Tyler Reddick won the Freeway Insurance 500 at Phoenix Raceway for his first race win since April 19, 2026.
“For us, this group never lost the motivation, never lost the drive, to keep searching and keep trying to find ways to make ourselves better and just be an all-around better team,” Reddick said to USA Sports about working through the issues late in the season. “Just something about today, it didn’t really start right, but just something about today, I had a really good feeling. Practice was amazing and yeah, we are back to victory lane.”
This was Reddick’s sixth win of the season as he is now only 56 points off Kyle Larson in first.
Ryan Blaney, who started on pole, finished second while Chase Elliott, Christopher Bell and Corey Heim rounded out the top five.
Meanwhile, Joey Logano, who led 84 laps, finished sixth while Daniel Suarez, Chase Briscoe, Ross Chastain and Ty Gibbs finished seventh through 10th.
While eight Chase drivers finished inside the top 10, the other eight didn’t. Carson Hocevar was close to a top 10 in 12th but fell just short. Bubba Wallace, Ryan Preece and Austin Cindric finished back-to-back-to-back in 17th, 18th and 19th respectively. William Byron and Chris Buescher finished in 21st and 22nd while Denny Hamlin finished in 28th.
Kyle Larson didn’t finish the race.
Stage one was by Logano and was followed by Hamlin, Bell, Blaney, Briscoe, Byron, Elliott, Chastain, Reddick and Josh Berry to round out the top 10.
Stage two was again won by Logano while Briscoe, Bell, Berry, Wallace, Blaney, Reddick, Hamlin, Todd Gilliland and Elliott rounded out the top 10.
A major moment for the championship happened with 30 laps to go when Larson blew his right front tire and hit the wall hard. That would bring out the caution and end a rather disappointing day for him.
Larson didn’t score any stage points at Phoenix, finishing 22nd in stage one and 27th in stage two, leaving him with only three points on the day.
That now puts him just five points ahead of Bell, 24 points ahead of Briscoe, 31 points ahead of Hamlin, 40 points ahead of Blaney, 44 points ahead of Logano and 56 points ahead of Reddick in the standings.
Larson’s wreck also led to one of the biggest turning points of the day when the field came to pit during a caution. Wallace was leading the race and had clear control before his team took four tires which dropped him from first to sixth off pit road and ninth overall since Briscoe, Elliott and Gibbs stayed out.
That wasn’t the issue, though. With four tires, starting in ninth, and with the pace he showed all race, Wallace could have easily made up the ground on the cars that stayed out or took two tires during the pit stops. But he received a speeding penalty which dropped him to the back of the field and during a day that looked so good for him, Wallace would finish in 17th.
That opened the door for his 23XI Racing teammate Reddick who started on the second row, and he made quick work of Briscoe, Elliott and Gibbs as he took the lead with 18 laps to go and never looked back.
The Cup Series will return to action on Sunday, Oct. 25 at 2 p.m. EST from Talladega Superspeedway for the 34th race of the season and the eighth race of The Chase. The race will be broadcast on NBC.