A twist of fate has touched Tyler Reddick and Denny Hamlin over the past two weekends, and it has resulted in a shakeup at the top of the NASCAR Cup Series standings.
Over that span, Reddick has been transformed from points leader to runner-up to Hamlin with more drama expected on Sunday night (7 p.m. ET, TNT) for the Quaker State 400 at EchoPark Speedway in Hampton, Ga.
At the Sonoma road race to close out June, power steering issues plagued Reddick and the 23XI Racing team, putting him six laps down and leading to a 36th-place finish.
Hamlin was involved in a spin with Carson Hocevar but finished 26th at Sonoma, good enough for a one-point lead over Reddick’s No. 45 Toyota that Hamlin co-owns with Michael Jordan.
Reddick’s misfortune continued on Sunday at Chicagoland Speedway, coming in stark contrast to his success early in the season when he won the first three races and five of the first nine.
Instead of power steering, debris ruined Reddick’s day last weekend. A splitter stay off Zane Smith’s No. 38 Ford ripped through Reddick’s radiator and put a hole in the oil cooler, sending fluid onto the track during Lap 131.
Reddick went 30 laps down this time and ended up in 36th place to trail Hamlin’s Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota by 44 points.
Reddick led by 129 points after Watkins Glen two months ago and appeared in complete control as teams raced toward the regular-season’s conclusion at Daytona on Aug. 29. But a massive 173-point swing has changed all that.
“I guess the year is balancing itself back out, but we’ve got all the right things that we need to succeed,” said Reddick, who won at EchoPark the week after his Daytona 500 triumph in February. “We’ve just got to survive some of these races, I guess.”
Second to Reddick with four victories, Hamlin said on his podcast this week that it is important for him to win one more over the next seven races after going winless in three straight.
“I just want to win,” he said. “That’s 10 races. That’s a dry spell.”
Chase Elliott started 15th in this race last season and beat Brad Keselowski by 0.168 seconds, with Reddick running fourth and Hamlin in 31st after crashing.
Like Chicagoland, EchoPark is listed as another intermediate track but is unique in that drafting has become a major factor on the 1.54-mile layout. It has quickly emerged as a fan favorite because of the tight racing and even tighter finishes.
EchoPark’s racing lends reminders of superspeedways like Daytona or Talladega, while the exciting finishes could be straight out of a touring short-track series around the country on a hot Saturday night.
The flip-flop at the top of the standings will reveal its next chapter in a setting just as dramatic.
