Tyler Reddick, that same mop-topped teen who cut his teeth in the Dirt Late Model ranks from 2009-13, has grown into one of NASCAR’s most well-rounded Cup Series drivers. After Sunday’s career-defining victory in the Daytona 500, he’s now forever tied to delivering team owner Michael Jordan his first Harley J. Earl Trophy.
Intermediates, road courses, superspeedways — Reddick’s triumphed on every kind of configuration, except on short tracks in a Cup car. Sunday’s dramatic Daytona 500 victory, sealed by making all the right moves in a frenzied last-lap push to the finish with help from teammate Riley Herbst, also connects him to exclusive, legendary company.
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The Corning, Calif., native is now one of just four drivers whose first nine Cup Series victories have come at nine racetracks, alongside Kyle Busch, Bill Elliott and Jeff Gordon. And he knows exactly where that adaptability comes from.
“I think it’s my dirt racing background. I really do,” Reddick said in his Daytona 500 postrace press conference. “When I grew up racing outlaw karts in California, we raced at like three or four different racetracks, but man, you could go to those places and every night they’re a little bit different.
“Volusia (Speedway Park in Barberville, Fla.) down the road, I remember some years we’d come here and it would be hooked up fast all night long, and some years we’d come here and it would just be slick and slow and hard to get a hold of. I think just as a dirt racer growing up, you just always have to be prepared for things to go in a direction you’re not expecting. That can happen in asphalt racing and stock car racing.”
Even after the biggest victory a stock car driver can achieve, Reddick’s mind drifts back to the unpretentious, humbling moments at dirt tracks like Paducah (Ky.) International Raceway and I-55 Federated Raceway Park in Pevely, Mo., that shaped his racecraft.
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“I feel like Paducah, Ky., is a great example of this,” Reddick continued. “You go there sometimes and it would be slicked off in hot laps, and then other times you’d go there and it’s wide open all night long.
“I-55 Speedway … same thing. I think being versatile is the name of the game of a good dirt racer. I did everything I could to kind of emulate what I would see from those guys growing up. When I was a young kid, I’d go to Silver Dollar Speedway (in Chico, Calif.,) and watch Steve Kinser dice it up.”
Though Tyler Reddick’s Dirt Late Model career lasted just five seasons, highlighted by a lone Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series victory in February 2011 at the now-shuttered East Bay Raceway Park, he hasn’t forgotten the key figures who invested in him.
“As I got older, I got to work with guys like Scott Bloomquist and work with — be around guys like Steve (Baker and Mark) Richards with Rocket Chassis,” said Reddick, who hasn’t appeared in a Dirt Late Model race since May 2016’s Show-Me 100 at Lucas Oil Speedway in Wheatland, Mo. “There’s just so many really smart people I got to be around and I got to learn a lot of things from. I think just having that versatile background from the dirt racing side of things kind of set me up to be able to adapt to the different tracks that we go.”
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Sunday’s Daytona 500 victory carried deeper meaning for Reddick beyond simply winning stock car racing’s biggest prize. Last October, he and his wife Alexa revealed that their now 9-month-old son Rookie had been diagnosed with a tumor in his chest that was placing dangerous pressure on his heart.
Doctors determined the mass was restricting blood flow through the renal vein and artery, ultimately forcing surgeons to remove Rookie’s right kidney when he was just 4 months old. Emotions brimmed particularly last Oct. 5 when Reddick, facing elimination from NASCAR’s second round of the playoffs, started from the pole in a virtual must-win situation at Charlotte’s Royal while Rookie remained hospitalized.
“For me that was a whole different set of reasons, everything that my son was going through, our family was going through,” said Reddick, who added that Rookie has “just been doing really good ever since he came home” before the end of last October.
Both of Reddick’s sons, Rookie and 6-year-old Beau, were able to celebrate tearfully with him and wife Alexa on Sunday.
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“The emotion I shared with my wife, my sons … it’s more reflecting on the personal things that we’ve went through, the struggles, the hard times, the uncertainties of knowing what’s going on with Rookie. Is Rookie going to be okay? What’s going on there,” Reddick said. “For us to have this moment in this race, you know, again, everything we went through, the tail end of last year and the offseason getting back under our feet, has its own place.”
As Reddick carried that weight as a father, he endured a winless 2025 season and a second-round elimination from the Cup playoffs, all while 23XI Racing was mired in a legal battle with NASCAR over the sport’s charter system — a dispute challenging how team ownership, revenue distribution and long-term stability are structured in the Cup Series.
The dispute was ultimately settled, with 23XI Racing securing permanent charter status under the revised agreement. A ruling in NASCAR’s favor, however, could have reinforced the existing charter structure and left teams like 23XI — which declined to sign the charter agreement before the 2025 season — facing serious questions about long-term viability, uncertainty that weighed on Reddick amid the unknowns surrounding the team.
Entering his fourth season with 23XI Racing, co-owned by Jordan and Denny Hamlin, Reddick appears positioned for another title run, much like 2024 when he won three races and reached the Championship Four at Phoenix Raceway.
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“Denny and Michael, those two have believed in me for years,” Reddick said. “They’ve wanted me to be a part of 23XI. It’s a mix of can we throw on the promises that I made for them and they made for me type of thing. They believed in me a lot, and they wanted me to be here, part of 23XI really badly. We made it all work.
“These are the type of moments that I’m supposed to deliver on them for, and it’s just nice to be able to do that.”
Denny Hamlin points to Reddick’s dirt-honed instinct for driving a race car on the edge while still finding speed that others, even himself at times, can’t.
“I just know his ability. The ability to get the most out of a car, to get speed out of it, certainly at times I can’t get out of cars. It might be just for a lap, but he’ll get speed out of it,” Hamlin said. “Once you find someone that can do that with raw talent, then you give him a little bit of racecraft, give him a little bit of 20-year old wisdom from mistakes I’ve made in the past, next thing you know you’ve created a driver there that has got all the pieces that can win a championship.”
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Could Reddick appear in a Dirt Late Model again? There have been no recent indications that a return is imminent. He did, however, tell DirtonDirt in April 2023 — after the final Cup race on dirt to date at Bristol Motor Speedway — that he wanted to “get settled in” at 23XI Racing, then in his first season with the organization, before considering a one-off return.
“Once we get to a good spot, hopefully I can start playing around and do some more dirt racing again,” Reddick said then.
Whether he ever returns to his roots or not, Reddick’s dirt-track journey remains central to how he became a Daytona 500 winner — a point of pride for many in the Dirt Late Model community, who rightfully claim him as one of their own.
