reddick will fall further behind championship point leader Denny Hamlin for a chance at the top seed in the Chase, as he had entered the weekend 84 points behind.

Iowa Speedway will be the sixth time in the last nine races that Reddick has finished 25th or worse.

Jones, meanwhile, likely saw his chances at making the Chase go away. He will be credited with a 35th-place finish.

“We needed a few perfect weeks, and it needed to start here today for our Dollar Tree Toyota team, and obviously that didn’t happen,” Jones said. “Just unfortunate with how early it is … I’m just trying to settle in and get going. You don’t expect it either in the top-10, top-five; you don’t think you are going to get caught up in something crazy like that.

“It’s a bummer. It’s a huge mountain now for here on out to get to the Chase, so we will see.”