BROOKLYN, Mich. — Tyler Reddick took the lead on the final overtime restart to win and take the points lead after Monday’s rain-delayed Cup race at Michigan International Speedway.
Reddick’s victory is his second of the season and continues his hot streak. He’s finished in the top three in five of the last six races. Reddick leads Chase Elliott by 10 points with two races left in the regular season.
MORE: Michigan race results
MORE: What drivers said after the race
William Byron, who led going into the final restart, finished second. Ty Gibbs placed third, Kyle Busch was fourth and Brad Keselowski completed the top five.
Monday’s race saw Corey LaJoie’s car go upside down and Kyle Larson, who entered the race as the points leader, triggered a multi-car crash.
LaJoie walked away from his car after it got upside down, slid on its roof for much of the backstretch and tumbled over in the infield grass in Turn 3 Monday at Michigan International Speedway.
LaJoie was racing Noah Gragson when they had contact and that turned LaJoie’s car. It immediately turned over and slid on its roof down the backstretch, making contact with the infield SAFER barrier and then
The race took a turn just before the end of the second stage. Larson spun in the field and Bubba Wallace hit the wall. Others collected were Chris Buescher, Christopher Bell, Chase Briscoe, Todd Gilliland and Joey Logano. Larson, Bell, Logano
“Hate that I screwed that up for our team and the others collected,” Larson told NBC Sports’ Parker Kligerman after exiting the infield care center.
The race resumed Monday morning after running 51 laps Sunday before rain forced the event to be postponed.
Reddick’s win capped what had been an up-and-down race through Sunday and Monday.
“It was a pretty chaotic race for us going into (Sunday) night, Reddick said. “We had a bad restart. Just didn’t really know where we were going to stack up. But I think we had a good sense of direction of what we needed to do going into today’s race, when we knew what our plan was going to be coming down pit road for the first time.
“I think we made good adjustments on the car all day. It wasn’t really a smooth day. We made some mistakes on pit road, put us in a bad spot going into stage three. Put us right behind the wreck, which was just lucky guess.
“We had some good restarts after that, passing cars, getting close to the front. Obviously we had to take a little more fuel on the 9 and some of those guys. We just had to go up there and pass them back.
“All in all it was a great day. I didn’t know how it was going to shake out with a caution with six to go. Was hoping to maintain control. We didn’t. Then we just got a really good push from Ty on the last restart, propelled us back into the lead.
Stage 1 winner: Ryan Blaney
Stage 2 winner: Kyle Busch
Who had a good race: Kyle Busch finished in the top five and scored his first stage victory of the season. … Spire Motorsports placed two cars in the top 10. Zane Smith was seventh and Carson Hocevar placed 10th.
Who had a bad race: Kyle Larson trigged a multi-car crash shortly before the end of stage 2 when he spun. He finished 34th. … Christopher Bell was among those collected in that crash and did not continue. That marks the sixth time that Bell has failed to finish.
Next: The Cup Series races Saturday, Aug. 24 at Daytona International Speedway (7:30 p.m. ET on NBC)
Source Agencies
