Over the past two decades, Tyler Reddick has romanticized this moment because it’s so unfathomable.
He won the Daytona 500.
But even after crossing the finish line, Redick didn’t allow himself to feel anything. There was no immediate joy. There is no prosperity. He didn’t even press the mic button to celebrate with his team.
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“I don’t know if I won the game,” Redick said. “At that moment, I knew I crossed the start and finish line first, but I didn’t know if the yellow light came on before I got to the start and finish line and Chase (Elliott) was in front of me. I didn’t know anything about those things.
“Yes, everyone is devastated, but again, I don’t want to get ahead of myself. I don’t want to think I won the race and then be told seconds later that I didn’t. That would be devastating, especially after finishing second last year. I just want to control myself until I know I won.”
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This race has always meant a lot to Reddick, even though as a California dirt racer who grew up driving Outlaw Karts and Dirt Late Models, he wasn’t entirely sure he had a path to the Cup Series.
“I watched a lot of NASCAR races growing up, but when I was a little kid growing up in California, I would never miss the Daytona 500, sitting down with my family on Sunday and watching that race,” he said. “I dream of one day having the opportunity to play in this game.”
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His first lap at the facility was during the ARCA Racing Series open test each January. He drove for Briggs Cunningham.
“Yeah, I just remember going into the ARCA test and thinking it was so fast and it seemed so surreal,” Reddick said. “I watched a lot of racing here as a kid and now I’m finally on the track. I’m testing on my own, the bike stuff. But nonetheless, I’ve always dreamed of being able to drive out of Turn 4, across the tri-oval and see the grandstands. Yeah, when I was testing here, the grandstands were empty, but just seeing this place, it’s just something I dream about.
“I never knew this would lead to me talking to you guys about winning the Daytona 500, but as a little kid growing up, I always dreamed that one day this would become a reality.”
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That year he competed in the ARCA competition and finished in the top five. That kick started his pavement career. At the time, Redick was already the youngest winner in the history of the prestigious Lucas Oil Late Model Tour. this is not a fait accompli He was always going to get into NASCAR.
“I was racing at Volusia Speedway,” Reddick said of the 2009 Daytona 500, “and I think Kenseth won the rain-shortened race here that year. But this was my first or second time at Volusia Speedway in a late model, and my family and I came to the track, and we parked the trailer at home, and I felt like it was a mile and a half from the track, but we bought tickets on the back track. The bleachers stood on the back track with our whole family and watched the race.”
He called it the craziest thing he had ever seen.
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“But for me, it’s so surreal to be at Daytona and see a Cup car on the track,” Reddick said. “I watched the race on TV, but it was a really cool moment to watch here. It’s a shame the race did get cut short because of the rain, but every time the cars came down the back track, they were moving. They were going so fast.
“It was such a fun time to be able to spend time with my family. Yes, it was a shame it was cut short because of the rain, but we still had a lot of fun.”
That’s not the only reason this win was so impactful. This past year has been a really bad year for Redick. After winning three championship games in 2024, he won nothing in 2025. At home, he welcomed his second son, Rookie, in May, but the golfer developed a tumor that caused some tough moments in the second half of the season.
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He’s playing well now, and the Reddicks had Bo and the rookie on the track Sunday to celebrate with them.
“The only time I felt the emotional level of that moment was when I won the pole at Charlotte Roval and the rookie was hospitalized,” Reddick said of the October race weekend. “To me, it’s a whole different set of reasons, what my son is going through, what our family is going through.”
Tyler Reddick, 23XI Racing Toyota
Tyler Reddick, 23XI Racing Toyota
Redick’s reaction to everything on and off the track impressed team owner Denny Hamlin, who had his own personal struggles to deal with last winter. Hamlin said 23XI held a competition meeting last month to address some of the issues that arose in 2025, and Reddick was the only one with a pen and paper.
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“That’s what we expect from him, right,” Hamlin said. “Whenever I first talked to him four or five years ago, I knew, ‘Hey, I need you here’ … I just knew his ceiling was so, so high.
“Last year, the expectations were definitely higher than the overall result, but hopefully winning a game like this will take a lot of the ego pressure off Taylor. Hopefully he can play as easily as he usually does this season.”
All in all, all of this is a reflection of Redick doing just that, working hard from day one. That led him to the Cup Series and now has earned him the Harley J. Earle Trophy.
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“I think for me, if you keep dreaming big, if you work really hard, you never know what the future is going to hold,” Redick said. “Obviously you have to make sacrifices along the way, whether it’s yourself or your family.
“Everyone in my family has sacrificed a lot for this. Me, my parents, my grandfather, my grandparents have all sacrificed a lot for this, and it’s only the teamwork of everyone like today that makes moments like this happen.”
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